Leaving Kananga

Friday 13 April – Saturday 21 April 2012

Freezer arriving at the guest house

Our last eight days in Kananga is a winding down time, wrapping up of what we have been able to do while here.  We have gone as far as we can on the guest house project. The freezer and toilet purchased in Kinshasa on 22 February arrived, but the two 500 liter water tanks, the gutters and a few other guesthouse supplies are still on the ground in Kinshasa.  Jacques left 14 April for Kinshasa and on to the U.S. and the Methodist General Conference on 20 April.  Cistern work may not resume until Jacques returns to Kananga in late June. 

Guest house renovation project equipment

Burning trash next to the guest house

We cleaned up and stored project supplies and burned trash.  We decided what to leave and what to pack.  Jim kept telling Sue all her stuff weighed way too much.  Heck – he’s right…  We left what we didn’t take on the table in the dining room.  Friends at the compound will see if there is anything they may want.  We were both able to pack in two pieces of luggage rather than the three each had upon arrival.  Sue left her big red duffle bag behind; Jim packed his duffle inside another bag.  We weighed each bag and knew we were both over the limit, but decided to go with that.

Jim reading

Market on our walking route

Sue reading, or is that napping?

We had more time in this winding down time to read and walk; to really observe the chick explosion, and to notice how low the planes really do fly over the house as they land and take off, to watch a storm coming, and see the beautiful skies – for these few days - more time to enjoy the moment…

Georgette and the new chicks

Plane coming in to Kananga Airport over the compound

Storm coming in

Clear skies ahead

On Wednesday a delegation from the French speaking church across the street came to visit with us, and to let us know that they are working on providing a translator for French into English, so that we can attend church there an understand the service when we return.

Friday 20 April

Simon - off to Kole

Simon left for Kole, a mission up country.  He is flying five people there to check on and work on a project.  He’ll be gone for 8 – 10 days, so we won’t see him again.  He goes home to England on 12 May.  We’ll keep in touch by Internet.

We had two sets of visitors from the Kananga UMC District Offices.  In the morning the Kananga District project coordinator came with an interpreter to give us five or six potential projects, all written in French, naturally.  We asked for the electronic version, so we can run the proposals through Microsoft or Google translator.  They left with a flash drive and a promise to return later in the day.

District Superintendent Mutambwe and the visitors

In the early evening the District Superintendent arrived with four church men, bearing several more proposed projects and a nice Congolese wooden statue for each of us.  These proposals had already been translated into English.  We reiterated what we have said all along, we will bring the proposals back to the U.S., bear witness to the desperate needs in the Congo, and work to see how some of the priority projects may proceed toward funding and possibly bring over volunteer teams to work for short periods of time with Congolese partners. There are many things to think about, many challenges, many obstacles, much need…

Jacques and Valentine were gracious and welcoming hosts.  We’re grateful for the time we spent with them and for the new friendships we have make here in the Congo.

Saturday 21 April

Rainy season farewell to Kananga

The thunder and lightning storm that rolled across Kananga early Saturday morning was not what we wanted to hear and see on our last morning in this city.  We were up early and it was pouring down rain, dark and gloomy.  Since we had packed our bags the night before, we were ready for an early breakfast and then the trip to the airport.  All our bags were loaded by Françoise and Victor.  Answered prayer… the vehicle started.  We said our good-byes using our few words of French and started off to the airport amid rain soaked deeply rutted roads.  More answered prayers… the road was not washed out and there were no other cars, broken down or otherwise, to impede our travels. 

We were the first to arrive at the airport and the folks at the Central African Airlines (CAA) counter were just getting ready to open the check in process… great, we thought, no problems and we’ll be on our way when the plane arrives in from Kinshasa and makes the quick turn-around.  Wrong.   Departing the Kananga airport is not for the faint hearted.  It is a maddening, cumbersome, irritating, inefficient scene.

There seemed to be a dozen folks working behind the counter, but actually only one person was really accomplishing anything.  For quite awhile there were as many setbacks as gains as the computer program was not working correctly with the weigh scales, so the bags had to be weighed manually.  Just when we thought we were closing in on baggage weight figures, we found out that, unlike all the other airlines we had flown - where you get a purse/laptop bag or backpack AND one carry on piece of luggage, CAA only allows one piece of cabin luggage.  The carry-on bags, already returned to us, plus now the backpacks, had to be handed back and new weighing and calculations were made.  We then had a hassle about how much we were over the limit for the checked bag and since the carry-on luggage had now become a second checked piece, which is not normally allowed and thus would be counted as excess baggage, we had another go around about charges.  Fortunately, poor François had been through this drill on more than one occasion and he just kept smiling and trying to explain to us what was happening.  At one point, Francois went around and into the baggage weighing area, giving the airline workers instructions, trying to limit the damage.  Long story, happy ending and it only cost us $76 additional dollars to get our entire complement of luggage and ourselves ready to make the dash to the airplane, when it finally arrived.

All this time, we had been standing by the side of the counter watching many of the airport workers wandering around on the tarmac looking at an Orient Thai Airbus 340 which had flown in the day before on what we think was a charter flight.  The plane had run off the taxi way. Its nose gear was buried in the mud about 20 feet off the tarmac.  We can only speculate what will be involved in getting this huge, commercial aircraft unstuck, safety checked and out of this remote, central Congo airport which does not see much commercial traffic in a week’s time.  The UN aviation contingent stationed at Kananga did not seem to have any equipment which might be needed to lift or pull the aircraft back onto the tarmac, so it will be interesting to hear from someone how they finally got the plane unstuck. Luckily, this was not our scheduled aircraft.

We were waiting for the steadily building crowd to gather at the one exit door, as there is no order or rationale to how the planes are called for departure, when we were summoned by an immigration official who wanted to check our paperwork.  After trying to tell us we had over stayed our visa (we had not and had two weeks left on the three month visa we had), he finally tried the approach that we did not have the right kind of visa:  we had a tourist visa and we should have had a missionary visa.  Needless to say, there is not a missionary visa, only business, tourist or work permit.  We were told by the DRC embassy in Washington that a tourist visa was what we needed for volunteering.  The “official” simply was looking for “special considerations” and straight out asked for “something special” for allowing him to examine our paperwork.  We ended up, with Francois’ concurrence, giving the official the equivalent of $1.50.  He made an elaborate gesture as if he was going to write out a receipt, but alas, he could not find his receipt book.  The “consideration” was unceremoniously whisked under the blotter.  All smiled and au revoirs were said.  Little extra expectations of officials are certainly the way of doing any kind of business here.

The plane arrived and we made our way, after several VIP’s to include a Congolese senior military officer were escorted ahead of us, onto the plane.  We still had to go through three more check points, as we walked across the tarmac toward the plane.  Paperwork for the special airport tax and the Go Pass payment, another fee just to get out of the airport, were examined.   Our paperwork was in order.  Answered prayer. 

Leaving Kananga

Drive across Kinshasa, the dusty...

Drive across Kinshasa, the shade...

The flight over to Kinshasa was uneventful, and, even with a little bit of turbulence, a pleasant flight as we were now one step closer to actually heading home.  We were met by John Wesley, the Bishop’s administrative secretary and driven across town the 40 kilometers to the Methodist-Presbyterian Hostel (MPH).  We were greeted by Cindy and Clay Dunn, two volunteers who have been here two years running MPH and who have made some major improvements in the appearance, comfort and daily operations of this important stopover for missionaries and other church guest arriving and departing the DRC.   We’re glad to be back in Kinshasa.

MPH - Methodist Presbyterian Hostel, Kinshasa

Welcome to MPH