London was brought to its knees yesterday by the most snow that it’s seen in 18 years. It was a fun and funny time. My flat mates and I rushed out at 1:30 in the morning and had a snowball fight and made a snowman. With no hills readily available we missed out on sledding.

After the night’s fun came the funny part, heading into work. All the bus services were suspended, and I’ve heard speculation that one of the reasons is some buses may not have had anti-freeze in their radiators. As you can see below though, the roads were terrible. Nothing was plowed, so snow, slush, and ice was the rule of the road.

But the most fun was seeing the town playing around in the snow. People were stopping everywhere to take pictures, people skated down sidewalks, and snowballs we always in the air. A group of us gathered in a nearby park for a snowball fight and people walking down the street joined in, instantly doubling the size of the melee. I reminded me of that first day of spring when it’s nice enough to sunbathe or kick a ball around. Everyone was a friend, if only so they didn’t feel guilty pelting you with snowballs.

There are places that, solely based on their name, you know that you must go.  Examples: Timbuktu, Galapagos, and of course Dingi Dingi.  Dingi Dingi is a town (or rather, a cluster of people) 35km (or 1.5 hours, naturally) away from Kinshasa, DRC.  There is nothing much to it besides a dirt road, a medical center, which also acts as the mayor’s office, an army post, and about 50 homes scattered about a field.   Though it doesn’t sound like much of a destination, when a co-worker asked if I wanted to do a site visit, I didn’t even let her finish before I was running towards the Landcruiser and buckling in.

“What was your goal on this site visit?” you may ask.  To get a photo in front of a sign that said Dingi Dingi of course!  Okay, okay, and also to soak in the world outside of Kinshasa and to see the wonderful anti-malarial net distribution campaign of my organization at work.  Due to an intimidating police presence around the ONLY sign saying Dingi Dingi (penalty for taking a photo of government property in DRC: indefinite jail sentence),  goal one was trickily met, but the other two came easily.  The drive through Kinshasa was unsurprisingly depressing.  The closer we got to the huge statue of Lumumba the larger the shanty towns became (why is that how it always works?).  However, as we moved out of the city, the roadside views of poverty became fewer and farther between, being replaced with untouched land, large sloping hills and rushing rivers.  Chatter in the truck came to a full stop as everyone peered into the calm, waving at the occasional bicyclist or pedestrian along the dirt road. 

We finally made it to Dingi Dingi and sleepily stepped out to receive a grand introduction from several men in suits and ties (in 90 degree weather, ouch).  I hoped they didn’t mind my khakis… The children of the village let curiosity get the best of them and began to follow us as we discussed in broken French the purpose of our visit – our donor wanted to see evidence of success from our mass bednet distribution campaign from the year prior, and we wanted to prepare the people of Dingi Dingi for the deluge of white Landcruisers.  As we walked and our host explained the purpose of our visit, women proudly invited us into their homes to show us their properly hung nets.  They showed us the children and young women who slept under the nets. We even had a discussion about how best to clean your nets.  It was living breathing evidence that my job was worthwhile, that lives were being saved.  And as we drove back, I remembered why I loved having a world-wandering job: it gives me the ability to do good work while being lucky enough to see the natural beauties of different countries, to meet a never-ending array of people and cultures, and – of course- to say I’ve been to a place with the memorable name of Dingi Dingi.

If you’ve been scheming up a trip to Ethiopia, here’s your chance. Ethiopian Airlines is running a buy-one-get-one-free sale until 31 March. Not a bad deal. Grab a friend and get going.