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i woke up at around 03:30 when some people began shouting around. they told the capation to wake up and get the boat moving. they wanted to get to brazzaville as soon as possible. soon the whole boat was on its feet and we were close to munity when the captain finally started the engines.
we finally did arrive in at brazzaville around 09:00 and the fist thing we had to do was to register with the police and all the other bloodsuckers. after a sleepless night i was too tired for long discussions and twice i lost my nerves and shouted at the officers, complaining about the way they treated us. interestingly enough this helped to reduce the price of our contributions.
after registering we went back on board where we would have to wait for everybody to dissasemble their make-shift houses and to take off with their good before we could discharge our vehcles; it would take hours. i called jonas from the red cross, whom i had met in pokola. he was relieved to hear my voice since he hadn't heard from me for almost two weeks. he promised to make a reservation at the guesthouse of the catholic mission, where he would visit us in the afternoon.
the discharging of our barge took a long time and waiting became a real pain. then, at 15:00, the captaion told us that he was almost ready to drive our barge over to the cranes which would lift the car and the bike off the boat. then jonas arrived and i was really happy to see him. he had made a reservation for me at the guesthouse and already paid the first three nights for my room. when i wanted to give him the money he refused to take it. "we'll talk about it later." he said.
we were holding our breath while the crane lifted our beloved vehicles off board and we were happy when they finally landed safely on firm ground. tired as i was i already dreaded driving through brazzaville and having to find the guesthouse. but once outside of the port area i was surprised by the beauty of the town. there were wide boulevards, lined with trees and there were beautiful houses in the shade of big trees. the guesthouse is just behind the cathedrale 'sacre coer' on a hill in the centre of town. it is part of a big compound which consists of several houses which are built around a beautiful park. it is a really quiet place and now, that we had finally arrived, tension dropped off me and i relaxed. a broad smile spread over my face: we were here.