June 30: Gemena to Kinshasa
Since coming back from the RG Africa Conference on May 5th, we have had June 30th always in the back of our minds, knowing that that would be our final day at ELIKYA. We have been working and watching our remaining time whittled down from a month and a half to several weeks, to just a few days and finally the day itself came. We had packed one suitcase and a trunk, two carry-ons and a backpack. The rest of our stuff was either left for the Elikya Center or had been given away in the preceding days. Our luggage sat in the living room while we ate a final breakfast of bread and guavas and waited for the truck to arrive to take us to the airport. When it finally came up the road shortly before 7AM we felt the finality of it. Now just a few more minutes and ELIKYA would go from being our home to being a place where we once lived and worked. We brought our bags out and began saying goodbyes. Then we locked up the house and climbed into the truck and were off to the mission where we waited for a couple hours as our luggage was taken to the airport and formalités dispensed with. The truck then returned for us and within an hour and a half we were on board a flyCongo airplane awaiting departure for Kinshasa via Mbandaka.
Our flight was uneventful and by midafternoon we had navigated N’djili airport (with a lot of help) and were lodged in the Hotel Finesse, where a buffet dinner awaited us. Eating French fries, grilled chicken breast, rice and cabbage and drinkinga Sprite in an air-conditioned room made Gemena feel worlds away already. So this afternoon we are to have a pizza lunch with Pastor Selenga—a former CECU President and currently the Director of ReachAfrica—and his wife, Claudine. Then we are to see the sights in Kin this afternoon and this evening prep for our departure early tomorrow afternoon.
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| Soleil in the back of Selenga's car, checking out Kinshasa |
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| Kinshasa downtown streetscape |
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