Congo: Day 1

It's taken me awhile to post and a lot has happened since we've arrived to the Congo. It's not always easy for me to put things into words so I've been thinking about what I've wanted to say very carefully in order to be both realistic and accurate... all while not sugar coating anything. Before I came I was expecting to have a lot of good experiences that I would be excited to share but there turned out to be very few happy, blog-worthy moments. If I continued this way there would be nothing at all to talk about. So, here we are, at the end of day 3 and I've decided to tell it all. The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. For this post I'm going to start with just the first day.

Day 1:

This trip to Africa started out with my mom and I heading to Ethiopia for 9 days. During that stay we decided that it would be a good idea to bring our Ethiopian country representative, Dereje, to the DRC with us. He could help us by talking to our new Congolese workers a little about Ethiopian adoptions and give and them an idea of what's worked well in the past and what hasn't. It turned out to be a good idea... but more difficult to accomplish then we could have imagined. It turns out that bringing an Ethiopian into the Congo is not just a difficult task... it's a nightmare! We had done all of the appropriate steps before coming but that wasn't good enough.

We had nothing but difficult experiences the first day accented only by an encounter with a Congolese man whose name means "welcome" and a very appropriate meaning as he was the first person I met worthy of that title. He was very friendly and was kinder then anyone we'd met so far. By the end of the day I was referring to him as my angel because I probably would have ended up in tears within the first few hours upon arriving if I had not met him on the short ride on the people mover. We lost sight of him as we made our way to the immigration lines but that wasn't the last time i'd see my new friend.

We finally got to the immigration desk and my mom was first. She went through without a problem. When I went up the only question I was asked was if I was with the woman who was in front of me. "Yep." Apparently that's all she needed and I was through just by uttering one syllable. But Dereje did not get so lucky. Mom and I tried to wait for him on the other side of the counter so we could walk to baggage claim together but the guards were not happy with our lingering and briskly sent us away. We didn't need more then 5 minutes to realize something was wrong. My mom left me to wait for our 7 duffle bags while she went to go look for him... but we didn't realize that it would be over 2 hours before we would see each other again.

I don't know the details of what happened during that time, but all I knew at the time was that I was starting to get scared. All I could do was to keep watching for the bags b/c worrying wasn't going to help anything. During a small confusion that involved a lot of people running I realized that we had been waiting at the wrong conveyer belt and that I had just lost my wonderful spot in the front. But that was ok because that led me to finding "Welcome" again! Normally I would be more hesitant about talking to a "stranger" in a brand new place but this man was the only english speaker I'd met and was just a kind man. He eased my nerves as he told me about his return from America and what I could expect in the DRC. And then he emphasized what i'd been told many times. Congo was not a friendly place and that if I didn't speak French i would have many difficulties. And he was very right... When the conveyer belt came to a stop and none of my bags had arrived yet, "Welcome" encouraged me to go look for the other 2 members of my party. But I was not treated very well at all by the guards and and one laughed as he told me that my mom and Dereje had been taken away. What?? Why? They were set on speaking French until one finally told me in English that she knew where they went but I couldn't go see them until I had gotten all of my bags! So many things were wrong with that... What if they never arrived? So far there had been none at all! I was about to breakdown but "Welcome" saw my distress and just talked to me some more while we waited and waited... He told me that sometimes this happens and all that the security guards want is some money in order to let someone go. That is just wrong. That's not how a system is supposed to work at all...

I had long lost track of the time when finally I saw my mom coming back through the doors and I could just see the distress on her face. She explained what happened and how after the security found out that she had come with Dereje, they took away her passport so that she had to be retained with him! She had already been let through once but then all of a sudden she wasn't even allowed to come tell me what was wrong! But after a couple hours of misery she was allowed to come find me, but Dereje still needed to be questioned. I was starting to think that he was being held for ransom after all. Mom helped me find the bags, which was not easy when it's a system of every-man-for-himself. But we made it and went outside to find our translator, Dido. Finally! He found us and we were escorted to his car to wait while he

talked to security to try to get them to release Dereje. And boy did we wait... because all I could do for my first 3 hours of being in Congo was sit in a van playing angry birds :P. But at last we saw our Abyssinian friend was free! Whatever Dido did saved the day because it turns out they were getting ready to send the poor guy back to Ethiopia! The entire day was gone by the time we reached the hotel but we were just glad that we were all finally here to stay and could get started with seeing kids the next day.

I doubt every entry to this country will be this difficult but we learned a lot about the system just through this experience. People have warned me that this is not an easy place to stay and after several difficult experiences I've seen this for myself as well. As hard as it may be, it's not a good enough reason to stop what we're doing. Immigration may try everything in their power to keep us out and the government may not consider adoption work and helping orphans a good enough reason for Dereje to enter the country but that's all the more reason to get as many of these kids into family's as possible! These orphans are the victims of a system that considers them of the lowest priority and they are not being cared for adequately. I have seen some of the most malnourished kids I have in my life here and they are the ones suffering, not us. We will find a way to keep coming back because this may be some of these kids' only hope.