Traveling from the USA to Central African Republic (CAR) is not a terrible trip, but it is a long and exhausting one. Ed and I (Matt) left the USA Tuesday morning from Colorado Springs for Chicago and caught a red-eye flight to Paris, France. We arrived on Wednesday at 9:30 AM. Tom Peters from ICDI met us around noon. We boarded the next flight to Bangui, CAR at 11:20 PM. Another red-eye, arriving at 5:30 AM Thursday morning.
After waiting 30 minutes to clear immigration, we waited another 90 minutes for our 5 bags full of internet and power gear and school supplies. 2 bags didn't make it - 1 was the internet gear and the other was my personal suitcase. I am now stuck with nothing but my computer and the clothes on my back for the next 7 days.
After filling out lost baggage forms in French, we all made it to our partner's guest house (http://www.icdinternational.org/) for breakfast and 2 hours of sleep. At noon we met with Jim Hocking and a few other ICDI staff to discuss the status of the mission to over 700 AIDS orphans and explain our goal for the week related to health care.
From that meeting we went to another meeting at the Mercy Orphan Care Center to meet the staff that work directly with the orphans. This is the HQ if you will of our ministry. It is the central distribution point for 8 program in Bangui and houses the offices of our staff. The facility built by ICDI has food storage, training room, medical clinic, wood working shop and sewing school. The staff gave us good reports on progress we've made in helping the children do better in school, receive medical treatments and dedicate themselves to following God. We spent time planning the week out in detail as we hope to interview several caregivers, schools, medical professionals, etc. throughout the week. We finished at 6 PM.
From that meeting we went back to the guest house for dinner and then met more with the leadership until 9:00 PM. Ed and I are tired ;-)
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