Congolese Army

You have to go up a hill to get to Bukavu and part way up in patrol of the local army, the ANC, and they were higher than kites. They were smoking form of the local hashish and drinking beer and they were flying. They were smashed right out of their minds. We were stopped by these people and they wanted to kill us. I told you they were hostile and they had guns these suckers.So I could speak what we called “kitchen French”, it was a mixture of French and Swahili and I got a Indian tattooed on my arm..., I don’t know why but I did. And I told these people, I said, “This is the guardian spirit of my tribe.” Because I got to know their psyche after a little while. You asked me what contributed to my survival? I’m a quick learner and I told them, “The guardian spirit of my tribe and anybody who hurt me would be hunted down and killed, very , very slowly,” so they say, “Hey Canada, you’re my friend!” But Bill didn’t have a tribal mark and I said, “Well, my mark looked after him too!” and they said, “That’s not the way it works. We know about tribal marks and magic.” So they were arguing about how they were going to kill Bill. One guy wanted to hang him cause he had a big piece of rope and the others wanted to shoot him. And yet another guy just wanted to whack him with a machete. So while they were arguing, a patrol of Malays came along, people from the Malayan army and they picked us up. We’d been gone for so long that our own people had contacted them and said, “Maybe they’re in trouble. Go have a look.” And they thumped the snot out of these Congolese. It was the only way to get their attention. Instead of shooting them like they might have done, they pounded them.