Life in the Republic of Congo Resumed

The year’s end finds me in the Republic of Congo again after a five week visit to Vancouver where I met with clients for next year’s safaris, gave workshops on Tanzania and took care of house and dogs, both of which always need my attention. I am happy to resume life in Brazzaville , however briefly. I head to Tanzania in early January.

My street in Television Village

Brazzaville airport’s arrival lounge is alarming, even for experienced travelers like me. It consists of one small room with a worn baggage retrieval belt, inconveniently placed. A weary and sweating crowd jostles around it so they can grab their bags, all tamper proofed in heavy shrink wrapping and of mysterious shapes and sizes under the layers of plastic. (On this flight, a Congolese passenger carried on board a four-foot high doll with incongruous peroxide-blond hair.) To compound the chaos in arrivals, the crowd includes more porters, handlers, taxi drivers, and waiting family and friends than it does arriving passengers. I have a dear fellow called Richard who helps retrieve my bags. He works for a company which facilitates entry to the ROC. This time I had trouble recognizing him in his baseball cap among all the other men in similar caps, but I finally located him and gave him a wave. I felt pretty smug when I was the first into the arrivals after passing immigration. The official looked at my down parka, carried at this point over my arm in the 34 degree heat, and asked if I was coming from the North Pole. No, but you are close, I thought of telling him: I had spent a few days in a snowy Eastern Canada prior to my Brazzaville flight. I found a corner to wait while Richard pushed and shoved his way into the scrum around the baggage claim. Ten minutes passed and then thirty. My satisfaction died away to be replaced with the meditative state I call the zone. All good travelers cultivate and call upon this state. Trust, patience, and acceptance are its primary components; trust, patience and acceptance that there is a system at work—even if you are hard pressed to recognize any—out of which will come resolution. At least John was allowed to join me in my long wait for my bags—two and ½ hours in total. Finally we were ready to go home. Outside, I breathed in the warm night air of the tropics. I look forward to this when I have been away from Africa . It is the rainy season now. Brazzaville smelled of hot, wet, decaying mother earth. We don’t live far from the airport. Depending upon wind direction the airplanes come right over the house allowing you to recognize the airline company. All along the road leading to the airport children sit on short stools at night and do their homework by candlelight or in the pools of light thrown by dim and skewed street lights. I looked for the children on the way home. It’s an image that I carry of the Congo . No where else in Africa have I encountered such desire and determination to learn.

John with kids

We allowed the neighbor’s children to take their own photos and this arty shot of little Regina was one result

06-01-2008