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.
My home leave has been wonderful. What a blessing to have a month dedicated to spending time with people that I love and appreciate. I am at my dad’s place in Buffalo, Minnesota right now and we are getting ready to head to the southern farmland near the Iowa border where we’ll spend a couple of days with extended family. I’m ready to play some cribbage with grandpa George. Let’s hope I don’t get skunked!
I’d like to put some photos here, but the website isn’t letting me! Go to my recent photos to see pictures of all kinds of beautiful people I’ve been hanging out with on these travels, while I am away from the beautiful people in the Congo.
Thank you to all of my friends in San Diego, and those who came to town while I was there. I had a wonderful time connecting with you. I didn’t set foot on the sands or in Sea World or really any of the myriad traditional tourist destinations. I spent great time with many friends. (I did have lunch at Pacific Beach with Janell and the place was packed and quite a cultural eye-opener after life away for a year!)
I used to idealize the San Diego weather with the best of ‘em. But something does happen after living in the hot & swampy Congo air for a year. After last week, San Diego is now “Chilly Town” to me. This helps to grieve the loss of not being there just a little less, though it’s always been the friends that draw me back and not the other purported perfections.
I’m thankful that I’ll be stopping through again for just a few days before I head back to my Congo home. See you soon, San Diego.
Je suis bien arrivé samedi ici en Californie du Sud. Le voyage était bien passé sauf que j’ai raté un vol de connexion à Philadelphie. J’ai trouve un hôtel et j’étais capable de me reposer un peu avant de continuer. Le voyage pour le lendemain était à la direction de Los Angeles, mais mon ami Lowell m’a retrouvé et nous avons complété le dernier trajet par voiture. J’ai assisté le culte matinale a mon église dimanche et ces derniers jours j’ai visite avec plusieurs amies. C’est vrai que je me manque de l’Afrique, même au début de ce voyage mais c’est parce que l’Afrique est déjà dans mon cœur. Mes salutations à toute mes amies.
I’m now in Kinshasa for the better part of this week before I leave for my home visit in the USA. As I get closer to this visit, I anticipate that some things back in the USA will seem odd after a year under Kisangani’s African skies:
- Not enough bicycles on the road. Since the war, bicycle taxis are the primary mode of transportation in Kisangani. There are no stoplights and intersections are controlled by traffic cops Monday to Saturday during business hours. During those times if I am stopped at a light, I am in the middle of a mob of bikes. I see people striking up conversations as they sit on the backs of bikes side by side. When there are no traffic cops, it’s unmanaged chaos.
- Not nearly enough traffic circles. I’ve gotten used to traffic circle interchanges. Congo must be one of the very few countries that allow those entering the circle the right of way. It used to be this way in Rwanda when I first visited, but they’ve since changed it. You see, if you give the right of way to those entering, in heavy traffic people are legally stuck in the circle for hours and hours and have to break the law to get out.
- Driving over 30 mph and significant distances.
- Too much food choice. Kisangani has few restaurants and I am used to the standard fare. Having to choose from thousands of food options… it might make my head explode or cause me to lose my appetite! And few places to get a brochette of goat.
- So much English speaking.
- Dry and cool/cold early spring weather.
- Very little or no dancing in church.
- Winter brown landscapes when Congo is green, green, green all year round and has been from the beginning of time.
It’s a rare brisk morning here and I want to fill you in on some of the weekend’s news:
My friend John finally made it back from his river trip. He walked in on Saturday morning and we had a great time catching up. He told me that he brought back a baby squirrel for me and that they are going to build a cage for it.
Later the same day, we drove out to Papa Wembonyama’s house and I sat under his shade hut with him for some hours talking and telling stories. He told me that squirrel has a great flavor. He told me that Congo is at a turning point, an infancy of sorts and needs a lot of help to get on its feet. He gave me blessings for my upcoming travels and said that if God had given him that characteristic that he gave to snakes and he could shed his old skin and be young again- he’d travel with me.
Youth scouting programs are popular here. There are all kinds of little scout troops in uniforms with neck scarves and hats and flags. This weekend was some kind of jamboree right in the middle of town, in front of my building. On Saturday I started to see groups of scouts being led by their scoutmasters, marching in from the outskirts of town. As I drove by a couple of these groups I spontaneously saluted and like clockwork 20 little hands went up to salute me back. I don’t know if scouting is popular all across Africa, I’ve never noticed it when I’ve traveled. It seems like a very American thing that they’ve really picked up on. One troop even went by carrying standards that I recognized from my youth as the three levels of the Cub Scouts of America. We don’t have much American culture here beyond this, except for a voracious appetite for American pro wrestling.
Sunday was a day of good timing. I drove out to the airport to pick up the external auditor from Price Waterhouse Kinshasa. I took a book with me because airplanes here aren’t so much known for timeliness. As I drove up I saw his plane taxi off the runway head toward the terminal. Then later on we picked up Christilla, one of my new French friends and drove to where her husband Jerome was playing in a local soccer match at the Jesuit Church. We drove up just in time to watch the last five minutes of the game and then head to the fabric factory along a river to sit and talk into the evening. Good timing is a rare thing here. When I arrive at just the right time to meet a plane and to hear the whistle at the end of a football match and all in the same day… that’s worth writing home about!
This morning there was no electricity at the office. I worked on a document for about an hour until my laptop’s meager battery power went dead. Then I spent the rest of the morning catching up on filing away paperwork. It’s got to get done sometime. And it’s a simple pleasure not unlike doing the dishes. At first there’s a big pile and then with some mindless diligence, the pile shrinks as the uncomplicated task is completed.
I realize that a year ago this month was one of the craziest in my life. I’d accepted the position with HOPE International and was cleaning out my apartment, rapidly selling most of my possessions and packing up some plastic boxes with the rest. I was writing letters of resignation and looking for someone to buy my car. Then there were all the thoughts of leaving a city that I love and so many people that I love. I traveled to see family and to stash those plastic boxes away. Then there were about four meals a day out with various friends and three or four going away parties. What a crazy time. Two blessed angels (Leigh and Matt) packed my bags for me as I was meeting with more people and sweeping through Target like a hurricane for last minute items.
I wouldn’t wish all of that on anyone in such a short time frame. From this angle though, it was all worth it. Congo is often pretty crazy, but I do love my job. I get to work (in french no less) with a great staff and our objective: helping people with small business loans that promote strength in their own initiatives, their families, and their churches. I am so thankful for this blessing. In the last year I have learned more and experienced more than I could make up in a lifetime. Much of this knowledge is troubling, but some is quite inspiring. At times I feel that I have been pushed to the edge of hope, but never beyond what I can bear.
This year’s memories are rich and vivid. I can remember boarding the Air France flight in Philadelphia and realizing that tidy drab terminal was my last American vista for a year. I’ll pass through there again in less than a month on my home visit. I don’t imagine the places I’m going will have changed much in 12 months. I feel worlds of change inside of me.
Yesterday a tire went completely flat on the car and when Stanis put the spare on to go get it fixed, the spare also went flat. He drove on it as best he could and got them both fixed. This fine Saturday morning I got up early to go pick someone up for a hospital visit only to find that the tire was again flat. I put the spare on and headed out. So far so good, late but still on the road. Then I found the road to where I was going was closed by riot police. Near the university, students were protesting and there was some kind of clash expected. Without any options, I turned around and went home.
Often things go wrong and then other things go wrong on top of the first things, and so on. This is sometimes compounded by cross-cultural miscommunication or Murphy’s Law. I can’t get too upset about such things as they are, if I want to remain sane. Sometimes things can be fixed and made to work, sometimes the road is just plain blocked. At least I haven’t any illusions that I am in control of the show.
This morning I arrived at the office and soon realized the cat was nowhere to be seen. The guards had previously informed me that she’d been receiving regular nighttime visits from a burly tomcat and it usually didn’t go well. They always seemed to get into a brouhaha. Well lately, the visits have been more cordial and apparently he convinced her to leave the office with him (something she’s practically never done before) on a flight of fancy. I knew she’d venture out of the nest someday, but it was still a shocker. She came ambling back around 1PM looking much worse for the wear. She was quite shell-shocked and frazzled from head to tail. She kept shaking her paws and seemed to move with difficulty, but there was no bleeding. She seemed to drool some. I made a little bed for her behind the open office door and she rested there all afternoon. Poor thing. Love hurts.
I’m surprised to see that the US is releasing new dollar coins. There’s a New York Times article about it today. Currency is funny in the DR Congo. Congo’s economy has been linked to the dollar for awhile now in an attempt to curb wartime inflation. I’m not sure when it will lose dependency on the USD. We might be the only microfinance institution that loans in Congolese Francs, and it’s not always easy with value fluctuations.
Awhile back I mentioned how dollar bills are not taken in Kinshasa but they are here in Kisangani. Bills generally need to be without the slightest tear and must be series 2000 or newer. These rules are in response to likely rampant counterfeiting. Bills that don’t meet these tests will not be bought back by banks that ship them to the USA. The tradition of stamping money with initials is strong in Congo. Some say it’s just so that wealthy people can see their money coming back to them. Others say that it’s a way to show others that you’ve touched a lot of money. It’s only done with the US dollars.
The article talks about how the $1 bill is the among the smallest valued paper money in the world. They obviously refer only to wealthy nations. They cite Japan’s smallest Yen bill at a value of about $8 and the smallest Euro note around $6. Here in Congo our largest Franc bill is 500, which is about $0.92 right now. That’s right, our LARGEST bill is SMALLER than $1!! It doesn’t circulate nearly as much as the 200, 100, 50, 20, and 10. The 10 Franc bill is worth 1.8 cents! They are not remade often enough and so widely circulated that they are often shades of brown and absolutely falling apart. There is no way that the government can afford to make the tiny currency that we have. We use no coins at all in DRC. I don’t know how we make decisions without coins to flip!
This makes for all kinds of challenges in microfinance. There are rumors of a new larger bill coming out, but this causes inflation fears based on what has happened in the past.
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