It’s been a challenging transition back to my life and work in the DR Congo. I’m very happy to be back. I absolutely love my job, trials and all. Good friends here have welcomed me back with open arms and wide smiles. One of the hard parts has been jet lag- I’ve never had it worse. I was traveling for just over six weeks total and I was in so many time zones and a few too many days started well before sunrise and went nonstop to well after midnight. I was busy mostly with spending good time with great people. What a blessing. I can’t really imagine doing this home leave much differently this time. Thankfully I am finally recovered.
Another hard part has been the transition from a month so full of familiar, easy social interaction. It looked and felt a lot like my American life (on overload). Most days it was near bliss for me. Then I step back into the routines of this place which feel familiar and comfortable but are so different socially. I’m not lacking for healthy social interaction, but my weeknights are generally solitary and I am alone for a good bit of the time on the weekends. And I do like it this way, too. I guess what I am getting at is this: Anytime you shift from 5th gear to 1st without much clutch - it’s going to be a slight shaky stretch as the engine adjusts.
Congo faithfully provides relief in its beauty and bounty. Most of this relief comes in the form of friends and the staff at HOPE. It’s in the simplicity of food choices here. It’s having time to really notice and experience the weather, that it’s been refreshingly cool (for Congo) and the visibility is stunning and the clouds today are sun-lit better than anything ever electrified. It’s the solitary comic moments like the jar of applesauce I pulled from the cupboard this morning and opened. It didn’t look good when the safety-seal popper was pushed up. Fermented applesauce exploded all over my hands and a small white cloud of gas escaped. Cognac paste, anyone? (It’s the knowledge that even though that applesauce isn’t edible, the jar will be scavenged, sold at market, and used for years to come.)
I’m back in Kisangani now, safe and sound. There was a large crowd at the one window for us expatriates to get our airplane tickets stamped at N’djili Airport in Kinshasa this morning. I ran into a good guy with IRC that I hadn’t seen for months and he said he’d been waiting for almost an hour. Then they called my plane for boarding. In the nick of time I was able to get one of the several idle officials’ attention. I built enough of a rapport with him through my anxiety over possibly missing yet another airplane that he got my papers stamped quickly and insisted on escorting me out to the aircraft himself. Only in Congo. I think maybe the line was held up by professional “protocol” agents who handle travel formalities. If they block the process then people like me have no choice but to hire them as they block the line.
Three staff members met me at the airport and we rode through some intense heat back to town. They came up to the apartment and we had some cool water and conversation. They were surprised that I didn’t put on weight in the USA and they asked me about my family and friends. I told them about fireworks at the baseball game and Grandpa George getting his gift from Papa Wembonyama and my days at the home office in Pennsylvania. There are many more stories to tell and more to hear. It was great to travel, and it’s so great to be home again.
You’ll notice a lot of new photos from my travels in the USA. I’ll get back to posting pictures from the Congo ASAP and put these into an album of their own in due time.
Thank you to everyone who showed me hospitality, grace, and love during my travels. My heart is full to overflowing.
I am not able to write about my month-long home leave in much depth because I am punch drunk with jet lag and overflowing with great fresh memories of time with family and friends. My brain is in a state of confusion and my body doesn’t know who to believe in the argument between my brain, the sun and the moon. I’ve spent several days in about 6 time zones with a 10 hour spread over the last 6 weeks and it’s caught up.
Friday I was supposed to leave Philadelphia with Air France and they fouled things up incredibly well. The flight was overbooked to begin with and then Paris sent a much smaller aircraft. 80 of us could not be accommodated. There was only one agent on hand to rebook all of us, all of his coworkers were on some kind of leave or another. Flights in the USA and from there to Europe are fairly well booked up these days as the industry has finally begun a strong rebound post 2001. (I flew something like 20 times in the last 2 months and only 2 flights were not sold out.) The airlines make a lot of money when business is this good and their airplanes are full. This makes it extra difficult when they have to rebook you to Europe and just about all the flights are full, there’s a big storm on the way and there are precious few flights a week to the DR Congo.
By midnight (5 hours after the plane left me) the agent was able to talk with me and on behalf of Air France he took care of my difficult situation. We evaluated a few potential flight plans. Rather than being shuffled from one world capital to wait in another with three heavy bags I opted to go for a couple more days back to Kansas City and transit to Congo on the next available Air France flight - Tuesday. Of course, he’d suggested that I wait around in Philly, but when I said that I knew nobody there and would rather go to KC he replied “I’ll send you anyplace you want to go.” I found myself in a posh hotel in downtown Philly by about 1:30 AM with a new pile of meal vouchers and plane tickets in my pocket. I wrestled with the alarm clock there to set it for 5:00 AM so I could make the flight to KC on 3 hours of sleep. (That thing did not go off and it’s a minor miracle that I made that flight. I think I may write a letter to Marriott about the value of a simple alarm clock.)
I arrived in Kinshasa as planned Tuesday evening after a pleasant 24 hour trip. The air was barely on the balmy side of pleasant and the sun had just set before I walked down the steps from the plane. I enjoy walking to the terminal in Kin past the haphazardly parked airplanes of all shapes, sizes, and states of repair. The sky was a unique and intense royal blue strewn with gray and purple clouds.
The immigration officer at the door had a problem with my passport and so I was officially welcomed back to Congo by sitting in an office for interrogation. It’s a good thing that I am not much phased by this (though fatigue doesn’t help) and after some unpleasant miscommunication I was able to understand his preoccupation and explain to him that I’d acquired the passport in Congo at the US Embassy and that’s why there was no USA purchased Congo visa inside it. I was freed to clear immigration and enter the absolute chaos of the baggage claim and customs gauntlets, respectively.
After a 7:00 PM ride through the crazy congested streets complete with my fill of the carbon vehicles emissions that only Kinshasa can muster, I rode back to the airport at 6:00 AM to catch my rescheduled flight to Kisangani. My name wasn’t on that list either. It’s given me a couple more days to regroup here in Kinshasa and to collaborate on some work with my colleagues; never a bad thing.
Tomorrow I’ll try again to get home to greet the staff, see my friends, and collapse in a heap on my own bed. This weekend’s goal wherever I find myself: rest. Hopefully by Monday morning’s staff meeting my life will feel right-side-up again.
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