Where to begin
Have you ever had an experience so full and so rich it was difficult to know just where to begin when describing it to someone else? That’s how I felt about a recent trip that I took to Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s been almost three weeks since I returned. Now that I’ve had a chance to process everything, I want to share just a taste of what I experienced.
This trip began in Bangui, the capital of the country of Central African Republic, which is…if you haven’t guessed…right in the center of Africa. It’s the only other country on the continent, besides the Republic of South Africa, which is the name of a geographic region as well as a country name.
I traveled to CAR with two others from South Africa. To get there, we criss-crossed the continent from South Africa up to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the northeast, and then over to Douala, Cameroon in the western part of central Africa, and then finally to Bangui. It was a long trip that took two days of travel.
I only spent two days in Bangui after that. I met with the team that would be staying in CAR to gather stories there, and then I hopped on a small plane and headed to the city of Gemena in the Equateur province of northern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congo… after months of planning, we had arrived.
This was just the beginning of what would be an amazing week.
More to come.
*Photos courtesy of Maralee Gutierrez. In the photos with me are Maralee, Bolobo Obed, Goma Mbele, and our pilot, Rob.
You’ve got me interested…waiting for the ‘rest of the story’
More coming soon!
I recognize that terminal. But when I was there I was strictly forbidden from taking photos. But the photog in my can’t resist the risk of going to jail, so I snuck a few frames here and there.
That’s so true! It’s often off-limits to take photos at airports. But, it’s all in who you know. Because we were traveling with the director of ACOTBA-SUBO, and he asked for us, they were fine with us getting the photos. I think that maybe one of the guys from the airport snapped this. How about that