Travel Africa With Kids: A 3-Hour Traffic Nightmare

Kinshasa is a city full of energy, culture, and stories, and we’re here to share the adventures, connections, and moments of challenges and joy as we travel Africa with kids. Below is a story of our first outing in Kinshasa as we get adjusted to our new city.

When we set out for our first grocery run in Kinshasa, we thought it would be a quick errand—a simple half-mile taxi ride to pick up the essentials. After all, how long could it possibly take to go half a mile? Turns out, in Kinshasa, that’s a trick question. Here’s the laughable (and slightly traumatizing) tale of how we spent three hours getting groceries we could have easily, and quickly, bought in the hotel lobby.

The Optimistic Start: “It’s Just Half a Mile Away!”

Armed with a short grocery list and enthusiasm to explore Kinshasa on our first full day here, we called a taxi, loaded up the kids and thought we’d be back in time for dinner. We barely made it one block before we were completely stopped in traffic. We could literally see our hotel from our taxi’s window! Five minutes passed. Then ten. After about fifteen minutes of complete immobility, we stared in awe as other taxi drivers climbed on their rooftops to observe the traffic madness.

What was the issue? Sixteen lanes of cars, buses, and motorcycles merging into *one*. You haven’t truly experienced Kinshasa until you’ve seen sixteen lanes worth of vehicles stubbornly cramming into a single path all while honking at one another. It was quite the sight.

A solid 1.5 hours after we started, we finally arrived to the grocery store. There were multiple times I thought out loud that it would be much faster to just walk. If sidewalks were a thing in Kinshasa, I’d certainly consider walking over sitting in traffic. Besides the guards carrying giant guns, inside the store was surprisingly peaceful, but maybe that’s just in comparison to the chaos of traffic we had to navigate in order to get there. We zipped through the aisles, grabbed our essentials, marveled at finding a few familiar brands, and got out of there as fast as we could.

Navigating grocery store aisles in Kinshasa, staring at all the new to us cereal types

Does The Traffic Ever End?

Feeling victorious, we loaded up our groceries and settled in for what we assumed would be a faster trip back. We found ourselves back in the same stop-and-go traffic chaos, complete with the rooftop loungers, the merging madness, and the never-ending honking. Vendors strolled between cars, balancing towers of snacks on their heads, selling water and plantain chips to drivers who looked surprisingly calm despite driving through this mess of cars. At one point, our taxi driver got so bored sitting in traffic that he started watching videos on his phone. Maybe one day that will be us too, calmly navigating Kinshasa’s traffic and taking snack and video breaks, but for now the thought of driving here seems utterly daunting.

At some point, I glanced at our 5 year old, C, who was watching this entire scene with awe and fascination and remembered how he’s soaking in all of our surroundings and interpreting it through his own lens. Our stress levels certainly affect his and reminded myself that there’s really nothing I could do about the traffic so why not make peace with it for today?

Travel Africa With Kids: Lessons in Patience

Three hours after setting out on this half-mile grocery run, we finally made it back to the hotel. I was pretty sure my sanity had been left somewhere back at that 16-lane merge, but at least we had milk, bread, cereal and an adventurous first outing in Kinshasa.

What was supposed to be a quick grocery store run because a 3 hour adventure in patience. While I can’t say this was a “successful” grocery store trip, I will say it was a telling introduction to Kinshasa’s traffic. Here’s to many more misadventures in the city where nothing is ever a quick trip.