If you have watched any of the episodes of the Congocast (Episode 9 to be exact) – we are officially experiencing crazy Congo! We’ve had a few visitors in our house (a chicken and a cat have both tried to make themselves at home – Erin, our writer on the trip, has named the furry feline “Edgar”)… but that was just the start!

We had our first rain day yesterday. It was beautiful as we drove up a ridge allowing us to see an incredible vista of the city. The panorama also afforded us a view of the approaching rain bands as they climbed the hills in the distance. We were attempting to find one of the people we will be interviewing while we are here (when cellphones are not prevalent tracking people down can be very difficult). As we got further up the hill the small drops of rain transformed into a torrential downpour.

*NOTE: This is not a good thing when the city you are in has no roads – but mud paths that look like BMX moguls.

With little notice we were sliding around on the incline, the tires spinning, the van swerving back and forth. Robin did her best to control the rented 4×4 mini-van – but suddenly we landed ourselves sideways across both sides of the muddied path a few feet from skidding off the road and into a ditch where a small wooden home sat.

We began to push the car from behind – hoping that we wouldn’t slide further towards the ditch. After pushing and not getting anywhere we realized that the car was never in four wheel drive! So we threw it into 4×4 and began the trip down the mountain.

Needless to say we are happy to have gotten off that hillside without injury! We had to take the car to the shop today because our little adventure was a little too much wear and tear for our van. In took all afternoon for them to fix the “click, click” sound that it was making. We’re not sure if it is totally fixed – but the pastor that we are working with here told us the roads in Congo will not let up that easy!

We also tracked a colossal amount of mud into the van. We apologized to our Pastor here, and he informed us that the mud we tracked into the car was a blessing because we had brought it there. Then we joked with him that we hoped to not bless the car in the same way again. Congolese hospitality is beyond measure.

More soon from the DR Congo!