Souvenir hawkers returned to camp for breakfast with more bows and arrows and other odds and ends. They demonstrated the power of the bows by firing headless arrows into the sky, the shafts going so high so fast that they disappeared. The children carried toy helicopters and planes made from balsawood.
We continued on terrible roads with huge ruts that rocked Stanley and all who rode in him from side to side. In the nest we had to dodge occasional thorn trees. Stunning view of the road cutting away from us, pools of water reflecting the sky and men and cattle coming towards us out of mist. Passed a village spread out against a small hill as we entered the town of Komanda and when we stopped Jim and I walked back. Without the height of the crows' nest we missed it at first but then found the collection of huts.
Komanda market was full of fruit and vegetable and expensive peanut butter. We also spotted an old, abandoned steam roller completely overgrown with grass; it was such a contrast to the huge modern bulldozers working on the roads - supposedly smoothing them out.
We stopped after lunch to fill our water tank from a small, gently flowing creek, establishing an extended bowl chain up the steep bank. We started passing bowls of water up the bank to tip into the truck and throwing the empties back down to Adri and Albert at the water's edge, with an occasional thrown bowl hitting a large bush part way down.
What happened next is a blur of incidents: a voice yelling something about wasps, pain and stinging, and panic on finding myself alone at the bottom of the hill. Angry and terrified, I ran up the muddy bank, flying, stinging insects in my eyes and hair, screaming “don’t leave me” and "somebody help me!" I remember seeing Bill looking distressed but all I could think of was grabbing the green bowl of water at his feet. I screamed at him to throw it over me. I screamed and cried as the stinging continued. (I was told later that I was tearing at my sarong and running along the road almost naked.) Ben and Vicki pulled things from my hair and I heard a voice (Bob’s) saying “there’s nothing on you, it’s alright” but still felt pain, panic. I just wanted to get under water. Holding onto Vicki once she had rid me of insects, my face a mess, my eyes swelling, I grasped Nikki’s hand and stupidly started to worry about my sunglasses left at the bottom of the bank.
Calmer at last, I remember Kelvin taking the truck back across the bridge to pick up the three people marooned on the other side, and Ben and Bob, swathed in mosquito netting, rescuing our bowls and my sunglasses. I was a wreck by the time it was all over, with increasing pain from what turned out to be 30 stings from black insects. (Google suggests they were flying ants, which apparently only attack if their nest is threatened... like having bowls hurled into them! I sent a dead one home in a letter describing my Zaire adventures... more of which are to come!)
We drove on looking for a lunch spot, where we took an extended break with tea, coffee and a cooked meal for the wounded and weary. Adri was in shock; Bill’s face was very sore; Bob was the only person who escaped without being stung. Our heads felt like lunar landscapes with stings. The sensation all over my upper body felt like when I had my meningitis shot in Kathmandu. Finally, we started to chat, many people saying that they thought only pf protecting themselves. Albert said he didn’t even think of Adri but Bill bravely turned back to help his wife, not realising Julie was safely ahead. This was the most terrifying experience of my life – albeit mostly blurry – and my first experience of blind panic and hysteria. From our lunch spot, Nikki and I ventured down a narrow path to a pipe-fed deep pond flowing under a bridge, for a wash. The cold water numbed my stings but only while I was immersed.
Sore, mentally and physically exhausted, I slept most of the way to our next gravel pit. Fellow travellers whinged in the back of Stanley about how busy it was and threatened a sit in which, understandably, infuriated Kelvin. I didn't care about the company we would have, a huge crowd until late.
I crashed out very sore, head throbbing and back like a pin cushion, sleep a welcome escape from a day worthy of a Hitchcock script: “The Birds” eat your heart out! Too exhausted to dream or remember. I hope this doesn't worsen my existing discomfort with things fluttering or buzzing around me.
(Some years later, I told the story of this attack to my young stepson. It had such an impression on him he drew me a wonderful picture, showing me, covered in stings and surrounded by flying insects. I had it framed and it still hangs on my wall.)
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