Entering the Heart of Darkness

Update from Congo via texting from Desi:

"This is not okay" is all we could repeat as we drove through the town into Congo yesterday.

Two and a half years ago when I read an article by Stephanie Nolen on the DRC I broke. I don't ever remember crying so hard, especially not since childhood. I knew at that moment I could not have something affect me like this and do nothing about it. Now here I was in the DRC with eyes watering trying not to let it start.

Well, we've made it. It has been a long journey. I feel as though I am one of the privileged few. How many people feel the need to do something like this and actually get to do it. I am also privileged to be able to do it with four great guys. We left the farm in Zambia around 7:30 which put us too close to the border too soon. We were now to be meeting people there at 12:30 to assist in our crossing and so we stopped in a quiet little town close to the border to kill a couple of hours. Once the time got close we were off again. Within 10 minutes there were people everywhere. Big trucks lined both sides of the street leaving only one lane in the centre for both us and oncoming traffic.



Guys were running after our vehicle waiting for us to stop to try and sell us something or help us get across, for a fee, the first part of what seems to be an insane money grab but as we would soon enough find out was part of an elaborate economic system. It was all quite surreal.

I don't remember how many times I thought, "this is a first for me." I know I have done many "first" things, but this was one of those moments when all of your senses seem to be racing, trying to take in everything going on around you. I think that in times like this, because you realize you cannot grasp it all, an entirely new emotion gets created. You know how you can smell something and it takes you back to another moment in time or you hear something and you return to a feeling you once had. That is what this became in an instant, a place and time to return to. I don't really know how else to describe it.

I think it took us about 1 1/2 hours to make it through. First we had to check out of Zambia. After that we walked through "no mans land," a place filled with parked cars and trucks, people everywhere, garbage covering the ground and dust covering everything. We were almost there. We had to stop at a little shed in order to "check in." This was the second part of their economic system, although I am not sure how much this one cost us.

Next we filed into a packed hallway of people waiting to see a customs agent. Our passports and immunization records disappeared and we waited standing, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening in the offices. There were two people who had met us in order to ease the procedure who were in and out of an office, arguing amongst themselves while the guy who had been following us around, looking for a way to be of use, for a fee, was trying to keep busy by going into the office every once in a while only to be yelled at and kicked out. The entry fee was finally negotiated. 10USD each ($50 total). Not bad. Margaret turned over a $100 bill and we waited for change. There, of course, was none as the fee had suddenly jumped to $20 each. Ruth, the German missionary who had come to help us, caught wind of this and marched back into the office with $50 and a yell and came out with the $100 bill. It pays to have friends at times like this.

We were done and on our way. What I saw next was a town that God seemed to have forgotten about. I know that sounds sacrilegious, but I could not help but wonder where God is. You feel that if He knew what was going on here he would surely punish somebody somewhere for allowing such a thing. There was garbage everywhere and it stank. There were little shacks built mostly of plastic bags and torn tarps over sticks. Those with any walls were the lucky ones. Naked children playing in the dirt next to a river of free flowing sewage. I have never seen anything so appalling in my life. One sentence kept running through my head over and over, "This is not okay, "This is not okay", "This is not okay." There is no level where this is acceptable. No human should have to live the way that I saw them living today.... this is not okay. I don't really know what else to say about that...

They stayed in Lubumbashi last night in a guest house and Margaret took them to her favourite restaurant for Chinese food where she is a VIP and they even got the VIP room.(I can't wait to hear what that's like) Desi said it was really good. Today they drove on to Likasi and arrived at about 4PM. Thirty minutes after arriving to their house the power went out.