Last night, my girlfriend, me, her son and her visiting daughter went downtown to the only hamburger joint to get a taste of home. Nice cheeseburger, nice fries, pleasant atmosphere, really high prices. One of the topics of conversation was how acceptable Kinshasa is becoming, with the streets starting to get repaired and more and better food becoming available. Little did we suspect how ugly and terrifying the evening would end.

During the end of the meal, one of our rainy season thunderstorms rolled in. Big booming thunder, crackling flashes of lightning, and torrential downpour like only the rainforests know. Within minutes, the streets were rivers and traffic outside had slowed to a crawl.

We knew we had better get started for home, since the roads often flood so deeply that only 4x4s can get through, so after a quick stop at the market, we joined the frustrating snake of traffic slowly creeping across town. For a place that rains half the year, it’s amazing how poorly people drive in storms. Partly due to the now-hidden potholes beneath puddles, or because of the over-jammed VW buses cutting us off left and right, pretty quickly we were locked in tight, wipers thwapping, headlights glaring, horns honking, and no one was going anywhere.

From our meandering around, we knew of several shortcuts and bypasses to get off the main road, so as we slowly approached Kintambo Junction (a complex nexus of 5 intertwining streets, markets, pedestrians, bicycles, carts, street stalls and dilapidated buses), we took a right onto a side street, looking for a road we knew of that bypassed the intersection by running along the river. We were one street earlier than we usually turn, but we figured it we could cut over somewhere to get onto our regular route.

It was pitch black, the rain pouring down made visibility difficult and dirt roads impassible. The road we had turned on to was not a very promising since it was a dirt alley, but we continued to the last block, only to find it became a cul-de-sac with no exit. Damn, we would have to turn around and go back.

Just then, an army guard materialized out of the shadows of a large gate waving his arms at us to stop. My girlfriend’s son instantly freaked, and her daughter in the back seat began to get panicky. I told everyone to calm down, that the army regularly takes a dollar from people, and I kept turning around. Then it all changed. The guard whipped up his AK47, pointed it at the windshield and yelled something in Lingala. Another guard came up to my door with his AK pointing at my head. I stopped the car.

I told the family to stay calm (useless to say at this point, as the daughter was shrieking in the back seat and the son was starting to cry) and rolled down my window. The first guard came around and started yelling at me, so I played the 'dumb American' and tried to explain in my poor French that we were just trying to get around Kintambo. The guard softened for minute, then started asking questions in French, demanding my papers, and waving his gun again. I passed a photocopy of my passport to the guard, who looked over them and demanded I get out of the car. I told the family to lock the doors and I got out. I kept apologizing, reached out and shook his hand and passed him about 500 francs (about $1) with an apology and said it was for a cup of coffee on this cold, rainy night. He looked at the money, pointed the AK at my belly and said it was not enough. He demanded $50 from us. He shouted his demand, and he was very threatening.

Believe it or not, I was not scared. Strange as it sounds, having two camouflage-clad, bloodshot-eyed Congolese guards waving loaded AK47s at you in the pouring rain, at the end of a dark cul-de-sac, next to a river, with no witnesses, fingers on the triggers, shouting things you don't understand is not really terrifying. I was more irate than anything else. It felt like a bad scene from a war movie, maybe the scene where the leading character grabs the gun, fights his way out, and escapes in a hail or gunfire. Or takes a round in the belly and the credits roll while the audience is left with a feeling of betrayal and that justice will never be served in that god-forsaken place. I felt that whatever way it went was up to me, and I knew enough to know that giving him money would not stop the process. The folks in the car were freaking out, not helping the situation at all, as I was trying to negotiate with the commandant. Whenever I approached him with a conciliatory tone, the other guard would drop back covering me with his gun. He kept demanding $50, I kept insisting that all I had was a few hundred francs and I was sorry for bothering them on this rainy night and please just let us go back to our homes.

The guards demanded that we open the doors, and they started pulling the family away from the car. The son was crying, the daughter was shrieking, the girlfriend was freaked out, and he started rummaging through our stuff. He saw my laptop and his eyes lit up. "A BOMB!" he declared and started pulling it out of the car. My girlfriend took out $50, pulled the laptop out of his hands and gave him the bills. "There, let us go, please please please!" She was crying by now, and another guard in plainclothes came out, apparently realizing that this was going to be a payday.

The commandant counted the money and said no, it was not enough, he wanted $50 from <each person> in the car. "50-50-50-50" he said, pointing the AK at each of us in turn. My girlfriend started yelling at me to just give him the money, and I said 'no, if you do that it will never end. He'll take everything we have.' As he started rummaging through the back seat again, I took out my cell phone and called the regional security officer, a friend of mine, and the man who can call out the marines.

"Hey guy, what’s up?" he drawled. "Ed, I have a situation and we need Rescue. We're being held at gunpoint by army guards and are being robbed. We're at the end of the street that...."

"The guards saw my phone and all hell broke loose..."

RELATED STORIES YOU MIGHT ENJOY: