After 24 hours of flying from JFK through London and Tripoli, standing in several seemingly interminably long lines, and sitting in airports for hours on end, I walked off the final airplane and into the open-air customs area, only to stand in one final line: customs. . . thankfully there was a UN Driver, Dieudonne, waiting for me in the customs area. Unfortunately, he smelled like he’d been drinking . . . but far be it from me to tell anyone who picks me up at the airport at 11:30pm in Bangui, walks me through the customs process, and then drives me home that he shouldn’t be entitled to a nice cold alcoholic beverage before he does it. Telling him not to would frankly be un-American.

Here’s a video of my arrival, taken by a monkey on stilts:

(I had to cut it short because the police and army are VERY touchy about photos and filming)

I got a little bit of static from the customs agent because I didn’t have a visa, but the attestation I had gotten from the UN that said that I did, in fact, have a reason to be there did the trick. That said, they took my passport from me and said that I’ll get it back in about two weeks . . . my fingers are crossed — but that probably won’t do much good.

I got to my boss Kersten’s house at around 12:00am (where I’m shacking up). Kersten is away for the next week and half, so I have the place all to myself. Of course, I’m sleeping in his roommates bedroom, so I’ll get kicked out in four weeks, but that’s a whole other story.

Dieudonne gave me a small tour of the place: the grounds are surrounded by a wall and gate, and are guarded by at least one person full time (two people at night, one during the day). Inside there are three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom has hot water and a shower/bath. All-in-all, it’s much better than some of the places I’ve paid to stay in before. I do think it’s a bit weird that its so heavily guarded, but I was talking with one of my co-workers this morning who said that his flatmates got together and bought a satellite TV box for $300 only to have it stolen the same night they installed it — and they had two security guards working at that time. So, the moral of the story is that if you buy something expensive, don’t tell your security guards because they will steal it.

After about five minutes of walking around the house in a bit of a stupor, I tried going to sleep. I had so many thoughts racing through my head it was a bit difficult, but eventually, after two episodes of This American Life, I passed out under the mosquito net and to the drone of the fan.

The next morning I was awoken by the entrance of Thoma, Kersten’s chef, who was preparing my breakfast. I walked out into the living room and sitting there on the table was a fried egg, toast, milk, hot water, coffee mix, and cold water. Wow. I had thought this was going to be rough. Apparently, as it turns out, I’ll have a relatively nicer life here than in New York.

After breakfast, Dieudonne showed up to drive me to work. Kersten lives pretty far away from the UNDP (probably about a 20 minute walk), so I guess he prefers to have a driver. Hopefully, when I find a place, it’ll be closer to the city center or at least closer to the UNDP. I don’t want to be using a driver or taking cabs every day (they’re about $3 a pop).

I’m getting mixed reviews on the security situation: on the one hand, no one seems to be concerned about safety and thinks that Bangui is very nice and quite liveable. On the other, everyone has security guards and they’re not so sure about walking 20 minutes to work. I can’t really make heads or tails of it.

To make a long story short, this is going to be interesting. Virtually no one speaks English here (at the UNDP) except the people that I’ll be working with (that is, Kersten, Nick, Matt, and Jon). So, if nothing else, I should have a really great opportunity to finally learn French. The French speakers here are also very forgiving of my weak skillz, or so it seems — this is a nice touch and should make the process easier (compared to my racist, unsympathetic, money grubbing home-stay family I had in France [they really weren’t that bad]).

That’s it for now — I’ll post video of the city soon. Since Jenna and I only have a single camera, she took it for her cousin’s wedding (since she’s coming here in about 9 days anyway). So, look for photos next week! Later.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Red Hot CAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.