Plastic water bottles were always in demand by the kids

Village posers

Stayed in very quiet village last night - kids very restrained. At first we thought they were not happy about us descending on them, but then we saw the (grass) church and it turned out that it was church discipline at work - they are Kimbanguists - followers of a big cult church here (3m+ members), whose basic tenets are Baptist in origin, but which follows the teachings of Simon Kimbangu - who the Belgians imprisoned in 1921 (and then kept him in the slammer fo...

Monday 16th. Just crossed into Equator Province from Orientale. River is massive, north bank lined with villages, kids yelling and splashing in the water - occasionally a pirogue will paddle out on an interception course to try and sell us something - mostly oranges, bananas, mangoes, catfish etc but occasionally more exotic - caterpillars (cooked) and parrots (live) have featured. I tried a cooked caterpillar at lunchtime and shan't be repeating the experience! ...

River back flip