Road Trip!

Road Trip!

Even though we spent quite a bit of time traveling to actually get here to Gemena, we had our first in-country road trip on Friday and Saturday. We headed out to Tandala, a village (mboka) roughly 40-50 miles Southwest of Gemena. We piled 13 people into a land cruiser and tied most of the luggage and other random trunks and boxes to the top of the land cruiser. It usually takes less than an hour to travel 40-50 miles in the states…but not in the Congo. Because the roads are horrendous to say the least, it took us about 3 hours to get to Tandala. Imagine going off-roading through small villages with twelve other people and their luggage piled in the same vehicle for three hours. That is the best way we can describe it. The potholes are immense and so the vehicle is constantly being tussled about.

We have decided that driving through the Congo is much like being in a parade for us. People peek out of their homes or stop what they are doing to look at the large land cruiser coming down the road. Once they realize there are white people in the land cruiser, children begin squealing with delight, waving and shouting, "Mondele! Mondele!" ("White people! White people!") and some of the adults begin to wave or raise their eyebrows in amazement. We thought it might be fun to start throwing candy out the windows like a real parade. But, we don't have any candy.

While in Tandala, we walked to the hospital, dental and optometrist offices that are heavily supported by ReachGlobal. We met all four doctors who work at the hospital and spent a little time in the dental office. Sam lived in Tandala for several years and had a great time seeing the area he lived and exploring all the trees that he remembered being so big. We even got to meet the family who lives in his old house now and walk through the home. Many people who knew Sam as a child were happy to see him again and one man even gave us a live chicken (nsoso) as a gift.

Saturday morning we loaded back up in the land cruiser with just as many bags and boxes, and even our chicken was tied to the top of the vehicle. On the way home we encountered several interesting scenes. A truck full of police officers with AK47s had broken down and they stopped us to see if we could take a few police officers as extra passengers…our chauffer told them, "Can't you see we are already full?" We stopped three different times to buy food on the side of the road as well as some baskets that we are now using as laundry baskets. While entering one village, a large group of men waving sticks came running and shouting at us. We thought perhaps we were about to enter an angry mob, but a couple men explained that they were having a tribal rite of passage ceremony that day and they were clearing the road. We were informed we could not drive through and since there was no alternate road, we considered rolling up our windows and driving through the mob anyway while they hit the vehicle with sticks. Luckily, a couple of the men allowed us to pass through…whew! Shortly after that we came upon several men shoveling sand into the back of a large, parked truck. Our chauffer honked his horn for them to move and one of the men informed us that their driver was no longer there and they were unable to move the truck which was taking up the entire road. So, the people in the house along the road directed us through their yard around the parked truck. We trampled a couple bushes on the excursion, but got back on the road in one piece (with our chicken still tied to the top).

After three-and-a-half hours we arrived back in Gemena. Even though we have only lived here for a little more than a week, we were really excited to be home. It was also exciting to find that shower heads had been installed in our bathrooms while we were gone. No more bucket showers for us!