Last week, just in time for my birthday, Kathy (the Mrs.) and Nancy (of this weekend‘s fame) Rice joined us for a stocking-up trip to Kinshasa.  They live in Vanga, a village east of here, that takes about 1.5 hours via MAF flight.  They drove, however, because they were able to borrow a ride and planned to take a lot of things back with them after doing some major shopping.  They stayed with us for the week and we had an excellent time, though quite busy.  Most days, I helped Kathy shop and gather supplies, while Nancy and her visiting friend Megan (who was also leaving from Kinshasa that week) stayed with our kiddos.

These two ladies came up with a scheme to take me and the kids back to Vanga with them for the weekend, knowing an MAF flight was available this week to take us home.  Mostly, besides super fun, this was to surprise the Potter family.  After figuring out logistics and getting some amazing support from our team here in Kinshasa (thanks Tasha and Jocelyn for the extra help!), Levi, Amelia, and I set our Friday morning on the adventure in the truck with Kathy and Nancy and their driver, Jean.  Axel was left behind because of the long drive and logistics with traveling with someone under 2.  Matthew, of course, had to work.

As we set off I realized that you have to be in a very special place in your life to go on a road trip across Congo with small children.  I mean, really?  Also, there was one other thing we realized that morning.  Our family’s passports are at the immigration office as we establish longterm visas (to replace out short term ones).  I printed out photocopies of our passports so we’d have something…surely that was enough.  We weren’t leaving the country!

As we got down the road and the city faded, we were staring at the beautiful countryside.  It really is pretty, even though we’re nearing the end of dry season and it is mostly brown and shrubby.  One good rain and it will all be green and jungle-like again, I’m sure.  The road itself was great – paved and in excellent condition, for the most part.  The trucks passing us were classic Africa – piled high with goods, including things hanging off the sides and people and goats sitting on top.

The highway was a very cool way to see the country

We drove through small towns, some with buildings and shop-like places, others just grass and mud huts.  Finally, we got to one that had a barricade – a checkpoint.  We stopped and they saw all of our white faces and asked us about our passports.  Then they took them.  Oops.

Twenty minutes later and a brief explanation of why me and the kids didn’t have real passports and we were back on the road.  Annoyed, but in good spirits.

Then we came to another small village and had a repeat of the first part.  They took our documents.  Then the unformed dude and our documents got on a motorcycle, he turned around and motioned to our driver to follow him…and they drove away!  Our driver, not wanting to be at their complete mercy stopped following when they turned off the main highway.  We sat there for ten minutes, waiting.  Finally, the uniformed man came back and said they had to sort our paperwork out and our documents were at the office and we needed to go.  Our driver said he would go, but just him, so they took off on a different motorcycle after he parked the truck off the road in some shade.

We looked around at the people, who were stopping and staring and not-so-quietly whispering about the strange truck filled with supplies and women and children who were obviously out-of-towners.  We spoke with some of them who were brave enough to ask.  The children stared at Amelia’s light blonde hair.  We bought some cookies at the road side stand next to our parked truck.  We waited.  Our driver’s phone had stayed in the car.  I called Matthew, who had our office guys work with immigration in the city get me a contact that I could call directly, which came in handy later.  The Rices called their friend, who speaks several local languages and knows the culture very well, for advice and tips.  And then we waited.  Poor Nancy got several offers of marriage.  Finally, a gentlemen with one of the local cell phone companies offered that we could have a cold drink at his restaurant just above where our truck was parked.  Kathy took the kids while Nancy and I stayed with the truck (we could still see each other, it was just up the hill).

Finally, Jean returned and said, indeed we would all go to the office and talk it out there.  But, first, culture prevails and Nancy and I joined everyone else for cold drinks.  They were truly offered and the guy wouldn’t take any money.  What!?  Unheard of, especially here.

We got back in the truck, waved goodbye to our crowd of new friends, and, with the uniformed man scrunched in the front seat with me, took off toward the office.  I was ushered in to the main reception (one of two cement rooms, with window openings and a doorway).  They talked around me, asking only a few questions, which I answered no problem.  But, I was able to interject that I had someone at the immigration that I could call, which I did, and handed my phone over and the guy took it and walked away.  Thankfully, Nancy was on his heels so that my phone didn’t disappear.

Then I was ushered into the other office, where the chief was waiting.  He smiled and looked unfazed.  Meanwhile, I had been waiting for over two hours and the sun was beginning to set while we still had at least four hours of driving left.  But I smiled anyway…why not?  He asked the same basic questions about my passport.  Then he said okay, thank you and we left.  Talk about a face palm.  Apparently 2000 congolese francs changed hands between our driver and someone.  Around $2.  Someone familiar with the system here would know that something like this usually costs much more.  Wow.

We did have one more stop, but we refused to hand over our papers and there was a lot more yelling and pleading, but we finally got through and drove away from the setting sun.  We turned off the main highway and began the last part of the drive on a sand road – think sand dunes.  It was quite entertaining, especially when one lane had to be shared and the sand was deep.  It was pitch black – no light.  We saw some owls and some very large fruit bats in our headlights, which was very awesome.  Thankfully, the kids fell asleep.  We pulled into Vanga and surprised the Potters around 10pm.

It was quite the surprise!  We slept very well at their house and had a very fun few days of relaxing and seeing bits of the village.  We swam (and washed our hair) in the river – the hippos weren’t around, yay.  We went to church.  The kids played with Legos.  We ate great food and helped in bits and pieces as we could.

Waiting at the place with a fellow MAF kid who happened to be arriving in Vanga to spend the night with her family.

Tuesday morning it was time to go and we said goodbye until next time.  They will come in to the city around every three months for supplies, so it won’t be too long.  It was so great to reconnect, even though it hadn’t been that long, much life had been lived as that seems to happen when you move to a new place…especially one as new as Congo.

Oh, and we brought home two birds and a goat.

The guys that helped us get our new animals to bring home on the airplane – a rooster, a chicken, and a goat.

Today I had a bit of an adventure – exactly the kind of thing that makes living here fun.  A friend from language school, who is helping open a Christian elementary school, is in town to get some things organized for the upcoming school year.  We had planned to get together and have her come over for dinner sine we hadn’t seen each other since she left France when she graduated in December.  She asked if she could bring a friend along who was also helping her.  This friend is a Kinshasa regular, not only having visited multiple times, but her husband’s cousin and wife, and their son and his wife and their kids all live here and I’ve met most of their family.  Small world, huh?

Anyway, I asked if they had been fabric shopping, because I needed to make a run to get upholstery fabric for the couch Matthew is nearly finished making for us (curious?  good.  separate post.).  However, getting upholstery fabric in this city is a bit more than a quick run to the fabric store.

The beautiful African fabric, to which I have a slight addiction, is sold at many open air markets.  I have my favorite place to get it with people I know well enough to get a good deal (though I haven’t been since I’ve been back), but it’s wax-print cotton, not kid-sturdy couch material.  The best place to get that is in the heart of downtown…a place not best for non-locals.  Not best, but not dangerous.  I don’t mean to make it out more than it should be, but you do need to keep your head up, your pace fast, and have a few guys watching your back.  You know, normal shopping.  Theft is very very very common.  It’s best if you go without a purse or money, but that makes shopping a bit difficult.

However, Pepe, my driver, was up for taking three white ladies to this part of town to get the fabric.  We pulled in and found a place to park.  Like normal, several guys offered to be our “guides” and help us to get to the store where we needed to go.  I wanted to go to a certain store that had been recommended to me, even though there were several that sold upholstery fabrics on this part of the street.  So, we took off following a tiny, spry, quick little guy, with Pepe following us.  It was a bit of a walk.  The sidewalk had disappeared under a thick crowd of people and vendors with their wares spread on tarps and in bowls.  The throng of shoppers and porters would cause anyone not used to the chaos to have an adrenaline rush…which we needed to keep up with our “guide.”  Without the sidewalk, we took to the street, which was equally packed with cars, trucks, garbage, and people.  Our short line got cut off by a motorcycle, because six inches was enough room for him to slide through.  We were within inches of cars or push carts.  But, that is what makes it an adventure, right?

Finally, we found the store – while it is a good size, and two stories, it is packed with more people and fabric of every type you can imagine.  We head upstairs to household fabrics and it is calm and quiet, with only a dozen or so people.  The selection of upholstery is slim, but I found a silver one, with black undertones, that will make the colorful pillows and curtains I’m hoping for in the future pop.  Also, it will hide stains.  Because kids.

We headed back downstairs to pay, an adventure in itself, and the other ladies grabbed some fabric scraps and we headed back out.  Finally, we safely returned to our car, paid our guide and the car’s security personnel and set off, only much later realizing that one of the lady’s bags had been slashed.  Thankfully, the thick leather and the liner prevented a theft.  But he gets credit for trying!

There are about three good cuts in the bag, two piercing through to the lining.

Our next stop was the classic tourist stop of the open air art market.  Here you can get any hand crafted Congo souvenir imaginable.  Vendors sell table after table of carvings, jewelry, art, masks, and trinkets.  During our first year, I would bring adopting families here weekly, making a name for myself amongst the vendors, who all began to recognize and expect me each Wednesday morning.  It was a fun place to be recognized and I’m grateful for the relationships I began to build there.

I hadn’t had a chance to return immediately after we arrived back in Kinshasa, but our second week here it was torn down, on government orders, to make way for parking for the new ministerial building and housing surrounding its location.  Not only was it torn down, but it was burned.  A photo circulated recently that showed vendors, stuff still on table, with flames around.  It was a tragic event, but the Congolese people are resilient, and I had heard they had already found ways to sell their goods, so I wanted to check it out and having these ladies along was the perfect excuse.

While I did think some of the vendors might have a fuzzy memory of me from over two years ago, I had no idea the level of welcome I would receive.  The first few vendors met us at the car and began shouting, shaking my hand over and over in classic Congo fashion, asking if I was really here and if I was staying.  They remembered me and how I would come on Wednesdays.  They remembered the exact items I had purchased from them.  They remembered I had kids, even though my kids have never been to the market.  Wow, what a welcome.  Sure, a few wanted me to buy things, but I insisted I wasn’t there to shop today (and I DIDN’T buy anything – miracle).  One vendor, to whom I had given a lot of business, gave a piece of jewelry to each of my kids…literally just gave me stuff, told me not to buy anything, and didn’t demand I return.  It was such a joyful reunion.  And I was so impressed with how quickly they are rebuilding the market.  Some even have wooden stands already!

So, we returned home tired and happy.  The ladies chilled while I bathed dirty kids and made dinner (actually, my language school friend did most of the dinner prep, bless her heart – thank you!).  We enjoyed dinner together and good conversation.  I’m grateful they will be back within the next few weeks to open the school and we will get to meet again…though maybe with less adventure than the today.

Christy, me, and Tammy – and Amelia, because she heard it was a picture of the ladies.

Today was another full day out for me.  Pepe came and we left around 10am, except Axel came along as my travel buddy.  He has an unordinary need for his Daddy to hold him all. the. time. right now, so Matthew finds it hard to work one-handed.  However, Axel did GREAT, he loved the car ride and the very bumpy roads.  He did pretty well in the stores we went to, where I was able to buy things essential to daily life.

By the time we got to store three, he was fast asleep, but Pepe hung out in the car with him until he woke up and brought him in where I was shopping.  It worked out great!

I saw several people downtown that I know – how bizarre is that in a city with over 10 million people??  I was also able to swing by the home of some teammates just to say hello.

Tonight we had dinner with the newest teammates, who arrived last fall, and also have three kids, near the same age and the same genders as ours.  Such fun was had!  I even got the chance to pop next door to say hello to a visiting adopting mom who we met stateside over a year ago!  The world really is a small place.

We have made some progress on unpacking and are still awaiting our shipment.  It’s sort of a catch 22 because we need some stuff in the shipment (like our entire kitchen), but at the same time, without furniture, there’s not too many places to put stuff away.  Oh well, we’re working on it.

Today’s adventures out had me using more French these past two days than I think I used over ten months in France…but it is SO NICE to be able to communicate!!  We even had visits from some of our favorite Congolese today – and to talk to them more naturally was wonderful.

Thank you for continued prayers!  Keep them coming as we settle in and make decisions about furniture, hiring household help, finding a good church situation, and meeting new people here!

We have been in Congo for about 24 hours (I think more like 26, but it took over two hours to leave the airport, soooooo…).

The travels yesterday were as uneventful as hoped.  It was very hard, though, to travel for such a long day with our tired kiddos.  We woke just after 4am, after very little sleep thanks to a cranky Axel.  We left from Geneva and landed in Brussels for a two-hour layover before boarding for Kinshasa.

We didn’t realize that our plane first had to stop in Angola, which is south of Kinshasa, so the flight felt much longer (because it was, of course).  The stop there took forever and by then our kids were completely undone.  The flight had gone well, we even got to watch some movies, but Axel especially was not cool with the situation.

However, we finally arrived in Kinshasa and were greeted with a very pleasant surprise: the airport had been completely renovated and was super modern!  The place was clean, even the bathrooms were impeccable!  The immigration line was long and we were the last ones, but the kids held up (and Axel fell asleep in the backpack).  We got through and it was time to wait for our bags.  In the past, the chaos was that someone we hired would collect our bags and get them through immigration, but the new system was calm and controlled and quite pleasant, even if it took over an hour!  We gathered all of our bags…  Well, truthfully, I had miscounted and we thought we were missing one…so, that caused a bit of sadness until we got home and realized that I should not be in charge of counting anything after a day like that!  We finally got the kids to bed at midnight (1am France time)…ugh!!!!

We slept pretty well and had power all night.  The day was busy finding things we needed form our mess of bags, greeting our neighbors and some teammates.  I even got to go on an impromptu outing with a friend who is in Kinshasa for business from the village where she and her family are missionaries!  We went downtown and she took me to the new store that is similar to IKEA (with prices that are more reasonable than anything else in Kinshasa), a couple of grocery stores that I remember well, and some other errands.  It was good to get out and see how Kinshasa has changed since our last time here.  It is really looking up – many lovely new buildings and high rises have gone in.  The traffic was just as bad as I remember.  It was really exciting to be able to communicate, too!  A friend made fun of my accent though…because I learned my French in France, it is not the same as African French!  I’m sure I’ll adjust eventually…

But, oh, to arrive during the dry season!  Such a huge blessing!  It is cooler here than it was in France!  More humid, but so nice to be able to get around and unpack and work and deal with all of the changes.  We have much work to do – the house, while it was greatly supplied by our wonderful teammates, needs some little fixes here and there (and some big fixes soon).  We are lacking most furniture besides beds and appliances.  And our shipment, praise the Lord, is in Kinshasa and will be delivered this week if all goes well.  Thank you for praying!!!

So, I am headed to bed – I think I am coming down with a cold…perfect timing, ha!  It is SO GOOD to be home.  Thank YOU for helping us get here…I’m excited to see God work through our presence here to bring Him glory!!!

*Excuse the many exclamation points…but seeing as this day is huge in the scheme of our lives, I think I’m going to leave them! ! ! ! ! ! ! !