Back to Congo

Back, by popular demand!

When we told people we were coming back to Aru several people asked if we would start our blog again. Given that we are only here one month we weren’t sure we would, but getting here has been something of a story in itself!

All went well with getting to Heathrow – we avoided the M1 being closed after an accident – and the flight to Entebbe (Uganda) was very punctual. However, once in Entebbe we needed Ugandan shillings (there is no way of getting cash in DRC and it is not possible to get Ugandan currency in UK) so we went to the Barclays cash machine in Entebbe – it was “Unavailable at this time”. So we went, a little apprehensively, to the Stanbick cash machine that had not given us money on our last visit. All was well and we got the cash.

This time we were getting from Entebbe to Arua (NW Uganda, near the border and crossing point for Aru) by internal flight. This was our first flight in a small, 15 seater, plane. We have had tales of people without actual tickets not getting on if the flight is full, we had an email reservation only. We have also had tales of bags not getting on if the small space for baggage is full – the emails were very clear that, if there was not space for all the bags they would follow on a later flight (the flights are every other day…).. So, as the day progressed thoughts begin and grow of:

·       “Is our hand baggage too big?”,

·       “What happens if our bags are delayed?” (we cannot go back to Arua to collect them once in Aru as we don’t have multi-entry visas).

It wasn’t encouraging when we got to check in that there were 8 people ahead of us and it looked as if the flight would be full, would we get on at all? Suffice it to say that, of course, we (and our bags) got on and there were no problems. The flight was full but enjoyable.

We were met at Arua, as arranged, by Abubaker, our driver. He took us to the border and our passports were stamped as exiting Uganda. The car to pick us up arrived, with people we knew well from our last visit, all that remained to do was to get our DRC visa….

On our last visit we had got our visas in the UK. This had required a “Letter of invitation”, duly stamped by DRC immigration. Despite strenous efforts this had not been possible this time. However, we know many people have got visas at the border so we did not anticipate difficulties.

DRC visas are expensive. Visas are paid for in dollars and we had sufficient dollars for 2 x 1mth visas. However, the immigration officer refused to give us visas for one month and said we had to buy 6 month visas. This was, he said, because we had previously had visas for 6 months so it was not possible to get one for just one month. This was more dollars than we had – the total cost would be $800 instead of $366.

So, what do we do? Turn back, having come a mighty long way? There were various phone calls to others in the diocese but to no avail. He insisted this was the way it was and he was not going to give us a visa for one month.

We knew we had some dollars for the journey back, and some spare, so checked how much we had. Because some costs in Entebbe had been less than expected it turned out that we had exactly the required total of $800. The question then was did we want to pay it?

Suffice it say we paid and got our six month visa.

So, we got to the house we stayed in last time, and had a wonderful welcome from various friends we had made. Priscille (our cook from last time) was there and was busy preparing a meal. All our things we had stored at Francesca’s were brought over and we could relax and enjoy ourselves.

The house and environs have changed though. A new building is rapidly in the garden – extra bedrooms; there are now additional beds in the rooms we used as a sort of study and the room we used as a kitchen – so the hall became our ‘kitchen’ (the Bishop didn’t like this so arranged for the bed to be removed, the kitchen has returned to being a kitchen and the hall to being a hall); the bathroom has been tiled, the loo repaired so it fills up consistently well, the sink now drains outside and not onto the floor and the tap and shower have been connected to use water from the large rainwater tank that fills the loo. However, given that there was a dead bat in the tank last year we are not using this water for washing…

Thanks for your interest in our escapades – but we’re actually hoping that the rest of the month will be less eventful!