Things that Bump in the Night

Those that know me well know I’m not a fearful person. If quizzed, my friends would probably say I have a high fear threshold, especially when it comes to the natural world and adventure. However, when I first travelled into this very rural part of Congo two years ago, even I was remotely apprehensive. Not scared, just acutely aware that I had little idea of what I was up against.

In my first week here I crossed the lake to the project area for the day, but when we went to cross back the boat drivers cautioned that the wind and waves were too high and we would have to wait for safer waters. As we stood contemplating our next move a big storm began to pound down around us and we all ran up the road and around a few corners for the cover of the village hotel (think old elongated cement shack with a few separate doors). Evening turned to night time and the storm showed no sign of lifting so our local staff began to bed down for the night. My coworker, Bryan, and I were shown the “rooms” where our local staff had kindly offered to share their thin pieces of foam on the floor. Bryan spotted a large spider on the wall in his room and we looked at each other sideways, raised our eyebrows, and asked about the tent abandoned in the yard because of the rain. Were we scared of spiders we were asked? No, we responded, but explained we preferred to not sleep on the floor knowing they were in the same room.  At this point our level of discomfort and apprehension was raised slightly, but not unmanageably so.

The road outside the hotel compound (not during rain).

We spent the next few hours co-reading my kindle by headlamp. Determined not to spend the night, when the rain and wind let up around 9pm we discussed finding the port to rouse the boat drivers. At this point it’s been dark and raining for 3 hours and the entire village, including our “compound” is quiet. Even the crickets aren’t cricketing. Bryan and I aren’t 100% sure where the water is, as we ran from there to here in the pouring rain, but we are determined to figure it out, so we set off.  

We started off in what we thought was the most likely direction with my headlamp for our light and each other for our courage. The road was mud and severely rutted from rain torrents, we stepped around mounds of debris piled up here and there and our hearts jumped when a drove of wayward pigs raced across our path. You know that feeling when you are really nervous or excited but trying not to make a sound? You kinda feel like doing a cross between a yelp and a laugh. You suck your breath in and hold it high in your throat. Your eyes are wide. But no one can see because its pitch black. I remember thinking, “you are in Congo Jenn, you are walking through a village in the pitch black and you’re not really even sure where you are going….are you freaking crazy?”

At this point we saw some smoldering embers beside the road. I stared at the fire for a few moments and went to move towards it, then with a start I saw the hidden black skin of a man beside it, his face almost completely obscured in the darkness. My heart leapt to a point somewhere near my left ear and stayed there for a while.

We found the boat drivers, asleep in their life jackets in another shack by the beach (that’s how we knew they were our drivers) and demanded they take us back. They drowsily looked at the lake and said, “too rough, need to wait more.” When we demanded how long they guessed an hour. So we trudged back to our hotel waited an hour and made the journey down to the lake once again. The third time it was a little less nerve racking, but only a little.

It’s been two and a half years since that first night in the forests and villages of Congo and I’ve become quite used to walking around by myself at night. My breath doesn’t catch in my throat and I no longer jump at the shadows. However, Tristan still keeps a machete by his bedside, just in case, and every once in a while something goes bump in the night and those feelings from my first night in the heart of darkness come rushing back.

Mango tree is the dark green one that towers above the last window

One of the first nights I slept in this house I was woken in the wee hours to the sound of a gunshot. I catapulted out of bed and stood in the darkness naked, feet apart, eyes wide, wondering what the fuck was going on. Silence. I hovered at the edge of the bed and slowly the realization came over me, mangos. Our bedroom is located directly below a massive mango tree. Mangos come in to season twice a year here and we love having an abundance of their juicy wonderfulness. However, mangos are big, the tree tall, and green mangos are heavy and hard. We discovered, over various inopportune moments in the first weeks living in this house, that a mango, falling from a great height onto a tin roof above your head, makes a sound almost imperceptibly like a gunshot might in a moment of shock.

Our guard dogs, Kitoko (Beautiful) & Zamba (Forest).

By now we don’t flinch when mangos rocket through our night. However, one night recently I heard something different. I was by myself in the house and just getting ready for bed. I lay down with our two dogs and was chatting to my friends on our group What’sApp. We have a generator that we run in the evenings but we turn it off before we go to bed, so at that time I was using a candle for light. I said good night to my friends and the dogs, blew out the candle and closed my eyes in the darkness with the sounds of cicadas outside my window. Moments later I hear the distinct strumming of a guitar. My eyes fly open but it’s too dark to see, again I hear it, this time it’s a proper chord. I turn on my light. Nothing. I hear another strum, this time more like something has just brushed the strings of the guitar. I text my friends something along the lines of “o.m.g. Tristan’s guitar just strummed a chord by itself in the darkness, wtf!!”. My breath catches in my throat, then I hear rustling inside the guitar and it dawns on me that a creature, a mouse or a gecko or a cockroach, must be crawling inside and made the strum. I text the girls “I think it’s a mouse”, and they respond "lets go with that”.  Nonetheless, I get up and move the guitar to another room to avoid further disturbances.

A few weeks ago Tristan was away for over a week and we were having problems with our generator. So I spent a series of nights alone in the dark with just a bad headlamp and some candles for light. I have to say, I thought more than once that I’m glad we have the dogs. One evening I walked in to our bedroom and spotted a massive dark brown spider poised on the edge of the bed frame. I’m not sure how I saw it, because it wasn’t moving, and it was the colour of the wood. It was almost the size of my hand and I swear it was eyeing me up, “whadaya gonna do about me, huh?” Now I’m not scared of spiders, and I have been elected more than once as the group appointed spider-evacuator by the girls, but this guy, with his antennae gesticulating and eyes sparkling, was pushing my spider limits.

Not the spider in my room, and about 1/3 the size.

Of course, running and screaming wasn’t exactly going to help, as the spider was on my bed, and unless I planned to pitch a tent, I had to do something about it. When I was a little girl my mom taught me the handy technique of putting a glass over a spider, sliding a paper underneath it and voila you just plop it outside. Now that’s all fine and dandy, but as I looked at the spider, and walked out of the bedroom and looked at our glasses I realized that nothing we had was big enough. I grabbed a wine glass. Nope, too small. A narrow jug? Nope too small it will cut off his legs. I contemplated spraying it, but again, those of you that know me know that it is nearly impossible for me to kill anything intentionally, especially something that is looking me in the eye. Plus, that very first night with Bryan and the spider, we were told that no spiders in Congo were poisonous. And spray in my bedroom is poisonous to me as well as the spider. So I found a tin bowl that we use for camping, and with a light held between my teeth I slid a paper under it. Of course the tin didn’t have the same effect as glass because I couldn’t see if I had succeeded or if the spider had escaped and run under my bed. In which case, I confess, I would be sleeping in a tent. I ran outside and threw the cup on the ground, my breath catching in my throat once again. I leaned down, hoping, please hoping to see the spider…and there he was…nonplussed in the bowl. Victory!

The next day my gardener asked me why there was a bowl in the middle of the driveway and I told him. He said, “whew, you are lucky, those spiders are as poisonous as the snakes, you would have been in hospital.”

As I reread this article the thought has occurred to me that what is actually catching in my throat is in fact a scream. Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. Each of the above experiences, however minor or imagined, have raised a sense of danger or alarm in me, the dark doesn’t help. However, over time my fear threshold here has increased greatly, I’m becoming bombproof.

In all honesty I don’t think I have ever been in danger in this tranquil part of Congo (except for maybe the spider), while there may be unrest in other parts of the country, what you mainly find here in this peaceful region of Congo is a lot of resting.