DRC #1: Border Crossing

I intend to write several blogs about my EMI project trip in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), but to summarize, it was a wonderful week.  As I’ve been telling many people, “Great ministry.  Great team. Amazing trip.”

Lise & I in the front seat looking sleepy

We all met up at the EMI office at 5am on Monday February 13 to load up a large safari van.  Our team of 10 took up all 10 of the passenger seats, including a middle seat in the front, squished between the driver and passenger.  This is where I sat, sandwiched between our friendly driver, Bharuku, and Lise – architectural intern, my mentee, and my roommate for the trip – while trying to keep my knee from getting in the way of the gear shift.  This seat was obviously not designed for long-distance travel, as it had very limited padding and zero lumbar support.  Pat was gracious enough to lend me his inflatable back pillow, which made a huge difference.  This one seat’s back also didn’t come up high enough to rest your head on, so sleeping was out of the question (although I think I may have actually dozed off a bit because I was so tired).  I figured Lise & I would rather cuddle in the front seat than most other people on our team, and we weren’t suffering from jet lag like our volunteers were.  =)  Lise was also kind enough to trade off with me part-way through the trip.  Thanks to Bob & Eileen, the married couple, who took the front seat on the way back.

Robert, Erland, and Pat bright-eyed at the beginning of the trip

And in the middle of the trip... (honestly not a posed photo!)

 

One of our volunteers from the US, Tim, did not get his suitcase before we left Kampala, so Pat loaned him some clothes and we made a quick shopping stop part-way through our drive for some essentials.  Other than that and a couple bathroom breaks, it was straight on through to the Congo border (about 9 hours).  We were all very thankful to our volunteers who brought lots of snacks to pass around the van.  A 2-pound bag of Twizzlers “makes mouths happy!”

Ugandan Border

The border crossing is right next to an amazing snow-covered mountain range that juts out of the land and creates part of the border between Uganda and Congo.  Unfortunately, it’s almost always blocked by clouds and haze, so we only got to see enough to grasp how impressive it must be when it’s clear.  We spent about 2 hours at the border – it didn’t seem to take a long time, there were just several stops to make.  First, we all got out and greeted the two Congo Initiative representatives who had come to meet us.  Then we unloaded all of our things out of our van into their van and sedan, which would take us on to Beni, where the ministry was located.  While we were repacking the vans, everyone’s passports had to first be taken to Ugandan police office #1 and then Ugandan police office #2 (no idea why there were 2).  I went into office #2 as the team representative and told the police officer the profession of each person on the team as she wrote by hand all of the passport information for each person.  (Three different offices had to write by hand the information about each of 10 passports…and that was just for the Ugandan side!)  This “office” was actually a very small room built out of scrap boards sitting on the dirt, barely tall enough to stand up in, with two tables and a bench crammed inside, and the walls of which were plastered with various calendars advertising guest houses, displaying pictures of East African presidents and safari animals, and declaring how Gaddafi was wronged and inhumanely murdered (complete with graphic photos).  [On a side note, on the drive, we saw a huge billboard in a field displaying two photos of the Ugandan president with Gaddafi.] 

Next we walked past the security gate into a strange border “town” inside of “no-man’s land.”  It was technically still Uganda, but you could tell that it had all been built up based solely on the import/export between Uganda and DRC.  (I think almost everything was going from Uganda into DRC.)  We walked past a few sedans that were being filled to the brink – both in the trunk and in the back seat – with soda and beer bottles.  I guess you can fit more bottles into a car if you take them out of the cases!  At this point, we headed to the actual Ugandan immigration office.  (Why that one stop wasn’t sufficient beats me … the airports don’t seem to have a problem with it.)  Here they checked for everyone’s tourist visas or work permits and then stamped our exit.

We then piled back into the cars and drove for about 1-2 km until we got to the DRC border patrol.  A small river with a little bridge marked the official border.  As soon as we crossed to the DRC, you could immediately tell that less money was spent on infrastructure.  Immediately the paved road became a black mud road (I assume the black soil was due to being in a volcanic region).  It had been raining, so everything looked especially muddy and dismal.  Our van reached a final gate, which we passed and then kept on driving.  Mary, an American on the US board of the Congo Initiative (CI), was in the van with us and asked our driver if we were supposed to stop.  He didn’t think we were supposed to, and we were starting to get puzzled about why we didn’t have to stop at DRC Immigration, which we had heard might take a while.  We were starting to think we were super lucky until a couple border patrol cops on motorcycles pulled us over and yelled at us for trying to run the border!  =D  haha, whoops!  They asked for our passports, which we didn’t even have with us because they were in the other car with three of our volunteers and another CI rep.  We drove back to the immigration office and waded across the black mud, grateful for another bathroom stop while we waited.  

DRC Immigration Office

They asked for two representatives of the group, so I went in with Lise, who – what a blessing – speaks an amazing amount of French!  [The eastern DRC primarily speaks French & Swahili, the latter of which I was happy to practice while I was there.]  The officials started to tell stubborn me and slightly-nervous Lise that she and Erland (our civil engineering intern) did not have valid visas and would have to return to Uganda.  Now, I DID know this was coming, but I didn’t think to warn Lise before they started telling her all of this in French.  I think she was worried for a bit that they actually might not let her in.  The problem was that we all had to get Congolese visas in our passports ahead of time, and for the five of us living in Uganda, we got them from the Congolese Embassy in Kampala.  Apparently, although the Embassy in Kampala has no problem taking our money and issuing us visas, the DRC border folks insist that the visa needs to be from the Embassy in your home country.  Well, we didn’t know this until it was too late, so we just prayed and knew that it might take a while, but they’d eventually let us in.  Pat, Robert, and I were fine because we have work permits in Uganda, but Lise & Erland don’t, so we had to explain that they ARE residents, but when you are a resident for less than 5 months, Uganda doesn’t require you to get a work permit.  This is true, but I don’t think the border guys really cared about my argument.  Like most immigration officials, we needed to let them assert their authority for a while, ask forgiveness and mercy for a while, wait a while, and then we were given the green light.

DRC Road

After all of that, now came the intense part!  The DRC apparently has VERY FEW paved roads.  The country itself is almost 1/3 the size of the continental US, and various reports indicate that it has only 50-500 km of paved roads in the whole country.  So this somewhat-main road leading from the Ugandan border to a paved road linking the major Eastern towns was NOT paved.  It was a rather wide and somewhat-well-maintained “thoroughfare” but extremely bumpy nonetheless.  The bumpiness was added to the fact that most drivers take it at what feels like break-neck speed in order for the 50-mile trip to “only” take 2-2.5 hours.  This combined for a crazy ride that was most-often compared to rally car racing.  I also did know this was coming, so I had taken half a Dramamine, and I steadfastly stared at the road ahead of me, but I was still feeling somewhat nauseous by the end.  (I took a full Dramamine and opted for the sedan on the way back.)  There were also a couple of harrowing bridge crossings, one that involved a slight skid and a quick flash of death through some of our minds.  =)  Lise’s fingers became numb about halfway through the trip and she finally “tossed her cookies,” as my friend Janet would say, when we were just 5 minutes from the guest house.  =(  But we all finally made it safe and sound (well, sound-ish).  We were very thankful for God’s protection on many dangerous roads!

Kids gathering as we stopped along the road

Along the road, when we were blessed with an occasional slowing down or stopping, we noticed that we were surrounded by beautiful, lush, green jungle.  It is quite a beautiful country.  Uganda is known for being green, but eastern DRC made Uganda seem brown in comparison.  We arrived at the end of the dry season, so I would expect everything to be dried but, but everything still seemed very green.  I would have thought it was the middle of rainy season!  

[On a separate note, I had the flu and stayed home all last weekend.  It wasn’t too bad; I just felt crummy and tired.  I’m actually quite impressed that this is the first time I’ve really been very sick since moving to Uganda two years ago!  My cat kept me company, and several friends graciously offered to bring me anything I needed.  I’m thankful for a supportive community!]