The main form of trade transport is along the river Congo, Where large barges transport up to 500 people. In Ghana it was not unusual to for me to wait a few hours for transport to fill up so it could depart.
Transport in Ghana, just after we crashed ;-)
In the DRCC, if one wants to travel to another town on such a barge (which is common due to the only vehicles being military or UN ones) a minimum wait of one month is expected for the barge to accumulate enough passengers to depart, with a maximum wait of THREE MONTHS on a dirty, overcrowded metal barge with one 'toilet'
A river barge...finally on it's way.
True, Public transport is probably the leaset of concern for the population of DRCC, I'm quite sure they are more concerned about the mass slaughter of innocent people due to civil war. And time doenst exsist in Africa so it's not like anyone will be late for anything. But geez, I get narked about waiting 5 minutes for a bus.
I first became aware of this having watched a programme called 'Equator' on 'Dave- the home of witty banter',though actually a repeat from the BBC). If you've got a spare 40 minutes please go here >
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/equator/5264140.stm
And watch the programme titled 'Africa'. Thanks. It's not your bog-standard geographical documentary. It is in fact, really really good.(if you have a spare 3x 40 mins then by all means watch all 3 programmes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana
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