When I narrated the bad experience I suffered at the hands of Angola government security forces in the most interior bushes of Kuando Kubango province of the neighboring Angola to my late father, he was shocked and not amused at all with my story. My father got very upset and scolded me for undertaking such a dangerous journey to little known country of Angola in terms of tourism. Of course his reaction was well understood as that of a loving parent who almost lost a beloved son in a war torn country of Angola.
I set out on a leisure adventure journey to Shangombo, one of the remotest villages in Western Province of Zambia. Shangombo is a gate way to southern part of Angola. The village lies on the borderline between two water bodies of Zambezi river of Zambia and Kwando or Cuando river of Rivungu district of Angola. The journey to Shangombo was both captivating and a lifetime experience for me who loves extreme adventure. But my journey into Angola was a risky journey that I should never have undertaken in the first place. I must admit that it was a reckless decision on my part to plan and undertake this journey to Angola. I was fully aware that Angola had just come out of a protracted 27 years of civil war. It is a miracle that I am alive today to narrate this horrific story.
I left Lusaka, the political capital city of Zambia late in the afternoon on board a public bus for Shangombo, situated at Zambia’s border with Angola. I travelled through Mongu, the provincial headquarters of western province of Zambia up to Senanga where I spent a night in a lodge. The following day late in the afternoon, I got on a weather beaten open Landrover van and pitched right on top the roof rack. The vehicle was fully loaded with various goods for those on board, most of them small trade vendors. We then embarked on a long rough stretch bumpy sandy road through Sioma district driving through the Zambezi floodplains for close to three to four hours.
We finally arrived in Shangombo village the following day in the morning after driving through thick forest the whole night. My first impression of Shangombo village was that of a place far much better than what the print media in Zambia portrayed it as a backward place. Shangombo has decent modern looking houses for Zambian government civil servants. It has a recently built a rural district administration centre with electricity, all powered by diesel generator. There is a modern post office and a modest district hospital located right in the middle of the village. But the place has plenty of mosquitoes because of its close proximity to Zambezi and Cuando rivers. One’s reaction to mosquitoes helps locals to easily identify who is a visitor to the area. While the locals are used to mosquitoes singing in their ears, the scenario is rather irritating for a first time visitor who constantly has to flap their hands in the area to blow away the mosquitoes. The comforting part is that these mosquitoes are not malaria carriers, otherwise the malaria prevalence could have been high in this area. However, despite the experience with mosquitoes, the people of Shangombo are friendly and extremely accommodating.
After a week’s stay in Shangombo, I got a family visitor’s pass from the Zambia Immigration authorities that permitted me to cross over the Cuando River to Rivungu town on the Angolan side. I, together with other travelers used a traditional banana boat that was loaded with assortment of goods to cross the fast water moving Cuando River which took us close to two hours to complete. Upon docking on Angolan soil, we reported ourselves to a makeshift grass thatched Angola immigration post. To my total shock, I noticed that the immigration officer and the soldier brandishing a gun who were manning the post and who attended to us where both totally drunk. Yes, drunk on duty! Their speech was totally incoherent and they spoke only Portuguese and Ngangela, a local language spoken on both the Angolan and Zambian side. We were literally verbally harassed to tell these officers what was our true intention of visiting Angola was. We were only saved from further embarrassing interrogation by the intervention of a Zambian lady in our company who seemed to know these two officers very well. She chided them to behave well and to let us go on with our journey. The power of a woman prevailed over these two officers who finally stamped our border passes and allowed us to proceed to Rivungu.
Rivungu is indeed a former war-zone area. My first sighting impression of Rivungu was that of a place where rubble of cement debris are dumped from a busy construction site. It has many half collapsed buildings riddled with bullet holes as a direct result of the civil war. The Rivungu local administration offices are housed in traditional African huts. A white Landrover was parked in front of the office of the Rivungu District Commissioner (DC). We were all marshaled into the reception area of the District Commissioner’s office and the DC himself met us in person for further interrogation. We were all ordered to write our full names in the white book in the reception area. He sternly warned us to behave well whilst visiting Rivungu. The same lady who had previously assisted us at the Angola border post was summoned inside the DC’s office for what turned out to be hours on end of interrogation. When she eventually emerged from the DC’s office, she signaled us to walk over to an African market. There we we found an old military KAMAZ truck waiting for us to board.
At sunset, we set out on one of the most gruesome journey into thick forest, following riverbeds used as roads heading to Mavinga. Mavinga once served as a military headquarter base for rebel leader Dr. Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebel movement, but now a government military base. We were packed like logs of wood in the truck together with goats. We traveled for good two days and three nights and experienced numerous mechanical breakdowns of the KAMAZ truck before reaching Mavinga. I stayed at the Mavinga District Commissioner’s official residence during my entire three months stay in Mavinga. In the second week after my arrival, I was attacked by a serious bout of malaria and was bed ridden for close to two weeks, losing plenty kgs of body weight overnight. Being a special guest of the Mavinga DC, I was referred to be attended to by a special medical team, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) that was treating senior military officers at the local military base. I was well attended to and looked after by MSF doctors who were happy to attend to a patient who spoke fluent English. After three weeks of personal medical attention, I was certified medically fit and ready to continue with my journey to Menogue, the provincial headquarters of Kuando Kubango (KK) province.
On one bright day, I bade farewell to my hoist family of the Mavinga district commissioner after three months of my stay and was about to start on the final league of my trip to Menogue. The DC had arranged for me to take a lift in a military aircraft that brings various goods from Menogue for the soldiers on monthly basis.
Little did I know that some senior military officers in the area had become suspicious of my three months special visit to Mavinga. Their suspicion was even stronger looking at the VIP treatment I had been accorded by the Mavinga DC. During my entire stay, I had an armed body guard who escorted me everywhere I went around in Mavinga for personal protection, including any visit to the local African market. So these senior military officers were looking for an opportunity to capture me away from the DC’s presence. So once the DC’s driver had left me at the local airstrip and returned to the DC’s office, I was ambushed and quickly surrounded by some military policemen and pushed into the waiting military plane. When I tried to call for the local DC’s presence to help me explain my circumstances, I was told curtly “NO CHANCE” by my captors. Desperation and fear set in and that was the beginning of real trouble for me that lasted for two months. I was told to produce and show my travelling document to the military policemen. I showed them my stamped border pass and Zambian passport which had my six months Angolan VISA endorsed in by the Angolan Embassy in Botswana. All the travelling documents I produced and showed them where dismissed as false and fake. They said I was a spy mercenary for the Mavinga DC who had just recently been incorporated into government service from UNITA rebel movement.
I was bundled into a tight jump-chair in the co-pit of the plane surrounded by military policemen. The military aircraft piloted by Cuban soldiers took off for Menongue, the provincial headquarters of Kuando Kubango. On arrival, I was handed over to the local military command. All contents of my bags where emptied on the floor and thoroughly searched. As fate would have it, I was fortunate to be allowed to spend my first night in a rundown makeshift guest house within Menogue town infested with many rats that terrorized me at night and whilst all my luggage remained at the police station. I was told to report the following morning at the station for further interrogations. Each time l reported at the police station, I was merely told to sit on a bench outside and nobody ever called me inside for further questioning. I spent close to four months staying in Menogue and reporting myself to the local military command daily without my case being concluded.
One cool day, I was summoned in the office of the officer commanding. I was told to find means to return to my home country Zambia without my case being concluded. I was frail and weak after close to six months of forced stay in Angola with extremely poor diet and contaminated drinking water. I was anxious to return home to be see my family in Zambia who I had not contacted or spoken to in a very long time. I then visited the local Menogue church of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) and approached the local pastor for material and financial assistance. After listening to my story, the pastor invented me to stay with his family in his church house as they looked around for ways to assist me return home. I stayed with the Pastor and his family for a full month and some days. Every Sabbath, I attended church where a special appeal was always made about my plight and request to assist me financially was made. It was interesting to see some of those military officers who had interrogated me at the local police station attending the same church with me. Some befriended me and requested me to teach them learn how to write and speak English which I did every evening. The little money that they paid me assisted me to buy a few personal necessities. After a month, the church managed to mobilize some financial resources amounting to $50 to enable me travel home. As the money was not sufficient, one church member offered to give me a free ride in his bus transport that plies the route between Angola and Namibian border. Once I reached, the Angolan border, I had problems of how to exit Angola as my permitted days of stay in Angola had long expired due to my prolonged stay. It took the skillfull negotiation effort of my escortee with the Angola immigration officers that I was finally allowed to leave Angola and proceed to the Namibian border. Once at the Namibian border, it was such a great sigh of relief for me that l was being attended to by an immigration officer who spoke to me in English, unlike in Angola where I struggled most of the time to communicate in portuguese. After being cleared by immigration, I was given a further $10 as pocket money by my escortee. I proceeded to the nearest Namibian town of Katui Tui where I saw the world of civilization. I quickly rushed to the nearest restaurant and bought myself a hot burger and a 1 liter bottle of Fanta that l galloped at once down my throat.
When I reached my home town in Zambia, I found my wife and daughter had vacated our rented house and where staying with friends for support. Upon seeing me, my wife shade tears of joy.
The lesson I have learnt from this sad travel episode is that before travelling to a new country, one needs to do enough research on the safety status of that country. My trip to Angola has left an unforgettable bad experience on my mind in the name of seeking adventure in a foreign country with insufficient country tourism information .