Links within story reveal video.

Train leaving the Lubumbashi station. From the book: “Finally around five o’clock, the whistle gave one long whine. The station agents scudded people into the carriages and we lurched forward. We’d just about cleared the platform when the baggage car snapped loose from the locomotive and stranded us again.” Listen closely and you can hear the animateur. See video

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Making time down the Katanga line. See video

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Breakfast in the dining car of the Renove´ See video

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The choir in Bukama. From the book: “There was a children’s choir standing on the platform, no doubt pulled together when they’d heard the belch of the whistle down the track. They’d struck into song as soon as the wheels stopped rolling, sang through the chaos of passengers coming and going, and the mobs of sellers who swarmed the platform hawking chikwangue and dried fish and shouting “Mayi hapa!” waving bags of chilled, boiled water for sale. Passengers who remained inside hung their bodies out the windows and listened to the chilling music, carried in full by a young girl soprano whose bright voice gave the songs great, razor-tipped wings.” See video

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Crossing the Congo River at Bukama See video

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Stuck in Kongolo, Lionel reflects. The UN peacekeepers in Kongolo had welcomed us with ice-cold King Cola before the whistle blew and we rushed to board our train. See video

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At the Catholic mission in Kalemie. Lionel urges Severin to practice his Mandela-like presidential wave to the unseen crowd of millions. Lionel and I think Severin will one day be president of Congo. When we’re around him, we never shut up about it. See video

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