Hello everyone!

It’s Thursday evening, just past 9:00 pm. Here in Brazzaville, it has been dark for hours now. It still feels like the temperature is lingering somewhere around 75-80 degrees, and the humidity is fairly high as well. It might be a little cooler, but the humidity makes it feel that warm. I am really not a good judge of the relationship between the two yet. Although it feels late, there are plenty of sounds and smells all around. There is a taxi just up the street honking the horn (they do a ton of that). I can hear the crickets, vehicles, distant music and the sound of voices on the street every once in a while.

Our windows here at “Hotel Bravo” have glass in them. They are the kind like in old mobile homes in the States, where they are narrow horizontal slats that flip open together. I am not really sure why the glass is there; I can’t see any reason why you would want to close them. Air circulation is way too important to close the windows when it’s always this hot. There is a small fan on a stand in our room, and it stays on all the time. At night it only does so much to move the air, since the net over the bed tends to block most of the moving air. Oh well. At least we have power! That changes depending on your location in town. Streets with important government or health buildings on them tend to have the power on most of the time. Other streets have frequent outages, sometimes for days at a time. From what I understand, the town power goes off at 6:00, and then it is dark except for where there are generators. We have one here, so we have power all the time. It’s nice. We even have the use of a small refrigerator, so we have cold filtered water to drink, and even can keep juice and yogurt cold.

I should say something about the trip here, and the nightmare that is called the Maya Maya Aeroporte. Then I will get to the taxi cabs and roads. The trip here was a series of small “twangs” as we have come to call them. It’s just a name for the things that are small discomforts that can add up to a serious level of pain and discouragement. We arrived at JFK with Scott Miller (who was volunteered by his loving wife to chauffeur us and our luggage to the airport in New York City traffic in a rented cargo van) almost 2 hours before they began accepting check-ins. We got to stand around for that time, but being the first ones in line ended up paying off very well. There was a bit of concern as to whether we would get all 14 of our containers on the plane. After some questioning behind the counter, we were allowed to check it all in… at three times the price that the website had informed us. We were on our way. After saying goodbye to Scott, we went through security, found our gate, and picked out seats to do our waiting in for the next 3 hours or so.

Our gate got changed, so we had to move to the other location where we spent the remainder of our time before boarding the plane. As a side note, it is a huge racket buying food at the airport. It cost $17 for a hot dog, 2 drinks, and a small sandwich. In Morocco I spent $20 and got even less food. Anyways, our flight left a little early, and we were on our way to Africa. I enjoyed the flight, Michael was too warm, and Danielle felt sick. I was the one who was supposed to feel sick, but I had the last laugh. The only pain I experienced was the swelling and throbbing of the right side of my face, from the abscessed tooth that started hurting the day before (good timing: holiday weekend, no insurance, no time before our flight, and I get a major dental issue).

Each of us attempted to sleep on the plane, but it was just about fruitless. My face hurt too much to sleep long, Michael was uncomfortable, and Danielle was getting kicked from behind by the screaming little girl who just wouldn’t stop.The entire airplane was packed with Moroccans, all speaking in Arabic, and kids were running everywhere for most of the flight. Of course, the parents weren’t paying any mind at all to their children (which drives us nuts). There was plenty of turbulence, but I found that doesn’t bother me at all. That was somewhat surprising to me, to be honest. I found the ride to be comfortable other that my butt getting tired of the seat every once in a while, forcing me to change positions more than a few times.

Seven and a half hours later, we landed at the Royal Moroccan Mohammed IV Airport; at least I think the name was something close to that. It was right around 7 am there, and the air was pleasantly cool stepping off the plane. We were shuttled across the lot and to the airport entrance, where we were to go to Transfers. One problem: my guitar had been taken from me as we boarded in NY to be checked with strollers and things like that. I saw these being brought out as we were whisked away on the shuttle bus, leaving the task of getting it from the baggage claim. As we were told to go to Transfers, we unwittingly followed directions and got eternally separated from Baggage. Nobody at the airport spoke more than a few words of English, they all thought we were trying to go to NY. Somehow, we were directed to go to Gate 26, which ended up being the gate for an Air France flight to Paris. I am still not sure how that happened, but I left Danielle and Michael there to wait as I began the long frustrating journey to retrieve my guitar.

I will spare all of the agony as I retrace my path to success. First, I went backwards through the gate to security, and then on to an information desk. (They really don’t like you going the wrong way through security stations, by the way.) Information was not nearly informative other than to point in the general direction of the baggage claim and send me away without a single useful clue where I was going. I found it eventually, after having to go through immigration to get to it. There was my guitar sitting on a cart of other unclaimed items (I presume).  With my claim ticket in one hand and passport in the other, I stood around for what felt like forever (a few minutes) until a random airport worker walked by and asked me what I was doing. After telling him that my guitar was right there, he said “just take it, it’s yours, right?” It made sense, but I felt like someone needed to know I was taking it and not just wandering off with a piece of baggage. I got tired of standing there, so I took it and off I went. The return trip was another adventure, since I could not return by the same way I had come. I had to go through another immigration station in another part of the building, so I had to fill out my information all over again and get my passport stamped again. The one from 10 minutes ago was not good enough. I wound up at another information desk and was sent off in another direction that sent me back finally to the first building that I had come from. It only took about another 5-10 minutes to get back to Danielle and Michael from there. I was amazed to realize that only a little over an hour had passed all together. I was not at all happy, but at least we were back together.

Our next flight was too far away to be posted on any of the boards yet, so we found some comfy seats and waited, glancing every little bit at the sign to see if it was there yet. Around noon, it appeared, and we moved to our gate and got seats there. From the window, all of our luggage was visible, so it was obvious that this was the correct place to be. At the proper time, we boarded the plane. This time I was allowed to carry my guitar on the flight.

The flight was not direct like the previous one had been. There was a stop in Cameroon, at Douala. We stayed on the plane, and just a few people got off and a few more boarded; then we were in the air again. It was 2 hours to Brazzaville, our final stop for the week. I had heard stories about the Maya Maya Aeroporte in Brazzaville, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could prepare us for what met us there. If you can imagine the hottest, stickiest, dirtiest, tiny airport on the planet, you are getting warm. But it’s worse than that. Let me enlighten you.

We stepped off the plane at 11:00 at night, and the heat and humidity were pretty bad; but we were ready for that. A small shuttle drove us 100 feet across the lot and to the entrance, where we walked through the doors into the arrivals section. There were about 30 or 40 of us arriving, and we were definitely the whitest, most English-speaking people in the place. We were tired. We were sore. We were sweating. While Danielle and Michael stood behind me, I filled out our immigration cards with our passport information. Adolfe (a small, very nice Congolese man) came up to us, carrying a small sign made of marker on green construction paper, with my name on it. He was arranged to pick us up and acquire our luggage for us. He also had our yellow certificates that were  needed to get through the health inspection. Unfortunately, there were 2 drawbacks we would face. The first being that he speaks basically no English at all. The second issue was that our driver had gone AWOL and would not be driving our luggage back to the mission guest house.

As we made it past immigration and then past the health officer, the real fun began. We had been previously told to walk confidently past security, not looking them inn the eye. If they flag you down, say “mbote” which means hello in Lingala, and they might check a couple of packages. Nothing could be further from what happened in our case. Most of the guards were okay with us passing by, but one lady in particular did not like the looks of us, and was going to give us a very hard time. She succeeded, by the way. She started yelling something at me in French, demanding to check our luggage. She started out wanting to examine all 14 pieces, but in the end only looked at 5 or 6. I was not handling the luggage, but I was getting yelled at about it. This is how baggage works there: the baggage claim area is tiny. Along the opposite wall from the carousel is a row of carts that kind of look like shopping carts, but with no basket, just a frame. They are supposed to have 4 wheels on them, but the guys hanging around the airport rip the front ones off so that nobody can really use them. The idea is that you hire them to move your stuff because it’s too much of a pain in the rear for you to do it. It works for them, but they are terrible cart drivers none the less. I watched them dump pretty much all of our stuff at least twice. So there we were. Danielle and Michael were once again standing against a wall, out of the way. Our luggage was on this cart over here, some on that cart over there, some dumped all over the floor, and I was standing in the middle getting hollered at in French. I was totally incapable of processing a single word of it in that setting, that late at night, and that sore and tired. Oh yeah, and it’s really noisy there, too.

After what seemed like a long time, we were allowed to pass through, without losing a single item from our luggage. Praise the Lord! I helped the last guy carry the tail end of our stuff out to the parking lot, where none other than Paul Ohlin was loading  it into the truck. Paul and his wife are missionaries in Central African Republic. He just happened to be in town and offered to help us out. He was such a blessing to us for our first few days here. He leaves Saturday, and we won’t see him again for quite some time, if I am not mistaken. Anyways, he drove us to “Hotel Bravo” and helped us get our luggage inside the house and find our room. Then it was off to bed… after a shower!

The morning found us somewhat refreshed, but still quite bewildered by what faced us for our time here. I was very upset that Dr. Harvey had given us what I felt was a false sense of confidence about how easy it would be here in Brazzaville. We had a few things we needed to do, but we had no idea how much  it would be up to us to get them accomplished almost on our own. Looking back, I am glad it went that way. We were forced to survive on our own, and it made us grow in ways that will benefit us a lot in the future of traveling in Africa without a babysitter. We are stronger for the experience we have had here. Back to the story, well, there’s not much more important stuff to tell without laying out the entire chronicle of our daily events since then. What I can say is that Michael has made friends with another boy over at SIL (some Wycliffe Bible Translators are there), and we have spent a bit of time there, as well as making friends of our own with some of the missionaries there. We are learning that the status of missionaries here is like a continuous carousel, with people getting on and off all the time. Of all of the missionaries here, there are another 30% more out of town on furlough, trips to other areas to work for a few weeks, or on trips to see family in other places for a short time. It’s kind of strange, but we’ll get used to it. Danielle still speaks little to no French, and soon will have to begin learning Lingala. My competency in speaking French is being stretched daily, and my vocabulary grows every day. God has been very good to us here, and we trust that will continue. My tooth was taken care of by a very good, very expensive French dentist here in town- praise the Lord for that! I know I didn’t get to the roads and all of that, but this is getting so long. If you want to know about the rest, let me know. I can fill you in with another e-mail.

The arrangements and details have been taken care of for our departure to Impfondo on Tuesday morning. We should fly out of here by 9:00am and meet the Harveys for lunch. The flight is an hour or two, so not bad at all, and the plane is a DC-9, for those of you who were curious. As soon as we get the chance in Impfondo, we will update you again. It won’t be so long next time, I promise!! I just thought that you might be very interested in what it is like to make the trip. In addition, you might be scared enough to try to get us more support, to ensure that God won’t need to call on you to do this! Of course I am just kidding, but we do still need prayer for more commitments for support to come in. We also REALLY need your prayers! Thank you for your prayers thus far; God has surely answered many of them already! The fact that we are here is more than enough proof of that.

Please feel free to respond to this e-mail. We would love to hear from you. In the mean time, we will attempt to post some pictures on Facebook later tonight for your viewing pleasure. We love you all and miss you very much! Know that you are in our thoughts and prayers continually. God bless you, and we will be in touch again as soon as we can.

Hello~

Now that you have heard from Art, this is Danielle dropping in. You have read about all the things that have happened to us as a family. But I thought you would like to know how I am doing.   I am doing ok, very confused, my lack of understanding French is a huge problem here in Brazzaville.  I can’t do anything on  my own without Art or another French speaker with me.  I was able to go to the Market on Saturday with the care takers wife here at Hotel Bravo.  It was a very interesting experience that I am not sure I will want to have again anytime soon.  An outdoor market in Congo is crowded, loud with both French and Lingala being yelled everywhere, smelly, food being cooked, meat being cut and all kinds of fruit and veggies.  It is very disconcerting to have people yelling Mdella at you constantly, at first I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be and offense or what it was.  I forgot that is just their way of trying to get your attention so you will buy something from them, because after all you are white so that means you have money.  I have to admit it will take me a bit to get used to how you buy food here, there is not a Wegmans or Tops to be seen.

Yesterday we attended a French speaking church service. It hit me that I HAVE to learn how to fit in here and learn the language and fast. Not understanding scripture or worship songs was very hard for me.  I was able to recognize a couple of songs but not 90% of the service.

Being thrown into this life has been a good way for us to learn to adapt quickly.  Michael has made a couple of friends among the English speaking missionaries, however he is rather annoyed to find out most of the kids his age here are girls.  So pray that he will find a few Congolese friends in Impfondo is age.  He will have Noah Harvey to play with, but he is going on furlow soon and will be gone till October.

Well I will end it here so you don’t have to spend hours reading.

With love and prayers from Brazzaville,

Art, Danielle & Michael
Ralston Family Missionaries in Republic of CONGO
www.laborersfortheharvest.com
www.goingmissionary.blogspot.com