We returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 7. Our biggest travel concern was showing up at the airport in Goma, DRC, with 11 people and 25 pieces of checked luggage; having that much luggage would pretty much guarantee us having to negotiate a bribe—oh, sorry, I meant 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 had to wear their travel clothes for a few more days until the bags showed up.
Once we had all of our baggage, we began purchasing our needed supplies and trying to secure a flight from Goma up to Minembwe on a small plane. 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 we finally arrived back in Minembwe on May 20.
Our ranks have been bolstered by Joseph (21, Oregon, USA) and Hadassah (20, Washington, USA), who are going to work alongside us for the next four months. Another Ostrander also joined us on this trip; please allow me to introduce you to Kassandra Saoirse, born December 17.
The photo below is from our arrival back in 2018.
Our stuff.