Take the Long Trip

So you want to go see Congo? It's a long trip! You can follow it on this map. (Click on the map to see a bigger version.)

 

Route to Congo

First you fly from wherever you live in North America all the way to Europe -- usually PARIS (France), sometimes BRUSSELS (Belgium). So first look at the map and find where you live, go to the closest city with an airport, then look for Paris and Brussels. (Brussels might be hard to find -- Belgium is a very small country at the northern border of France.)

Once you get to Paris (or Brussels), you wait a few hours until it's time for your next flight. Then you fly to KINSHASA, the capital of Congo. Can you find Kinshasa on the world map? 

How long do you think it takes? Let's take two examples.

If you fly from NEW YORK, the whole trip to Kinshasa will take about 20-22 hours, and the total distance will be about 7,400 miles!

If you fly from LOS ANGELES, the whole trip to Kinshasa will take about 28-30 hours! And you'll travel about 9,750 miles!

 

Congo map

Now find Kinshasa again, this time on the Congo map. When you get to Kinshasa you usually stay overnight, to rest up a little. Then the next day you take still another plane to wherever you're going in the country. To go to the area where the Paul Carlson Partnership is working, we fly to the city of GEMENA (pronounced geh'-meh-nah, with a hard "g"as in "go"). Look for it on the map of Congo. It's up in the northwest corner. If you fly on a jet airliner, it takes only a couple of hours. But, since there is only one airline that flies to Gemena, and it only flies there once a week, people often take a chartered plane, which is smaller. Then the trip from Kinshasa to Gemena takes about 5 hours.

AND THEN if you want to go further, as when we go to visit the hospital in KARAWA (care'-ah-wah) or to build a school in GBADOLITE (bah-doh-lee'-tay), you'll need a chartered plane again. You can also drive to the towns and villages, but the roads are not like ours. Almost all of them are dirt roads, and they're bumpy and muddy. Even in a 4-wheel-drive jeep, you can only go 10 miles an hour! The people who live there usually use bicycles, even for long trips.