Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

In a city of an estimated 8 million people, there are going to be lots of cars. And by a lot of cars, I mean more than you can imagine. In an early post, we talked about the "10 Commandments of Driving," but what I failed to mention was the wait time required when driving. The nearest grocery store is about 5 kilometers away (give or take a few blocks). If the streets were empty, I could get there in less than 15 minutes. If there is traffic, the commute can be hours. Yes, hours with an "s."

There are many causes for traffic. There could be a new "pothole" that makes everyone slow down to drive across safely, there could be a car that has broken down and they left it where it was to repair, there could be 3 lanes of people trying to cut one another off instead of one lane of traffic, or it could just be that there are too many cars on the road going in the same direction.

That being said, I got stuck in traffic the other day and decided to take two photos. If you look closely at my side mirror, you will see that I was in the middle of the traffic.

Pausing from making cement bricks to watch
everyone argue about how best to solve the car puzzle

The cause for the traffic jam was a taxi driver. The driver decided to go around another slow driver, except he did not beat the driver facing him. They both slammed on their brakes but the taxi driver swerved and was blocking both lanes of traffic. No vehicles touched and no one was hurt. There was lots of yelling as people tried to figure out how to unblock the other cars, who at this point, were following so closely that the taxi was blocked in. (*I did not take a photo of the incident because I did not think a crowd of people wanted me in their way, snapping photos while they were arguing).

As I grew bored of waiting for the giant puzzle to be solved, I turned to my right and noticed two adorable children playing with a broken box.

Doesn't this melt your heart?

The one in blue pretended to repair the box with a rock and the one in white kept climbing up and down the box. It is amazing how much fun children can have even when they appear to have nothing.

The Congolese Swing

Playgrounds are a rare occurrence. There is no such thing as a public park here. That is something that is sorely missed - a nice open green field for kids to run around and get out their energy. And the few playgrounds that are available charge per person anywhere from $5-$10 for use, which is not something your average Congolese can afford on their daily salary. It does make sense culturally. If no one is using the playground, who is to prevent someone from "borrowing" a piece from the equipment (which could render it unusable or unsafe). This is why the few playgrounds available are behind large gates with people working there to guard the equipment and prevent people from misusing it. The fees go to pay for the guardians and upkeep.

The exceptions are schools. All schools are built behind large gates and people work there all the time, keeping the precious equipment guarded at all times. Each school that I have visited has some sort of playground fashioned out of anything available - old metal trash cans, old tires, metal poles, etc. It is really quite brilliant how resourceful people can be!

The following photos were taken at our little girl's school playground, but she was unable to model the usage due to her collar bone.

But my favorite thing of all is the swing! It is perfect for little ones who must sit back in order to use it and it prevents kids from jumping out of it at enormous heights. It is an old tire turned inside-out. Impressive!

The Big Un-Adventure

Boy, when Kevin and I decide to travel, even our un-adventures turn out adventurous! Today was the big day, the day we were meant to go back to Africa. We loaded up all our bags, car seats, babies, baby bags, and carry-on's into the car and headed to the airport. As we were pulling into the airport, Kevin got a text message from the airline that our 2:27 PM departure was delayed for an hour due to weather issues. An hour is not bad but that left us with only a 35 minute layover in Washington, D.C. with two kids and carry-on's. We decided to talk to counter agent about getting us assistance at the gate to get us there on time.

When we walked into the airport we were greeted with a great surprise! Our friends, the Dodd's, had joined us to assist and we were so grateful! Levi helped load all our bags up while Erin and the kids played with our little girl.

While checking-in, we discovered that our plane was delayed an additional hour due to weather, meaning, we would not make our connecting flight at all. The United Airlines ticketing agent felt bad for our situation and figured out a way to help. He got us transferred to US Airways for a flight to Pennsylvania and then to Brussels. So we moved all our bags down the airport and went to check-in. There, we discovered that only the first bag was free, and with additional bags for each person the cost was much more. After getting checked in, we went back to United to see what to do about the additional charges. Once that was taken care of, we loaded our persons up, said our tearful goodbye's, and headed for security.

Security went as usual. Packing, removing articles, getting hands wiped down, chasing little girl down, getting bags singled out due to medications, chasing little girl down, finding shoes, chasing little girl down, and loading bags, after chasing little girl down. We grabbed some food and sat down for our short wait. While waiting we heard the announcement that all flights to Pennsylvania were being delayed, both in and out. So even though we were delayed, it wasn't by that much. The time went quickly, we loaded the plane with no problems and began to back away from the gate. Unfortunately the dreaded announcement came..."Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing some technical issues and will be heading back to the terminal." Not only were there problems with the plane, the delayed flights to Pennsylvania were being pushed another hour and a half.

Our poor little girl lost it. She wanted to ride the airplane. She cried at the window looking at the airplane, while we tried to determine what our next options were. The next part was a blur of ticketing agents, phone calls back and forth, research, calls to our HQ, calls to their HQ, and all this while we were on our phones looking for connections. During this time, we had a hungry baby, a poopy diaper, an Adah who thought I was another person and ran screaming after them shouting "MOMMY!" in a panic, a meltdown or two, watching our luggage being loaded on another plane while we were in the terminal trying to find a new plane, a few tears (not saying who did that), getting our luggage held back for later, and an overtired screaming baby.

We tried every flight combination we could think of - through Paris on Air France, through Istanbul on Turkish via London Heathrow, Johannesburg on South African Airways, but to no avail. The end result? The exact same original flight from Knoxville-Washington, D.C.-Brussels-Kinshasa, at the exact same time, tomorrow. Whew!

Overall, we were very thankful for kind and patient agents who worked hard to get us on flights (or tried to) and got us refunded on our original luggage as well as a little upgrade on our first leg tomorrow. We were very grateful for having many hands to make a light load this morning and the distraction. We are blessed. And tired. But mostly blessed.