Trying to get to Congo on the end of a kite
The kite string broke, and down they all fell.....
When I was at the RDC embassy, a woman came in full of loud laughter which served only to mask the berating nature of her words. She was supposed to leave for Kinshasa that night and was wondering if she should cancel her plane ticket.
I gathered that she had family there, grown children with a Congolese spouse from the sound of it. She herself was clearly Ivorian and she was having a terrible time getting confirmation. But she barged into the office and sat down in the middle of my meeting with such confidence and familiarity that it seemed clear she'd done this before.
I've been having wildly fluctuating ideas about my trip- everything from it's too expensive to a soul searching why am I even doing this to I really need this trip- and throwing in the visa uncertainty isn't helping. I am trying to adjust to no expectations. If I get the visa, great, I will go explore, reflect, and experience. And if I don't, then I'll find a plan B.
But even as I try to will my mind into accepting this flexible, free flowing attitude, a stubborn part of me is resisting. Why? Why the hell is it so hard to get into Congo? (And of course, being me, this is having an immediate adverse effect. It's so hard to get into Congo that I simply must get in. I'm not sure I even really want to go, but if they are going to refuse than I just have to try harder.)
I did some quick searching to try and figure out why some countries are more difficult to get into than others. Congo didn't actually make any of the lists I found about unwelcoming countries or those with the hardest to get visas. And while these sites break the cost/effort ratio down for travelers, they don't really explain why a country would want to essentially refuse visitors.
Campos and Kimeria each write about their perspectives on African travel and visa procurement from the economic standpoint and as a curious traveler. I've also long experienced the difficulty of non-Americans in trying to get a US visa. But knowing it all exists doesn't explain why.
The US will state their fear of immigrants entering (in search of the dream) and then having no means of support. In recent months, this fear has been expanded to include all sorts of other random reasons and just plain coming out with the truth- racism- or ethnicism. The US doesn't really want you unless you're rich, white and male.
I'm not really clear what kind of visitor Congo is looking for. Connected, I guess. On my original visit, I was told by a secretary that I should have someone at my embassy call someone at his embassy. "You know, between embassies," he said, "things can happen."
