Phase Two: Brazzaville to Addis Ababa

We spent several days in Brazzaville with family and went to a small gathering on New Year’s Day

My sister-in-law did the girls’ hair for the trip and we bought them new shoes

Saying goodbye to our relatives and a very special aunt

We got to the airport about 3 hours before our flight was due to leave. The airport is small and the lines are short, there are very few gates so we cut it a little closer by only going 3 hours in advance. We shouldn’t have. We took two taxis to fit our luggage and the cousins who wanted to accompany us. Quick pic at the airport before saying goodbye to the boy cousins:

Every little step took awhile and we found ourselves starting to get a little nervous about the time. Goofing around with Papa while waiting for our bags to be weighed:

It was the typical inconvenience of the way the baggage and ticket check-in counter is set up. Check in, get boarding passes (this took almost a hour for some glitch in their system), weigh bags then take bags to get scanned then pick up bags to check them in again. We moved our way through the airport at a clumsy and slow pace, having to show our passports and itinerary about 9 times, dropping money into hands here and there to get through.

Everything was going okay until we got to the immigration checkpoint (don’t ask me why they have this for people LEAVING the country) and then we ran into trouble. Actually I think they saw us coming and set this check point up just for us. I’m not joking. The guy in charge was definitely on a power trip. You can always tell people like him from the first words out of their mouth, and it usually comes down to feeling important and getting money. After seeing all the regular passports and itinerary, he said the kids needed visas. Visas to go to the US with US passports? Interesting. He clarified. “Oh yeah. That’s right. No they need visas for Congo.” We told him they had Congolese passports and didn’t need visas. True facts. He demanded to see all the kids Congolese passports. Why do they even need them to travel? Answer: they don’t. Not going this direction. Then he wondered why the baby didn’t have a Congolese passport yet, only an American one. “Um, because you have slow system.” Getting the Congolese passports out was a real hassle as I had them buried under stuff in my carry on. We thought we only needed the American ones to travel to America. Then he pointed out that my visa was expired. True facts. But hey, I’m leaving the country…We said we’d pay the fine or whatever. But he just kept trying to make more trouble by asking for different things and trying to separate Orcxance and I and make us get upset. Well, it kind of worked.

I’m used to talking my way out of every situation and sometimes using money, but Orcxance didn’t want me to argue much. For me, arguing in a polite way has gotten me out of a lot of trouble in this country but this time it wasn’t working. I know it would have gone better if I’d been alone but something about seeing us together just got him riled up. We asked how much he wanted us to pay for the expired visa and he wouldn’t say. He didn’t even know how much a visa cost and I wasn’t about to tell him. He was enjoying making me miserable. Everyone else was enjoying watching the scene from a safe distance. You could tell by their guilty faces that this wasn’t proper procedure. I knew that it would all end at some point and he would let us through, but I was not confident it would happen before our plane left the ground. At this point I panicked a bit, and I was kneeling on the ground digging through my hand luggage with Salem in the baby carrier on me. I found the passports and tossed them out at the officer. Note to reader: Do not, under any circumstances throw, toss, shove or push passports at an immigration officer. Me getting upset made him dig in more and he demanded that the children needed Congolese visas which was stupid and untrue. He just told Orcxance and the kids to move on and told me I couldn’t go. Thankfully Orcxance keeping his cool and the last of our Congolese money was enough to get us out of the situation and on through security to our gate. We arrived as people were boarding and after another check of our carry-on luggage we got on the plane.

Side note: the previous weekend we had a situation that I didn’t think Orcxance handled particularly well but I really ate humble pie at the airport for how I behaved.

The flight went to Point Noire first for a quick cleaning and restock, (we stayed on the plane) and more passengers came on. A meal was served and the girls napped here and there. Molly felt quite sick but Eileen was having a grand time. I just kept feeding her snacks and finally she fell asleep. Orcxance had Aravis and I had Salem. I wanted him to have the window seat and I think he enjoyed the views. Aravis did pretty well on the first flight so we had no warning of Things to Come. Leaving Point Noire and seeing the beautiful coastline was quite something. We arrived in Addis in good time, went out into the cold open air of Ethiopia and chaos began. Stay tuned for Phase 3.