Second Communication From Tom Bingham in Congo
Thursday, July 20th, 2006, Congo Time

Adventure in the Congo
By Tom Bingham

The Uganda/Congo mission is broken into three teams.  Eric, Taylor, Lonny, Cherryl and Sharon on team A.  They are working exclusively in Uganda.  Team B consists of Tamara, Amy and Stephanie.  This team was the first team to visit the Congo.  Team C consists of Tom, James and Christy.  This team is in the Congo from 7/18 to 7/22.  The following is a report from the Congo by team C done on 7/20/06.

We met team B at the Rwanda / Uganda border as they were returning from the Congo and we were heading towards it.  Here we greeted each other and took some pictures, changed from Skip Sorensen’s to Bruce Paden’s car and proceeded through Rwanda toward the Congo.  Bruce had acquired a driver.  He said he could drive, but if he did not have to he would rather not.  We could see why.  We decided that lanes are “suggestions” in Rwanda (Uganda too for that matter) and which lane or which portion of the lane people use can appear a bit random.  But we made it without incident to Kigali (Capital of Rwanda).  We would like to say the same out the balance of the trip, but we must admit we had a bit of a diversion through the mountain passes of Rwanda that leads to the Congo. 

About half way to our destination, we saw two policemen standing on the side of the road and they were waving us over. We stopped.  It seemed like a routine security check, so we did not pay much attention at first but they were taking an inordinately long period of time to write down information about the car.  They then talked to our driver who looked unhappy.  They wanted all the car’s registration and paperwork. Some arguments took place at that point and Bruce got involved.  It became obvious that they were not going to let us go. People were starting to congregate and stare at us, looking very uneasy.  They came from a nearby village. After about 30 minutes of this, Christy and I asked if we could walk to the village.  Bruce said fine and the guards did not stop us so we went with T.P. in hand in search of a public restroom --  well we probably should have know there would not be one. 

People at first looked at us warily, wondering why the police had let us criminals walk freely into their village.  We passed one very rustic building after another, thinking that we saw a bank building on the far side of the village.  We did find it, but is was fenced in and did not look like it was in use at all.  I asked someone if there was a bathroom.  He looked confused.  I showed him the T.P.  The light went on and he took us to a small shack that I think they considered a store.  They pulled out more T.P. and were disappointed when I did not want to buy it.  We turned to pursue our own path. 

Not so easy … our self appointed guide ran up to us beckoning us to follow him.  We did so reluctantly.  He took us to a young man who spoke broken English and we tried to explain what we needed.  But he looked uncomfortable and had no reply.  By this time many villagers were getting too focused on us and started to form a circle of people.  Many were talking at once and of course we could not answer anything.  Just as things were getting more chaotic than I would like, the car came up to us and we hopped in and took off … but the wrong direction.  We were now heading back toward Kigali, away from the Congo border, being led by a pickup that housed the two policemen.  We were summoned to the Rwanda police station. 

Rwanda Police or Not? 

The pickup did not look like a police vehicle at all.  It made me a little skittish. We went at least 12 miles in the wrong direction and then pulled off on a dirt road.  We passed through a village equally rustic to the first one, and then left it altogether, heading up a dirt road leading into the hills.   

At this point I was getting very uncomfortable.  I could not help but think about the problems Rwanda had had only a dozen years earlier.  We rounded a bend and then did see a building.  Actually the building looked better than the entire village we had just passed through.  We pulled up to it and stopped next to the pickup, and Bruce and his driver followed the police to the office. 

Christy, James and I just sat down on the front steps and finished our Rwanda exit cards. A number of uniformed people were milling around eyeing us suspiciously.  One person who could speak English asked me why we were there.  So I simply said, “Well, the police seemed to like us and asked us to come and visit, so we did.”  At least they laughed.  Then Bruce and his driver emerged from the office and said we could go.   

So we ended up at the border two hours late and $100 poorer.