My First Congolese Fender-Bender

I am a passenger in a car on its last legs. Covered with dents and scratches, it groans and lurches when it moves. Oddly colored chunks of foam seep from gashes in the upholstery. You start it by reaching below the steering wheel and doing ... well, something not involving a key. The windshield is cracked in multiple places. Three of the four doors cannot be opened from the inside; to exit, you must roll down your window using a jagged stump of a handle, reach out of the car, and open the door from the outside.

"It is an African car," says the driver.

Two passengers sit in the back as we approach a typical Lubumbashi intersection. There are no traffic signals or stop signs. (Come to think of it, I can only recall seeing one traffic light in the entire city thus far.) Both intersecting roads are paved, though ours is smaller than the one we are about to cross. It looks clear to cross, and we move through the intersection slowly. As we proceed, I see another car barreling toward us from the right. It's clearly sailing through this intersection without stopping. My driver sees it just as I do and stomps on the brakes, but there's so much dust on the road that we skid forward and slam our right front corner into the front of the other car.

I bump my head against the top of the doorframe above my open window. The car rotates about 45 degrees. It's all over in a flash -- two cars squished together in the middle of an intersection.

Immediately, our car is surrounded by screaming and gesticulating people. Deja vu! It's just like being back at the border. Everyone seems eager to express an opinion about what just happened.

The driver of the other car jumps out, runs to our car, pries open one of the rear doors and jumps in our car, yelling. Our driver ignores him and tries to calm down the mob -- at least 20 people, I'd say -- with limited success.

After a few minutes of chaos, the other car backs away, disentangling itself from our bumper. A few onlookers walk up to the dent in our car and fish around in it -- looking for spare parts? We are able to start our car (though it makes a terrible noise, and clearly can't be driven more than a few meters) and coax it out of the intersection. The crowd follows.

Here's a shot I snapped a while later, after the police arrived and some of the crowd had disbursed.
The driver later told me that the police never filled out a report or did anything else. "We yelled at them for a while, and then they left." He smiled. "Welcome to Congo."