they re shooting at the planes? airport employee: no, normally, no. [ laughter ] okay, we ll see you after, after your trip. dan: yeah, yeah, yeah. airport employee: okay, have a good one. anthony: lifting off from goma, we head out over the shores of lake kivu before circling back north, northeast. our destination, what conrad referred to in heart of darkness as the inner station. here, surrounded by dense jungle, lies our rendezvous with the congo river, a waterway responsible for both building this country and helping to destroy it. so much lobster, so little time. at red lobster s lobsterfest any of these 9 lobster dishes could be yours.
anthony: you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, til you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once. so conrad described the congo after piloting steam ships in the early days of belgian colonialism. i ve had something of a multi-decade obsession with the congo. it s been kind of a, a personal dream, if you will, to travel the congo river. and now, for better or worse, i get that chance. we ve rented a trusty vessel, and i shall dub thee the captain willard. all right, did you maggots load the chickens? finding food along the way, it s anticipated, will be a challenge. refrigeration of any kind is impossible. okay. well, i m psyched. my dream has finally come true. [ speaking foreign language ]
it s getting darker and darker and the damn generator keeps kicking up. and i really need a light so i can see what i m cutting. i can t cut what i can t see. crew member: well, there s three light bulbs out right now. crew member: there s only 240 watts. there s no way it s, it s the draw. anthony: they re not going to eat at all. i m never going to get through with this knife. crew member: would you like machete? anthony: no, maybe we should figure out how to cook dinner, unless you don t want to eat any dinner because we are really not going to eat any dinner tonight. okay. i ve had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and i would like to eat, especially as we have gone through all of this misery with these chickens. all right, uh, where s the machete? it would be apropos to point out that we do not want to be moving at night. we would not like to run aground in the middle of the freaking congo. crew member: he s going to swim in now. crew member: he s worried about croc
this ll be good. grilled goat with cabrit, a traditional goat stew on the side. now we re talking. christian: they roast it and then they put some sauce on it. anthony: it s delicious. christian: as you can see, people don t eat meat. meat is quite expensive. it s almost $2, which is anthony: which is a lot. yeah, it s more than most people make in a day or even two days. what are the first things you buy, if you re very, very, very poor? christian: very poor, soap. anthony: soap? christian: yeah, because you have to look a bit clean. anthony: so soap first? soap? christian: first soap. but in between as congolese, you ve got to think of dressing, looking smart, clothes. all these congolese you can see anthony: right. christian: if you give them $10, they will think of at least buying soap or food and keep maybe $1 to buy a shirt. anthony: so that s called pride. christian: yeah. and there is hope. anthony: you can plan for tomorrow. christian: for tom
stew the crap out of them. but first, we gotta kill these things and collect their blood, which if you know anything about chickens, and most of my crew don t, takes time. i ll hold the bucket, you kill the chicken. you want to eat? you gotta kill your own chicken and pluck it, too. time to get killy, killy. but every man has a breaking point. and in retrospect, perhaps, this was ours. dan: saw harder. anthony: harder, harder, you re almost through now. man: i m not. dan: you re killing him. man: it s stuck. dan: clean kill, clean kill. anthony: now he can join our tree house. by the time our birds are cleaned and plucked, the sun is down and dinner is still a long way off. we got the chickens it s time to kill chickens