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Listening to the bat squeak, I wonder what the protocol is when someone fails to return from a day-outing in Congo. I picture our UNHCR hosts filing through the buffet, lounging in the living room, nursing beers. Would they notice? Would someone say, “Where are those girls?” Would they make phone calls? I imagine the call to headquarters in D.C., or worse, to my mom, igniting hysteria: They didn’t make it home.

“At least it will be a good story for the grandkids,” Kelly says from the opposite end of the room.

As though today’s events weren’t enough, I add in my best movie-trailer voice, “They clung to the tiny boat for their lives, as the gusty winds and waves threw them to and fro, bringing the young American girls ever-closer to the menacing rebel forces lurking beyond the peninsula’s looming cliffs. . . .” We bust up laughing. Yeah. We’re fine. This is no big deal.

We spin embellished, melodramatic versions of the day’s events, and Kelly and I laugh ourselves to sleep, or at least the pretense of sleep.

With my camera bag propped under my head like a pillow, I wait all night for the knock everyone in eastern Congo dreads: the knock of a militia outside your door.

In the middle of the night, I hear men’s voices out front. I strain to hear. Someone is talking to the guards. Who else would come calling at this hour? It must be the Mai Mai. I brace myself, grasping the straps on my camera bag like the emergency strings on a parachute.

The voices disappear between intermittent rain and the foggy angst of an adrenaline-infused attempt at sleep. The knock never comes.

A soft, blue, early-morning light appears in the cracks under the door and around the windows. Hungry and edgy, I step out of the house. The guard still sits out front, awake. He’s been up all night.

As I wipe my eyes, adjusting to the light, the Mai Mai I met yesterday, the one who wanted me to film him, saunters by with a Kalashnikov strapped to his back. He greets me with the casual air of a neighborhood shopkeeper. “Muzungu, habari.”

White girl, good morning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Long Drive Home

AT DAYLIGHT, we don’t waste any time. Fitina, along with a few others, escorts us to the boat without ceremony. We wave goodbye and I dash into the cabin in search of the rolls and peanuts I left on board last night. I’m hoping to quell my acid stomach and edgy bad mood induced by no sleep, no morning caffeine infusion, and no food. I find my plastic snack bag. Empty. The crew, who slept on board last night, devoured every bit of bread, every remaining peanut.

My empty stomach proves an asset. On the ride back across Lake Tanganyika, there are no raging storm clouds. It doesn’t even rain, but the wind is strong, splashing water over us, and waves swell dangerously close to the lip of the boat. Agitated by all the talk of sinking boats, I cling to the railing as if we are about to sink, calling on every in-flight, bad-turbulence ritual I’ve developed over the years. Measuring my breaths, muttering prayers, I run through a series of complex rationalizations, closing my eyes to imagine how much worse I would feel if I was being tossed around like this on an airplane. It’s not the best fear-control strategy since it leads me to recall the rationalization I always use on planes: It may feel scary in the air, but I am much more likely to die in a car crash or on a sinking boat.

Rescued! I think as we approach the port and I spot a UN vehicle waiting for us. Haggard, I climb into the SUV, and I’ve never before felt so soothed by that new car smell.

At the UN guesthouse, I walk down the hallway with wet hair, my feet bare on the smooth cement. I’m wearing clean clothes after my head-to-toe scrub down, but I’m still reeling from the adrenaline hangover.

I hear Kelly’s voice drifting from her room, muffled laughter. Her cell phone is still in range, so she’s called her husband to tell him about our night. The door to her room opens, she walks out into the living room, and catches me tuning