Well, That Was Easy

We returned to the Democratic Republic the Congo on May7. Our biggest travel concern was showing up at the airport in Goma, DRC with 11 people and 25 pieces of checked luggage, as having that much luggage would pretty much guarantee us having to negotiate a “fee,” with the custom agent at the airport. Fortunately, a friend knew someone with some authority at the airport, so we slid through the airport somewhat easily. The “somewhat” part of “easily” refers to finding out that 11 of our 25 bags had not made it to Goma. Since all of those 11 bags belonged to the Ostranders, their family wore their travel clothes for a few more days until the bags showed up.

Once we had all our baggage, we began purchasing our needed supplies and trying to secure a flight from Goma up to oue village. There was bad news on top of bad news regarding our finding a flight, as one of the two planes available to us was getting serviced in Kenya and the other plane was getting repaired as it had hit a pig on a runway in a rural village. The few days we had planned in Goma turned into two weeks, but that’s always an possibility.

Our ranks have been bolstered by Joseph and Hadassah, who are going to work alongside of us for the next four months

Here’s a flashback photo from when we first arrived in 2018; only three kids in tow at that time.

Captain Ted, who is also the owner of the airline, has become a close friend over the years.

Did I mention that we brought a lot of stuff?

Every time that we arrive up here, we look at one another and say, “Well, that was easy.”

Somehow! - Michael