Weekend Adventure

This weekend I was given the opportunity to go to the local Congo History Museum. It was located about 60 minutes from the port in the old king's "palace". It was not a palace by any sort of western measurement. There were four rooms in total in the main building, each about the size of my bedroom at home and four outbuildings divided into two rooms each, which had once housed the kitchen, the chauffer, and the king's six wives. The museum guide was very enthusiastic and was eager to tell us all about the Congolese history.
It was sad to see the state of many of the artifacts there. I thought of the pristine, environment controlled cases that I am so used to seeing in the western world to preserve articles that are considered to be of historic importance. Compared to that, the dusty, fading, slightly decaying state of many of the artifacts in the museum made me wish that the people of Congo had a way to preserve and protect the artifacts that are of importance to them.

The Museum and old king's "palace"

On our way back to the ship we went to visit the local Catholic seminary and visited the site of the first chapel to be erected in Central Africa and saw where the first bishop had been buried. From there we walked through the local village to the ocean to relax for a while before returning to the ship.

Relaxing at the beach

As we were driving back, our translator directed us down a street that was supposed to be a "shortcut" back to the port. The road was nothing but sand and it was like driving on the beach. Eventually the road became so soft and bumpy that we worried that we were going to get stuck - which is exactly what happened. Our wheels started spinning and suddenly we weren't going anywhere. Despite being in a land rover with four wheel drive, we were well and truly stuck. After trying for a while to dig ourselves out and sticking branches and sticks under the wheels in an attempt to give the wheels some traction, we conceded defeat. We left one translator and crew member with the vehicle and the rest of us hiked back to the main road where we could catch a taxi back to the port. Then we sent our second translator back with another Mercy Ships vehicle, armed with a winch to rescue those we had left behind. Quite the unexpectedly adventurous Sunday! 

Trying to push our way to freedom - no such luck

 

Well and truly stuck in the sand