Reflections on first trip to Africa

My father-in-law asked me last week why I hadn’t posted anything recently. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it several times but things have been busy and time has gotten away from me.

In less than two months I have traveled to Africa twice, first to the Democratic Republic of Congo and then to Liberia, and I was in charge of a week long visit to the headquarters for a media delegation from Ghana. And in the middle of all that I also went to Malta for a long weekend to visit Tom...thus the earlier post of me and my heavenly hot chocolate.

I began writing a blog post about my trip to the DRC, which was my first ever trip to Africa, to submit for Africa Command's Wordpress blog but I never finished it. I grabbed the draft though and will post it here. This was written in February when I was on the trip and I worked on it some when I got back.

There’s no doubt…it is hot in central Africa in February but surprisingly not as shocking to the system as I thought it would be as I departed the snowy, winter atmosphere of below freezing Stuttgart, Germany on February 15 and embarked on a 12+ hour trip to Kinshasa the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At 10 p.m. it is still in the nineties and it’s humid.

Nice thing about this southerly flight is that Stuttgart and Kinshasa are in the same time zone. It’s the first time I’ve ever traveled on such a long flight and not had to worry about jet lag.

This mid-February trip to the DRC served as my first trip to Africa and my first time traveling south of the equator. The DRC is a country about the size of the entire continental United States east of the Mississippi River, and the world's second longest river is found here - the Congo. The Congo River is largely the only route that leads into the country's vast interior. The DRC is blessed with incredible resources but has been plundered for centuries and abused and mistreated. Before starting work with Africa Command I knew virtually nothing about this tortured, beautiful country.

Upon my arrival at the command in the fall of 2009, the growing Public Affairs team was restructuring and I was assigned to the Media and Press Affairs Division and made the public affairs action officer for two regions. I was assigned to West and Central Africa and countries within these regions include the DRC, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Liberia.

Starting in December I was included in meetings reference an upcoming train-and-equip mission the United States government is doing in the DRC. It’s been discussed for several years and in 2009 funding was allocated to the Department of State as U.S. foreign policy makers determined that the U.S. would participate/assist in the ongoing, multinational effort to transform the Congolese military.

My trip to the DRC was to attend and cover the opening ceremony for a newly-formed Light Infantry Battalion of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) at its base camp in Kisangani where they will receive 6-8 months of training by U.S. military personnel and Department of State-hired contractors. The battalion’s soldiers will receive training in small unit tactics, food preparation, maintenance, medical care and first aid, logistics support, HIV/AIDS prevention and communications. The hope is that the battalion will become a model battalion.

Kisangani is about a 2-3 hour flight from Kinshasa (depending on how fast your plane can travel...we were in a slow one...it took 3+ hours). Traveling by air is the only way to get between the two cities though as there are no roads connecting the two.

Here is what some of the landscape looked like out of the plane's window. The first photo was taken closer to Kisangani, while the second one was taken closer to Kinshasa.

































During the ceremony, Ambassador William Garvelink, U.S. Ambassador to the DRC, said, “The United States of America and the Democratic Republic of Congo are committed to a partnership to train and professionalize a FARDC battalion that will respect and protect the Congolese people. As with all our military training, our objective is straightforward. We seek, with the support and assistance of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to develop a professional force that respects civilian authority and that provides security to all citizens of this country.”

More than 100 guests attended the ceremony. I wrote an article about the ceremony. Click here to read it.

What many didn’t know the day of the ceremony was that the site had been changed just the day prior. Monday brought torrential rains and almost hurricane force winds flooding many portions of the camp, including the original ceremony site and felling all the tents. So in 24 hours LIB soldiers and U.S. personnel worked quickly to relocate everything to a back-up location that was dry.

Wednesday, thankfully, was a sunny, rain-free day. On the field were soldiers representing all the various elements of the FARDC’s 9th Region - police, air force, navy, military police and regular FARDC soldiers, as well as members of the new Light Infantry Battalion.

Playing festive music was a melded band assembled specifically for the ceremony. The band was formed with some FARDC soldiers who played instruments, members of a Salvation Army band from a local church, and members of the local police department. Seeing the soldiers march around the parade field during the pass and review and the joyful music being played by the band instilled a sense of hope in me.

There are a lot of international partners (governments, UN, NGOs, etc.) trying to help the people of the DRC but ultimately the future of this country rests in its people.

During the ceremony I took a series of short videos. I just experimented with iMovie and was able to merge a few of them together but I can't seem to get the file to load to Blogger. I tried to reduce the size three times but still seems too large. So, you'll have to settle for a couple individual videos. Enjoy!

Here is the band playing the DRC national anthem and a view of the parade field.



Here is the band leading the pass and review.



Final video...if I remember correctly the blue berets signaled that they were part of the air force.