Adolphine was constantly in my thoughts during the days following our meeting when she again spoke about Sepano's disappearance and the harrowing events that had preceded it. Having witnessed her distress during that interview, I gave her a sedative to calm her nerves at the end of our meeting because she insisted she had to go back to work. This was against my better judgment as one never knows how another person will react to medication, however mild.

I decided that it would be unwise ever to interview her again during the morning when she had to return to her office afterwards. I worried all afternoon after dropping her off in Philippi where she worked. She spent hours per day commuting by train and minibus taxi to and from work. Also, it had been cold and rainy that morning and when I saw she didn't have a raincoat with her this increased my concern.

When next we met at the end of July 2013 and she continued her story I asked her how she had coped that afternoon. “Oh, I had to stop myself from falling asleep all through a meeting”, she laughed and then exclaimed: “but I slept so well that night!”

Adolphine described the agony and arduousness, especially of those first days and nights after Sepano's flight in December 1996 once she had left the precinct of the Lubumbashi police station, where she had spent only a couple of harrowing days and nights with many other displaced and terrified people. Only the hope of finding him on the way and the primeval urge to survive drove her inexorably on. She was walking with a group of hundreds of refugees. Sometimes the terrain was flat, but on the outskirts of Lubumbashi it was hilly and tiring to cross.

“I was scared on the way from Lubumbashi to the border of Zambia at Chililabombwe where there were warning signs of the danger of animals. We saw buffaloes and leopards and gorillas. One afternoon when I saw small groups of gorillas about twenty metres away I felt numb. Strangely, you tell yourself if you don't look at them you will be safe.