Blood River Read Online Free PDF

oddity. Scientists believe it to
be the oldest and deepest lake in Africa, with many of its own
unique species of water micro-organisms and creatures. And
unlike the other Great Lakes of Africa, it is drained not by a large,
permanent river but by a more modest stream, the Lukuga, which
acts like an overflow in a bath. For much of the year the river is
stagnant and silted up, only surging into life during the rainy
season when the lake level rises.
    Folklore among the tribes who live on the lake's edge says it
was created as a punishment. The tradition goes that a family,
living on the sweltering savannah of central Africa, had enjoyed
their own private spring for generations, drawing from an
unlimited supply of cool, fresh water and feasting on the sweettasting fish that lived in the pond formed where the water issued
from the ground. The family was sworn to secrecy about the
source of the water and the fish, and was issued with a dire
warning that all would be lost if the secret was betrayed. One day,
the family's matriarch began an affair while her husband was
away. The lover was treated to a feast of fish, his thirst slaked with
the cool, fresh spring water. He became so enraptured with the
sweet taste of the water and fish that he insisted on knowing
where they came from. The woman was initially reluctant, but
finally gave in to temptation and the spell was broken. At that moment the earth was rent and a great flood welled up from
below, drowning the lovers and creating the lake we see today.

    When I first read this fable, I was struck by how good an
analogy it is for the entire Congo. Local tribesmen had survived in
peace for generations before outsiders - Arab slavers and white
colonials - turned up and beguiled them into giving up first
slaves, then ivory, then rubber and mineral wealth, before the
traditional Congolese way of life was overwhelmed by the
outsiders.
    Five hundred kilometres or so east of my flight path, on the
other side of Lake Tanganyika, was the air space of Tanzania.
Light aircraft would be a common sight there, ferrying tourists
between Africa's biggest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and the
country's world-famous safari parks. But on my side of the lake,
visitors to the Congo were rare and light aircraft rarer still. It had
taken a month to negotiate my way onto the plane, but I had no
other option. Like all UN missions, MONUC can be criticised for
being bureaucratic and inefficient, but in the absence of any
meaningful government in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
MONUC was the closest the country came to a genuinely national
organisation and, for me, it provided the only way to reach
Kalemie.
    Sadly, the `Pearl of Tanganyika' did not glimmer for me that
day. The cloud cover was too thick and all I saw of the lake was a
slab of grey in the distance as the aircraft made its final, frantic
lunge for Kalemie before bouncing to a halt on the bumpy strip.
    The airstrip might technically be described as a UN military
installation, but such a term would be an overstatement. The
runway was unfenced, crowded on all sides by unkempt scrub,
and the old grey tarmac of the strip was pitted with divots and
splodged with dark repair patches. The only military structure
was a white, wooden watch tower, with a platform just three
metres off the ground, where I could see a UN infantryman. His tin helmet was painted UN blue, crammed low on his head, while
his shoulders were bulked up by a flak jacket, also blue. The gap
between helmet and body armour was tiny and his anxious,
beady eyes looked like those behind the prickles of a balled-up
hedgehog summoning forlorn defiance at an approaching lorry.

    Our plane was the sort in which the pilot has to inch his way,
bent double, back through the tiny cabin to free the passengers. I
followed, slowly unfolding myself from my boxed-in sitting
position, relieved to be able to stretch, as I went down the threestep ladder