One Sunday, in upcountry Kenya, there was a preacher. And he was preaching and preaching, on and on, he just kept going. By chance, a frog hopped through the open doors at the back of the church and at this the preacher paused and said "what's the frog doing here?" To which a woman near the back replied "He says 'Let my people go.'"
So, it's been almost two weeks since I got back from the DRC, and I still haven't written any insightful thoughts from my time there. It's fair to say that I've been a bit busy, but I'm also aware that I don't want to misrepresent eastern Congo - I'd love to tell you what's the same as in Nairobi rather than what the cost of the past few decades have been. I'll get something written soon.
Meantime, while listening to Coldplay in the office, I was reminded of the video below. It was put together by the Mark and Alison, brother and sister of Marlene who worked in Congo 2006-8 (Angi who worked with Marlene also features in a few of the shots, so here's a shout-out for her and her blog).
So, last Saturday, there I was sitting in my comfy leather seat on an Air Uganda plane that felt no bigger than a learjet, waiting for it to depart Nairobi en route to Entebbe, Uganda. My final destination: eastern D.R.Congo.
In the seats in front were a couple from the office who work across Francophone Africa. Their row had the emergency exit over the wings. The airhostess came to chat to them about how to open the door in the even of an emergency. This is how the spiel went:
In the event of something going wrong, the pilot will come over the intercom saying "Emergency emergency". At this point you will take the crash position with the rest of the passengers. Once we have crash landed, the pilot will switch off the 'fasten seatbelt light' at which point you can open the door. If this does not happen I will scream at you to open the door.
