Well, after much stress I finally made it to Congo! As if my ups and downs with Samuel before departure were not enough, we had even more excitement while in route to Congo. We left on July 18 in the late afternoon from DC, flew to Brussels, had a 4 hour layover, and began our long flight to Kinshasa through Cameroon. Well, Samuel did excellent on his journey. No airplane accidents or meltdowns so all was good. But, we did experience what I thought was a toss in the air from major turbulence. In fact, our cockpit lost its window while at cruise altitude so we were actually quite lucky. We made are planned stop in Yaounde, Cameroon but did not take off as expected. It is a bit hard to fly with no window first of all and second of all there are not many spare parts at an airport in a developing country.
Brussels Airlines was very good about making us comfortable though. We got a free hotel stay and free meals while we were delayed. It ended up being a much needed break. Sam from his carrier, me from worrying about hauling everything everywhere.
We took off from Yaounde in the evening on the 20th and I finally laid my feet on Congo soil later that day.
The airport was a made house of people and bags. No personal space. But, I got through with minimal incident and the Embassy's expediter and my social sponsor and driver were all there waiting to welcome me. We got to my apartment by around 9pm and I am lucky to have also an excellent office sponsor whose wife is a mom away from home looking out for me.
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