Brooks
We made it through! What an adventure! Stephen, Justin, Roger and I, along with our driver, all piled into a taxi (the size of a small subaru station wagon) with all of our things and drove from Buja Town, they call Bujumbura, up and around the tip of Lake Taganyika over to the border of Burundi and the Congo, where piles of cars were lined up helter skelter making no sense whatsoever with various folks squatting along the side of the road roasting sticks of meat or selling vegetables and then a few dirty concrete buildings along to the left side of the road, no doors, just openings with a few official people sitting behind desks in them. Up ahead was an old rickety metal pole barrier signifying no crossing til you were officially let through with a couple of police decked out in blue uniforms with pants tucked neatly in their boots and berets on their heads, while they proudly carried their machine guns. So, Stephen led us into one of the buildings where a Burundise official checked out our passports, greeted us in French, and waved us through and off we went....walking ahead and waited for our taxi to come through the barrier.
Then, we all piled back in and I thought we were good to go, but oh no, we were only in the free zone—the in-between zone between Congo and Burundi! Up until now we had been on a paved road, passing poor, poor villages with lots of people walking or riding their bikes with huge bundles of wood or vegetables piled on themselves or their vehicles. Now we were on a partially paved, partially dirt road and approaching another barrier, that looked even more feeble than the one before, but a barrier nevertheless. There were similar structures to the left only these, too, were quite a few steps down from the buildings before, if that could even be possible. They were smaller, dirtier and barely standing. Out we all piled again. This time into the Congolese border crossing. I hadn’t realized we had to cross out of Burundi and then into Congo—two separate crossings! We stepped into one small room where Stephen handed the official our passports. He laughed afterwards saying the officials were so interested in “the visitors”, that they took little interest in him or Justin today! They then led us into an even tinier room where there were two obviously much more important officials sitting behind their desks and to my great comfort two French men and a very decked out French woman all squished in there, too. Without much hesitation, our passports were quickly leafed through, thanks to the thoroughness of my beloved having done his homework and we had gotten our invitation and visas done ahead of time and paid for, so with a quick stamp/stamp and a merci, off we went.
Again, I thought we were done and off, but no, not yet...we went out to the taxi, pulled up in the rocky dirt parking lot in front of the building and about five officials asked which bags were mine. So, they pulled mine out of the car, along with Roger’s and took them into yet another dirty, tiny little room and slung them up on a table. Seriously, there must have been about five guys in there looking in Roger’s suitcases. They barely looked through them and then sent him out. Then all of the sudden all the guys left the room, with just me standing in there and a female official comes swiftly in, big smile on her face and unzips my suitcase. She’s chit-chatting scantily in English as she’s pawing through my stuff and then she says, “Please don’t you have any lotion, just a small bit of some lotion?” I can’t believe it...lotion, lotion, lotion, do I have any? If I do, do I want to give it to her? I asked her, “Do you have any babies?” “Yes,” she says. So, I quickly handed her one of the beanie baby teddy bears I had brought for a gift and she giggled and giggled with delight. Small price to pay, I’d say. So much for all of Roger’s, “Do you have to bring all this stuff?” wouldn’t you say???
So we are here, safe and sound, in Uvira. Already had to change hotels because the first one, the nice one, didn’t have any water....but that’s a whole other story....we’re still blessed...and pray you are, too.
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