The Brussels airport is surprisingly un-special. I thought it would be a European High Commission-type of place, but it was more like a Cleveland feeling. I also think it is peculiar to have one terminal dedicated entirely to flights to and from Africa. I get out of my United flight from Chicago, and take the bus to the T-terminal along with all the Africans. On Brussels airlines, I sit next to the window in 22K, and one French speaking Congolese man sits next to me. Plane is full of crying kids. I sleep most of the way.

The DRC Congo, the heart of Africa, exploited and war-torn. What am I doing going to Kinshasa you may ask? Is it safe? Aren’t there diseases everywhere, like Ebola? Well, I have discovered that I am a relatively fear-free person, and that I know that people are human all over the world. There are dangerous places in San Francisco and even Stockholm. I love the rainforests and I love birds, and I love working with my students from Cameroon who are joining me. I am involved in a USAID funded project to study the biodiversity in shade-grown cocoa plantations. Do more trees help with biodiversity? And more in my specialty; do avian diseases differ between pristine and agricultural sites. In plantations, what kind of mosquitoes move in? There are all kinds of human diseases emerging on the planet, i.e. Covid, but we have to understand that equally devastating pathogens are haunting wildlife.

Kinshasa

I arrive, and first we have to take a bus off the plane. I never understand these busses, because it literally is like 100 meters to the terminal. We get off the bus and go through a warehouse where the people are squeezed through one small door, and supposed to show their covid documents. It looks like a makeshift hall with stacked chairs everywhere. Then we go into the terminal proper. The airport is very very small for a city of 15 million people.  Hardly any airplanes there at all. I go through immigration without any problem. Then I see the masses of people waiting for bags. It is so chaotic.  I only see one of my action packers, on the belt, which honestly moves too fast. Then finally a second one, and then my backpack, so I feel relieved. Finally, I have all my stuff. But no trolley to cart the 5 bags, more than 250 lbs (113 kilos). 3 action packers, one big Gregory backpack, and my North Face duffel bag. Everything for the field for one month, including my tent, all the equipment for birds and insects, and lab supplies. I see the guy from St. Anne’s procure hotel holding a sign written Mrs. Ravinder Sehgal. Isn’t this supposed to be a passenger area, how did he get in? The guys who cart my stuff on one trolley want $50 for putting it through the x-ray. I end up giving them $10.  Then the other guys who move my stuff to the minivan want $2 each, I give them $10 because that is all I have.  So, $20 to get out of the airport. 40-minute drive through Kinshasa. Loud wedding at the hotel, but I have ear plugs. I leave the 3 action packers in the reception desk. My students from Cameroon arrive at 2:30 am. It is a wonderful joyous reunion after several years. 

If you know me, you know that Ethiopian food is my favorite. So I convince my Cameroonian friends that we try to go to the Ethiopian restaurant in Kinshasa, which I found on Google. We take a taxi all the way to where it’s supposed to be, near the French embassy. But no one has heard of an Ethiopian restaurant. So we walk all around, and finally the 4 of us get on two scooters, 3 people per scooter including the driver, and they take us to the place where they sell crafts and artisan stuff. No Ethiopian restaurant is to be found. We are starving and decide to eat what they can give us. About 45 minutes later, I get some French fries and a little bit of salad, just the salad costs $5. They get two grilled chickens, which cost $13 each. The Cameroonians are surprised by the high prices, but they like the chicken. It is a place for tourists, and our meal ends up costing $56 for the food plus soft drinks. Definitely western prices. 

Then we take a taxi back, and start to go through the action packers. I am itching to see the Congo river, so I go for a walk, but all the areas near the river are fenced off with barbed wire. I can’t really see the river. Kinshasa is crowded with fancy shopping districts, and also poverty. Lots of traffic and lots of people.

To Kisangani.

Next morning, we leave the hotel at 5:30 am for the 8:45 am flight. Hundreds of people jogging on the highway dodging the cars early in the morning. The airport experience coming to Kinshasa was pretty easy. Traveling in the domestic terminal was completely different. Absolutely crazy. I haven’t experienced anything like this, except maybe Indian train stations years ago. It was so many people trying to get into the tiny terminal and chaos about getting the bags on the flight. Luckily, I am with some students from DRC. The process is like this, although this makes it seem easy:

(I include this information because I couldn’t find anything on the web about traveling domestically in the DRC)

Trust the hotel driver to do everything.  He has our passports and money.

1. He gets our Go Passes, $15 each.

2. He tries to get our bags in the line to get loaded on the plane. This takes more than an hour.  He takes my backpack and my carry-on, and I just hold onto the laptop. I am concerned because I have a lot of important stuff including money in the backpack. I just let it go. That is my fearlessness and trusting nature. This wouldn’t be easy for a lot of people. It is really chaotic. I try to take a photo but an undercover policeman takes my phone and tells me to erase it.

3. Finally we get our stuff weighed. I have to pay $108 in excess baggage fees. The driver pays that at a different office. DRC uses dollars for everything, hardly anyone uses DRC currency because it is so low in value. 

4. He gives us the boarding passes and passports back, just minutes before the plane is supposed to leave.

5. Immigration, where they ask for bribes (why do they need immigration if it is domestic?)

6. Covid vaccine documentation.

7. Security, where they ask for bribes. I didn’t give any money to these people.

8. Show Go Pass and boarding pass and get on the plane.

Plane flight is fine. Then upon landing in Kisangani, more chaos. The airport is small. Again, the buses, but I just walk to the terminal. First immigration, where a man writes my name in a book with my passport number and also looks at my university invitation. This takes about 30 minutes. I find out that the next day my Cameroonian students had to pay $30 for this step, but I was lucky and got out for free. Then the truck dumps all the luggage, and everyone has a free-for-all finding their stuff in a warehouse. Truck nearly running us over. Then show bag tags to the guy at the door, and carry all the stuff to the parking lot where the driver is waiting to take me to the Canon hotel. I wait 90 minutes for vegan spaghetti, then take a motorbike to see the Congo river, and then buy a pineapple (best sweetest ever) and some water. 

My main attitude here, act important and be confident. Then things happen.

Kisangani contrasts to Kinshasa because it has fewer cars. It is famous for its rapids and the way people catch fish. I like going around on the motorbikes and practicing my French. Not many birds here, but lots of posters of okapis, the elusive forest giraffes that are hidden in the forest we are about to visit.

Today I give a seminar at the University of Kisangani, and we will buy a month’s worth of food for the 5 of us. Then tomorrow we head out to the Okapi Reserve.  That is, if we get our final permit from the Director General in Kinshasa. In any case, we are going somewhere, to do some good science.  I will be camping in the rainforest for the next 3 weeks. My joy will be seeing the rainforest, in one of the few remaining pristine areas of Africa.