“Excuse me, where is a bus station?”

by Irina Ignatenkova (United Arab Emirates)

A leap into the unknown Congo Democratic Rep

Since I was a kid I was fascinated by different cultures and traditions, and being born in a closed country, where we could only dream of traveling, the heroes of my books became my best friends and world map - my religion. As expected my first and only true love was my Collins atlas - I was admiring its colorful squares and circles at first and later I was trying to find the most exotic and difficult to pronounce cities - Antananarivo, Paramaribo, Ouagadougou... Years later my passion for travel did not disappear and on the contrary - I was hungry for discovering as many incredible places as possible. There was one place that was occupying my mind for some time already - Nyiragongo volcano in Congo. I was waking up thinking of it, going to sleep seeing conquering it’s summit. I have even filled the Virunga park online application form for the climb, but didn’t have guts to click the “send” button. Last Christmas during office party that I couldn’t avoid anymore, while one of my colleagues was bragging about skydiving over the palm in Dubai and snorkeling in Honduras, I decided that my life was lacking adrenaline and after couple of margaritas, I excused myself for a ladies room and hit that magic “send” button on my phone! “God! Revert, revert!- I panicked. - What have I done?” Not going to bore you with details of how many more margaritas I had to drain that night to calm myself down,but there I was, a day before Christmas, sitting on the flight bound for Kigali, bitting my nails and looking for a credible reason to cancel the trek and claim the refund. “Ladies and gentleman, as we are starting our descent to Kigali international, please, return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts” - captain informed us over the loudspeaker. -That’s it! I’m here! It’s real! What I’ve been thinking? That’s madness - I was petrified. -Pull yourself together, crybaby. - You promises yourself that this year you are going out of by our comfort zone and accepting new challenges (except for intermittent fasting though!)- Somewhere from deep inside me appeared brave version of myself “Welcome to Kigali where the local time is 7pm..” Time to go! I passed immigration surprisingly without adventure and soon found myself in the parking looking for Nkundiushuti - a driver I found on Facebook who would drive me to Gisenyi- a border town close to Congo. After twenty minutes of waiting, I realized that I’ve been fooled (oh, what a pity, and I thought I could trust a man who’s name literally meant “I love people”). -10 bucks if you get me to the bus station in 20 minutes, - I stopped a guy on a motorbike -I am sorry, but the last bus left at 7, - informed me a Virunga Express agent. -How come? Not possible!- I was about to explode. - You wrote me on Facebook, that the last bus is leaving at 9pm and you even confirmed my seat -21C. Here! - I took out my pink Apple and was pretending to look for prove. -I am so sorry Sleepless night, aircraft food, dirty hair... I couldn’t hold myself anymore and burst out crying! Not sure weather the gentleman fell under spell of my blue eyes or he was just embarrassed that people were stopping to see why a white girl was crying, but he grabbed my hand and dragged me to a dirty minivan. - Give way, let mzungu* pass! - he pushed me inside. -Sister, keep an eye on Snowhite - he ordered a big mamma next to me. - Merry Christmas, Barbie, take care of yourself in Congo! *a nickname for white people in east Africa