I loved Africa from the very beginning of my arrival. I still remember getting off the plane. A DC3. And we flew in with people that had chickens and bananas and things like that that they were bringing as gifts into Kinshasa from Kenya. And landing in Kinshasa and the smell of the smoking fires when we stepped off the plane. And we were supposed to stay at a hotel, and when we arrived at the hotel which was the fanciest hotel in town, maybe the only hotel in town, they didn't have our booking which was not atypical for Africa. And there were no rooms. There was the African National Congress or some group of African diplomats were all staying there.

And so we didn't have any place to stay, so we laid out the suitcases for us to take a nap, we were very tired. So the kids were lying on the suitcases in the lobby of the hotel as, you know, this diplomatic party was going on. And the... It was a formal affair. All the diplomats were in tails. And at some point the Senegalese ambassador came down from the party and sees us there, lying on the floor, and asks what's happened. And we tell the story that, you know, there's no room at the hotel. And says, 'Oh well, you must come stay, we're constructing a new Senegalese embassy, you must come, be my guest at the embassy.'

And so we were very happy to take him up on this offer. But the party was still going on up on the roof. And so he shouts up to his wife to please throw down the car keys that he'll have the driver take us to the embassy. And so his wife leans over and throws the car keys down but they drop them in the grass. And so the car keys disappear. And so all the diplomats come down in their tails, all these black African diplomats in formal wear come down. And of course there's no flashlights, so they make torches out of grass and kerosene which is sort of the standard procedure. And start looking through the grass around the hotel. So my first night is this scene of, you know, all these distinguished African diplomats in formalwear carrying torches, looking through the grass for the keys. Which of course they eventually find and take us off to the Senegalese embassy. But that was my welcoming to Africa. Every place we went people treated us so well. And often the other African diplomats would treat us well.