I screwed up. We are postponed, likely for one month.

Rwanda implemented a new visa requirement for tourists which I missed. Quite bizarrely, no visas are required for business purposes, but KLM wouldn’t let us board. I was able to contact a Rwandan official in Ottawa and we rushed an online visa app, but we needed a document back from Kigali to present to KLM, fighting tight time constraints and the time difference to Rwanda where it was 10:30 PM.

Other short term options (eg British Airways to Entebbe which doesn’t require a visa) aren’t financially pretty and were non starters
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Quickly looking at our mutual work commitments, we have come up with a plan. Tentatively, we rebooked on KLM for November 25, returning December 13. This is a replica of our current schedule bumped by four weeks. Thankfully, the added cost charged by KLM is nominal. Before we commit, we will need to confirm with Brenda’s ultra nice boss, my ultra understanding clients, the Woods in Congo and the domestic Congo airlines so we don’t get stranded in Congo with no way to get out.

Was this just a simple screw up or, for those more deterministic, a blessing for some currently unknown reason? All I know for sure is that I am grateful to have a wonderful wife who is not all over me for such a major screw up.