This morning we sent 170 kilos of our stuff on a flight to Bangui. After the plane leaves us in Gemena Wednesday it will go to Bangui to pick up our stuff and bring it back on Thursday AM.
But, the morning did not go without hassles. Always seems to be something. Due to strong rainstorm after their arrival Sat, the plane could not return to the hangar as the smaller airport. It was parked at the international airport which is not a problem. The pilot and helpers were out at 5 to fuel the plane today. We were there Eddie & Linda Mensinger and our luggage at 5h30. Normally there is no problem getting it through the airport to the plane. Nothing is going on that early and commonly you have to wake up the officials you need to serve you. Today, however, the customs agent said that with the new rules (since when we don’t know) all the luggage had to come in to the terminal and go through the scanner. The pilot argued against this, that they had never done this in over 20 years. To no avail. Then we had to find the guy to run the scanner. “He’s not here yet. He’ll come soon.” Those are words the people in Africa don’t like to hear as they may mean that it could be any length of time before the person arrives. After 10-15 minutes the guy showed up and scanning went quite quickly. Then take the luggage to the plane, see how much they can squeeze in and off they go. They had hoped to be airborn at 6h15 and were probably about 50 minutes late. One more chapter to the book about travails while traveling in Africa.
