First trip to DR Congo

I'm back from my trip into Congo. I had a good experience, and we decided we're going to move there at the end of August. The trip didn't start out so good. I wasn't feeling the best the day we left, and then I spent the first half of the plane flight from Nairobi to Kampala throwing up. Then I felt completely fine until I got through customs, when I started throwing up again, which means we rushed to the nearest clinic so I could get a malaria test. It was negative, but I guess if you're going into Congo with malaria, it's nice to be sure about it.
The next morning I was completely fine. We got on a MAF flight in Kampala (actually Entebbe). This is a picture of our plane and the airstrip. (I don't actually remember if this is the actually plane we took, or if it was the one next to it, but you get the idea.) Uganda seems very pretty, I'll have to take vacation there sometime.
This is a picture of Congo from the plane. You can see that it's very dense forest, with small parts cleared where there are villages. From the plane, some parts looked like fields of broccoli.
This is about the extent of cool African drums that I saw. I have to say, I expected a bit more, but it was better than the music bands at all the churches I went to in Nairobi which aren't any different than half the churches in America.
There were also talking drums, which are cool but I don't have a picture of them. The talking drums are large and long. The Congolese can talk with these drums, and use them to call people to church, tell about a festival, or warn people about war.
Here I am going to sleep underneath my trusty mosquito net at Bettina's house in Ibambi.

After the workshop was over in Ibambi, we rented a driver and a Land Rover to go to Isiro. The trip is 60 kilometers (36 miles) and took us 3 hours. I thought I was prepared for Congolese roads, but I wasn't as prepared as I thought. I was ready for bumpiness, but not for the sensation of almost falling over. At one point, the tires got stuck in a rut and the car was at a 30-45 degree angle with the ground. And instead of letting us out, the driver just kept going forwards and backwards, trying to get us out of the situation. He did, as he did with many other precarious situations. By the end of the trip, I was quite impressed with his driving skills and did not fear the roads any more. We stopped at one point in a village, so I took this picture of the road. This is a pretty good stretch of road, if that gives you any ideas.