Bangui

We’ve been in Bangui since this morning. The trip was really tiring, at the exit of the plane a long line in the sun filling papers and more papers. Since they know my boss and he has a diplomatic passport (there may have been some money exchange as well), they have let the rest of us get out and he has stayed to arrange visas, suitcases, etc. We have gone to a patisserie for breakfast. The road trip, amazing. I haven’t been allowed to take photos because it’s looking for a problem with the local police, but oh lord. Such women’s dresses and baskets on their heads, such police forces in pickups with submachine guns on the roof, such garbage, markets, blue helmets, but I think the most thrilling part have been the advertisements, neverending fun. Now we are at the hotel, and the wifi is and is not, but the room is very nice and there is a pool and everything. My toddler is exhausted, he is finally being able to take his nap, let’s see if his mood improves and he stops bandalizing things and people. He does not want to go indoors, I think he does not trust that we are not putting him on another trip of a thousand hours. We do not know how we will go to the jungle because there is no flight permit until Sunday, but they are trying to solve it, who knows. The hotel is next to the Oubangui River, and on the other side is the Congo. My son has celebrated his first car trip without any baby seat or belt by opening the door while moving, thank goodness that the roads are shit and you can’t go even at 20km / h. Later, in the hotel, since the doors have more accessible handles than at home, he has locked himself in the bathroom from the inside. In the end they have removed it by disassembling the handle. Later at night, when we were going to have a shower after dinner (here the king of the disco, in addition to hallucinating the local population with his dance moves, has crawled under all the tables and the grime is indescribable), I don’t really know how, he managed to close the bathroom door (without a handle) and locked us both inside. After about 20 minutes of screaming and kicking at the door for his amusement, the personel have come to rescue us. Me with a washcloth and him naked, of course. As they opened the door, with the help of the chief of staff, I have taken the door off its hinges and left it in the hallway, not again. Now all the staff come to say hello and high-fives every time they see my boy.

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