Where T-shirts go to die...

I am stealing this headline from the Congo Bradt Travel Guide, because
it is so true that tshirts come here to die in Africa. They are
usually made cheaply in developing countries in Asia or Central/South
America, sent to US for its maximum purchasing power, then sent to
Africa when they've been outgrown or are just not wanted....they go
there to die.

In the US, we are so conscious about the words on our t-shirts or
which emblem is on our hat. It goes so far as for me to not bother
striking up conversation with most people who are rocking a Yankees
hat, unless its to tell them that their team sucks...

In Congo, Africa, and maybe most of the world...emblems have little to
no importance. That is not to stay style does not matter because I
think most people, especially women, take more pride in their
appearance here. No offense to women anywhere else, but first of all,
African women always wear dresses. Dresses are always more elegant
than even designer pantsuits in my opinion. The dresses are usually
fabricated from bright primary-colored pagnes, and pedestrians often
shade themselves from afternoon sunshine with umbrella parasols! The
essence of elegance.

Also, try to keep up with women who are re-braided twice a week or
more...plates, weaves, wigs, and the classic Congolese all-direction
braids. Lots of effort!

But sometimes the women wear tshirts with their dresses, and then the
styling priorities become very clear. No one here has allegiance to
Wright State University...but if its got nice colors, then consider
them a fan. Charlotte Hornets had some of the best colors ever - teal
and purple - even causing me to go color blind & conflict my
allegiance to the Celtics, by chosing to don a Hornets winter jacket.
The team is now in New Orleans and has slightly different colors, but
that doesn't really matter to my Mama and her husband Stanley, who
I've both seen wearing a nice warm Charlotte Hornets jacket, similar
to the one I used to have.

Guys here also have a bit of style. On Sundays or even serious
workdays, men will make me look downright slovenly in comparison.
Ties with brightly colored checked shirts, silk golden shirts, or
well-sewn button-down shirts made from pagnes which show their
allegiance to their home Catholic Parish, favorite (or only....cringe)
politician, etc.

Some people are just a little more casual or maybe can't afford these
niceties, so that brings out the ridiculous t-shirts that charity
groups love to dump into African markets, the likes of which have led
to:

Lots of dudes wearing shirts like "Girls Soccer Camp", "Too Hot to Handle"
A lady wearing an official Pub tshirt - "Taking it to the house since 1863"
Tambo, my favorite forest guide who is probably 50+ years old,
frequently wears his "I Love Soccer Moms" t-shirt, an emblem idea
which probably came from a drunken frat dude somewhere.
Little Mbuti pygmy girl wearing a tshirt "Bitchie" in the font and
colors of "Barbie"
Mbuti chief wearing a "Weezer: Punk @$$ tour" or something like that

a) who makes these shirts? b) who sends these shirts to markets in
Africa? are we really this capitalistic? charitable? or is it an
ethic of not letting anything go to waste? Well they certainly don't
go to waste here, they're worne thread-bare and continue to be worn
until one day they just fall off. I've been many kilometers deep in
the forest and seen some of the dingiest looking flip-flops ever -
which were left there because they finally gave up and broke.

Also, there might be some pretty valuable vintage or rare t-shirts or
jerseys around. I've seen a guy with a #33 Celtics jersey before.
For years, I coveted a throwback Larry Bird jersey, but couldn't
handle the $100+ price tag. Maybe next time I must spring quickly to
make an offer! Also, my alternate mama Marceline has a little boy
named Serge who wears a vintage #16 San Francisco 49ers Joe Montana
t-shirt. Try finding one of those in the mall - its a special-order
item, bank on it...

One day, I'll find that favorite tshirt of mine from a former time....

Backed updates: UGANDA TRIP

After about 20 days on the road, I finally got back to Epulu this past
week. I had a nice time visiting Uganda. It is a lovely country -
people are very hospitable, beautiful landscapes, and the logistics
are easy enough. I stayed three days at a guesthouse near Fort
Portal, which is a place where you should think about retiring. The
house was surrounded by well-kept tea fields stretch over the rolling
green landscape, which have a backdrop of the towering Rwenzori
Mountains. The panorama from the guesthouse also included a nice view
of the hard-edged forests of Kibale National Park, which is Uganda's
primary park (and most expensive!) for chimpanzee-tracking.

Tea and other agricultural fields are interrupted by over 30 crater
lakes, which result from volcanic activity which ceased only 10,000
years ago...another of the Albertine Rift's unique landforms. I spent
an afternoon with a guided mountain bike tour which passed 6 crater
lakes, which was just spectacular, fun, and tiring!

Its elevation of 5000+ feet keep days mild and nights cool. Western
Uganda is a birdlover's dream. From the guesthouse, I saw so many
birds that I made the decision to just leave my bird book alone,
because I had never seen any of them before and had no idea where to
start looking. They were mostly stunning...

After leaving the guesthouse, I found my friend Pat, who works for
World Harvest in Bundibugyo on the far-side of the Rwenzori mountains
near to Congo. I decided to find this solitary crater lake that I
grew to love when I was intern with World Harvest in 2005. My friend
Michael had taken all the interns there for swimming, boating, and
camping. At that time, a British man had purchased the property with
the dream to build a luxury lodge - Lake Kyaninga Lodge - so I
checked his progress. This crater lake is still the most stunning I've
seen. The large hills that hide this lake can be seen from several
kilometers away, and when you reach their crest, the lake seems like
it must be 200 meters straight down below. Also the progress is good!
The lodge is nearly ready, and when it is...I doubt I'll be able to
afford the view. Now, nine bandas sit atop the crest above the lake,
with the the highest part occupied by a main lodge, which will have
many nice sitting areas, and a swimming pool perched basically in this
cliff. It will be too nice when it is finished.

Pat took me back to Bundibugyo, where I had spent 5 months in 2005.
The view descending from Fort Portal and driving switchbacks in the
slopes of the Rwenzori is lovely. The Semuliki Valley spreads out in
the distance beyond the hills, and the snaking Semuliki River marks
the border with Congo. I have so many good memories from
Bundibugyo...where I lived in a special Christian community, the likes
of which are difficult to replicate! Other than the Americans on the
World Harvest team, I had no idea who I'd find or remember or who
would remember me. Most of the team is new from when I was there, so
I enjoyed meeting the new folks. I was pleased to find a few teachers
at Christ School who I had enjoyed time with before, and meeting
others who were new. It was nice to attend team pizza night, to hike
out past hot springs to the Semuliki River in the Semuliki National
Park with young WHMers Nathan, Sarah, and Anna, and to share TACOS
afterwards, thanks to the Myhres! It was also nice to attend a very
long church service with a melange of local language Lubwisi and
English, including Lubwisi hymns and raps.

After visiting for 4 days, it was time to dive back into work and
trying to speak French again. I crossed the border only 10km from
where my friends stay to get back to the big town Beni about 100km
away. This route is not frequented by muzungus (European origins /
white people), and road traffic is very rare...mainly just local foot
traffic. It was basically no man's land for a while for two reasons -
1) the ADF rebels who attacked Bundibugyo in the late 90s fled there,
and rumors continue about them still being there... and 2) before
2005-06, a few villages right over the border in Congo were not
connected to the rest of Congo, but by a "decroded" route/bikepath, in
fact they still use Ugandan Shilling currency. The road was recently
improved and now its possible to travel from Bundibugyo to Beni. I
was greeted by very thorough but civil bag searches in both Uganda and
Congo's immigration offices. The Congolese immigration officers
helped me find a hotel/restaurant in the little border town in case no
taxis came that day. Luckily, they even found me a shared taxi that
would traverse the northern sector of Virunga National Park and arrive
in Beni in 3 quick hours.

Lots more happened, but this post is long enough! More backed updates soon!

Greetings from Uganda

Hello from Bundibugyo - the most isolated district in Uganda. It
really has the most Congolese feel of all other parts of Uganda that
I've been to. I am visiting friends who have worked here with World
Harvest Mission for over 15 years.

On Monday I will cross into Congo via a new road that was just
recently improved in 2006-7. Before that a part of Congo was so
disconnected from the rest of Congo that they used Ugandan shillings
and had no road access to other parts of Congo - separated by the
Semuliki River.

It should be an interesting journey through the northern sector of
Virunga National Park, where okapi just recently were rediscovered
using camera traps. Even in Semuliki
National Park, there are rampant rumors that okapi are even found in
these forests because the okapi survey confirmed they were on the east
side (towards Uganda) of Semuliki River, expanding their range, and
leaving no great barriers to accessing Semuliki National Park.

So now I am wrapping up a week of vacation which followed a weeklong
GIS conference in crazy crazy Kampala. Lots of fun, but man is
Kampala noisy and full of traffic. But it is growing ever more
developed on the surface.

Now, back to Epulu!

Contrasts

My Maman Asumpta delivered healthy beautiful baby girl named "Joelle"
last week Wednesday, October 14. She was 6.6 lbs and is doing very
well. Asumpta is good and ready to move back to Epulu after being in
the big town Mambasa since a few weeks before her delivery. So now
her other beautiful little kids - Astrid, Lydie, Don de Dieu are ready
for another little one too. I got to hold her - she is tiny like all
newborns and beautiful!

On the other hand my friend Duga - who is about 30 years old - lost
his 5 year old daughter a few weeks back. She was stricken with
something and died within a day! Pointless, inexplicable, yes - all
of the above.

Meanwhile his wife was pregnant again and in her second trimester.
Last Thursday or so, she suddenly developed major problems and
required an emergency cesarean section. This required an imaginably
uncomfortable 70-km ride on the back of a motorbike. She lost the
baby but kept her life, so it could have been worse! But really - its
not easy to be from rural Africa. All the more reason to rejoice for
healthy births and happy, active lives.

Excursion!

I am on a two week excursion from Epulu - my adopted village. One
week for a conference in Kampala, Uganda, and then one week vacation
in Bundibugyo, Uganda. Bundi is the first place I lived/visited in
Africa and one near and dear to my heart, so needless to say I'm very
excited.

I have officially gone from rural to urban Africa - Epulu, DR Congo in
the Ituri Forest...whose unofficial statistics include population of
2000; 1:666.67 people-refrigerator ratio; 1:10 lightbulbs to people
ratio, people density on the road - 1 every 500 meter) , to Kampala
the capital of Uganda with a population of 1.5 million, rolling
blackouts / gov't enacted load-shedding, people density on the road -
1 person every meter, movie theaters, ice cream. The drastic
difference in livelihood activities and economic development is never
more clear than transitioning from an agricultural village to an urban
metropolis. Not really sure who is "better off" - the basic
difference in cities is that you spend the whole day doing stuff other
than preparing food - but then you have to make money to pay for your
food. People who knew I was about to go to the mother of regional
shopping centers sent me off with their "etats de besoin" - state of
need/shopping lists for sandles, watches, backpacks, all that - not
available in Epulu save for possibly the lowest quality since their
successful invention. For me, it feels and maybe is indulgent to
request hundreds of dollars here and there for traveling, conferences,
materials, and also booking air tix to Europe for Christmas vacation,
while other people ceaselessly continue pretty monotonous daily jobs
so they can earn their steady $2-3/day wages so they can eat. So goes
- our lives are so very very different. We both have the duty to care
for ourselves, family, and friends and must figure out the best way to
do that.

I love to travel - to see the transition from unbroken lowland
tropical forest to savanna in Congo to cultivated slopes and large
agricultural fields in Uganda - to hear the transition from
Francophone to Anglophone Africa - a sweet melody to my oh-so American
English ears! But with travel comes some unease that I can't really
trust people when negotiating for transport and small-talking. I'm
frequently posed with eager future collaborators and unwanted
propositions to exchange contacts.

But I have been so fortunate to meet people like Ahmed - a calm young
Somali-Kenyan who imports and sells petroleum in Congo. On Saturday we
rode in the car together in Congo for 3 hours and the bus for 8 hours
in Uganda. Upon learning we were both headed to Kampala, he offered
to assist me through the border, especially the surprisingly
more-confusing Ugandan side. On arrival, you must enter three little
huts where people scribble all your details into ancient registry
books. Despite purposefully packing light - I still ended up with 2
large and heavy bags, which Ahmed helped me haul around at the border.
Meanwhile he carried no bags and wore the same dusty clothes he had
worn on the same 300 km motorbike route we both had taken on Friday.
He speaks Swahili and broken English - often dropping words like nini
(what?) when searching for his English. He talked mournfully about
Somalia and his adopted home the Congo, the virtues of Islam, the
hypocrisy of extremists and international and intra-national players
in Somalia. He bought me some drive-thru goat meat then exchanged
with me because I thought the goat heart was both not tasty and
dodgily undercooked. After finally arriving at the busy and crazy bus
park, he helped me find transport and accompanied me from the bus park
to my hotel so that "no one would disturb me" and never asked me for
anything. Gosh - awesome!

For every person who becomes excited and usually stupidly
opportunistic when they see a muzungu - ex) calculating currency
exchanges off by a factor of 10 while using a calculator - I have met
an an equal number who are ready to assist foreigners around those
hasslers. My unease is slowly being replaced by an attitude of trust
and adventure. Really Africa is not so big and bad....which exists
without doubt, but in measures that are becoming few and far between.

News to warm the heart

I have a dear lady who has cooked and cleaned for me since I arrived
in Epulu three months ago. Somehow our sharing of care - her being
the first person I see every morning, she is in my house all day
while I work, she cooks what she likes, I like what she cooks, she
washes my clothes, I feel good paying her..... Because of all that,
I'm attached to her, despite our barriers in language and culture.

So when she said she needed to talk yesterday morning, I became
anxious...don't know why, but I fear when people get serious like
that! She said she needed to go to the hospital to Mambasa (big town
70km away) for 2-3 weeks. She said it had to do with "enceinte" and
asked if I knew what that meant. She then started to flip through
magazines and said she'd find a picture for when I came back for
lunch.

After the daily rains came while I was having lunch at home, she came
inside and asked me if I had found out the word...I indeed had being
curious and impatient! It means "pregnant". So she told me, acted
very shy about it, despite being married with 3 young children
already. She is leaving Monday for Mambasa - not for a checkup - but
to deliver her baby!! I've been having a pregnant woman clean for me
all this time and had no idea. Either I'm very aloof or its no big
deal for her, or both.

A benefit of my "switch-hitting" French name is that Asumpta has
decided to call her baby Joel (pronounced "jho-elle") whether its a
boy or girl! I have to say I'm just so charmed by this whole thing,
feel like I'm becoming an uncle all of a sudden! It will be
interesting to see how she works with her small baby too. I imagine
she'll insist to continue work and so there'll be a mini-me
papoose-style on her back all the time. Behold the virtue of the
African woman.

Suffering Loss

Epulu is suffering right now...lots of mourning for the deaths of two
of its ~2000 residents. Those killed were garde de parc: Atikpo
Mutombi; 39 yrs old, father of 5; and his porter: Bakobana Makupuno
"Dieudonne" or "Jean", 24 yrs old - a young man, without a wife or
kids. This is the 4th park guard to be lost this year, while 6 have
been lost in the last 2 years - including a brother of a WCS employee.
All of this risk taken as they take upon their duties to protect
wildlife and provide for their families with their meager salary of
$50 a month. That's $1.50 a day or half what I pay my
cuisinier/domestique. Also, ICCN aren't like most government
officials here who are caught up in illicit activities to supplement
their wallet...

The story I've been told is the guards had a firefight with poachers
very deep in the forest - some 26 km north of the main road, and west
of Epulu by 30-40km. These men were killed on Tuesday evening, and one
other was injured....three hunters were killed, and were buried out
there. They were apparently part of a team run by one famous poacher,
whose teams are responsible for several killings of park guards and
elephants for their tusks. This man was apparently in the forest this
time, but not killed....he usually moves freely around some big towns
, but governance structures here are too weak to do anything to him.
His picture is on "wanted" posters, but what is the reward for messing
with this dangerous man and his team? Nothing? Having to move?
Threats from his team or associates? I wish the ignorant wretch who
buys their beautiful ivory - and drives the market!!! - could have
been at the funeral today to see what their actions cause...

Literally all of the ~80 ICCN park guards left Wednesday morning to
retrieve the bodies. Still after dark on Thursday, they had not
returned, and they sent a third team to reinforce them to help them
haul the bodies the last few hours. So Friday morning, we knew they'd
return, and they had set up a funeral for the return. The chorus of
mourning when the guards arrived was really moving. It'll continue
for a while...people here can't forget, but they can only go on.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jmasselink/ICCNFuneral#