DAY ONE
It is not so difficult to get up at 4am when you know that with the sunrise comes the beginning of a road trip like no other. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been embedded on my heart for as long as I have known that God was calling me to Africa, so you can imagine both the overpowering excitement and the underlying anxiety that got out of bed with me the morning I started my long journey to the Congo. It was going to be just three of us travelling, but with the very real possibility of our car breaking down on the journey we added the Hands @ Work mechanic to our party. And so before sunrise the four of us piled into the rickety old truck and set off – Dan our volunteer coordinator, Dave the mechanic, Sibu the Swazi and me. Road trips are rarely about the destination but about what happens on the journey. This one was different – the journey itself was made even more incredible because it anticipated an incredible destination.
We drove through South Africa the whole morning, stopping every half an hour for Dan and Dave to pee, until we reached the Botswana border at lunchtime. Despite the reputation of African border posts we actually sailed through and headed into Botswana. The rumours I had been told before I left turned out to be true: it is literally full of donkeys. More donkeys than people for sure. It’s actually the reason it is too dangerous to drive through Botswana at night – you’ll likely hit a donkey. It is also incredibly flat. On the straight roads that run from South to North you can see for miles upon miles around you. No mountains or trees to block the view and few towns or villages scattered along the roads – Botswana is no man’s land. The surplus of donkeys quickly lost its novelty and we were instead hooked on the families of elephants that roamed wild by the roadside in the North of the country. We stopped a couple of times to take pictures; Dave got some of him holding a big wad of elephant poop. By the time the sun started to set we weren’t near enough to the lodge where we had planned to stay, so instead we booked into a little getaway spot about ten kilometres into the Botswana bush. We had the honour of sharing in Sibu’s first ever experience of a swimming pool – amazing to watch! Nothing will knock you out like 16 hours driving, and after a little something to eat we hit the hay and slept like babies.
DAY TWO
I hadn’t realised when we started out just how many firsts this trip would involve for our Swazi friend Sibu. After another 4am start, hot footing the final part of Botswana to the Zambian border, we crossed the Zambezi river on Sibu’s first ever boat ride. He was anxious when Dan told him to watch out for crocs and hippos. On the other side we spent a good while getting through Zambian border control, but eventually were allowed into the country and headed straight for Victoria Falls, about 70km from the border. It is dry season in Southern Africa, and so the Falls were not the great thundering walls of water that I was expecting but more of a dry canyon with a great green river streaming through the middle. The upside to visiting in dry season is that you can walk along the top of the falls. As we waded through the Zambezi feeling like Livingstone himself we came across a big family of elephants by the riverside. Naturally, we chased them. We darted through the bushes, enduring the thorns in our feet, to get as close to them as we could. It was the most amazing experience and an absolute gift of God, and we sat there watching elephants as wild as ever we’d see them. After stalking big game (Dave took another picture of himself with elephant poop) we spent some time walking along the top of the Falls. I took the opportunity to scare Dan by hopping along the edge and jumping down to ledges out of sight so it looked like I’d fallen off the side. We stumbled upon an amazing pool right on the edge, hidden amongst the rocks that no one else seemed to have found. So we dived in off the rock about 5 metres above it and discovered it was so deep we couldn’t reach the bottom. It was so close to the edge of the Falls that if we’d gotten out in the wrong place we would have fallen off the side. But we didn’t, and once we’d finished in our secret swimming pool we got out and headed back to the car and onwards to Livingstone, where we spent the night in a little hotel.
DAY THREE
The day started early again with a 4am dip in the hotel’s swimming pool. We left Livingstone as the sun started to rise and headed northwards through Zambia, stopping in on a few of our Hands friends along the way. At a place called Kabwe we met with Beth and Ali, two of the volunteers from my own intake that had since been placed in Zambia. It was great to see them again, and after having a little to eat in their place we bundled them into our beaten up old truck and headed back out on the road, destination: the Hands @ Work farm in Luanshya, North Zambia. We got there hours later to find the place without power, which meant a rather romantic candlelit dinner prepared by three more of our volunteer intake – Alisha, Janine and Sara. We spent the evening talking, catching up and finding out what was happening where they were. It was absolutely incredible to see them again, but three days travelling, 48 hours of which spent in the car, had taken its toll and our charismatic company was tainted with an overwhelming tiredness from all 4 of us, so we headed to bed.
DAY FOUR
Dave, Sibu, Beth and Ali took the truck back to Kabwe, where Dave will spend some time before travelling home and Sibu will spend two weeks before joining me and Dan here in the Congo. The rest of us began our day heading over to a prayer meeting with a local Hands @ Work service centre, after which we travelled onwards to Kitwe where Janine and Sara have been placed to work. After spending time there James, the leader of Hands in Zambia, and Janine drove Dan and I northwards to the DRC border. We had to wait a while for Erick, the Hands @ Work DRC coordinator, but once he arrived we headed straight through to border control. Despite what we had been told to expect it was a surprisingly quick and easy process – the fastest border crossing yet. We said goodbye to Janine and James as we stood in no man’s land between Zambia and the Congo. Thunder clapped overhead and the bright skies in Zambia behind us became thick with black clouds, lightening and rain in front – like the weather too was subject to border control. It was hilarious – a metaphor written in the skies in the black clouds that introduced us to the place they call ‘the heart of darkness.’ On the other side we encountered the chaotic bustle of the Congo streets and hailed a taxi to make our way to Lubumbashi, 70km from the border. There we picked up Erick’s car and drove onwards towards Likasi, DRC – my home for the next five weeks. I love this place. It is vibrant red and green, just like I imagined, and in the storm that welcomed us to the country the earth and plants burst into colour. The drive from Lubumbashi to Likasi was probably the most precarious I’ve ever been on. At one point the car almost broke down in the middle of the flooded Congo countryside. Dan and I took it in turns to sit in the front seat helping Erick figure out whether it was safe to overtake and how far away those headlights rushing towards us actually were. But despite the rain, the Congolese enthusiasm for dodgy driving and Erick’s CD that only had three songs on played repeatedly for the two hour journey, we made it to Likasi sane and in one piece. I cannot wait to step into what God has in store for us here in the DRC. The journey was incredible, an adventure I hadn’t expected, but was nothing compared to what is ahead. I want to explore God’s heart for the Congo, step boldly into his plans and promises for me and discover as best I can the dreams he has written for this amazing nation. Bring it on!
