Longtemps!

Its been some time...2 weeks at a blog. Hectic, logistic, event and effort heavy are the days- CARPE land has had a lot going on. Just this week, a DRC wetland was newly declared the largest Ramsar site in the world - which brings international recognition to the importance of the ecological services supplied to the nation, region, and world by the big swamp between Kinshasa and Kisangani.
Birds migrate here from Siberia during the winter, and it provides natural resources for many people, climate regulation, and habitat to species found nowhere else on earth.

http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17808

Over 1000 miles separate Kisangani and Kinshasa on the Congo River, but the contours have the slope of a platter, braiding the river out to 10 miles wide and saturating much more land. Just below Kinshasa and Brazzaville, the landscape squeezes this huge volume of water creating unnavigable rapids, powerful currents, and deep cuts into the bedrock. In some places the river reaches hundreds of feet deep before it plunges into the ocean where it has carved a massive canyon. Hard to fathom this stuff!

Last weekend, my roommate and I traveled to Pointe Noire in Congo-Brazzaville and are here to tell about it. Dave has lived in Africa for 8 years, in some harder places than our current setup in Kinshasa. Only together would either of us have ventured in the first place. Our destination was Pointe Noire, an oil wealth port on the Atlantic in the Republic of Congo; arguably the most tourist-friendly city in both Congos. On a map, it does not look so far from Kinshasa to Pointe Noire – one might assume it is drivable distance. This is the Congos though, and I’ve learned that logistics rule the day. First, one needs a visa allowing passage into the next country. Divergent colonial (Belgian and Republic of Congo-French), post-colonial trouble (dictatorship in DRC, versus communist ROC, concurrent civil wars ending in the last few years) make these neighbors prone to keep their distance from the other.

Brazzaville and Kinshasa are separated by the mile width of the Congo River…the closest capital cities in the world, hardly twin cities given how difficult it is transit between. All Congolese music is the same, but Kinshasa has way more people, is much more hectic, and has better selection of goods, while Brazzaville is quieter, has wider streets, more heavy artillery pockmarks from recent civil war, and better beer (I favor Ngok to Primus, if not for the flavor then the cool crocodilian logo).

Only with the help of expeditors on both sides could we have made it. They handled forms and visas with anonymous authorities and made sure we found the proper canot rapides at the crowded beaches. Then we caught a Trans Air Congo flight to PN, on an old Malaysian 737. Its unique drag mechanism on the wing had me frantically looking for the inflatable slide upon our landing. Nonetheless...we enjoyed the powerful waves of the Atlantic ocean, and much walking around...something we don't do much in Kinshasa.

I'm getting down to a few weeks of work, before travels to Uganda, and hopefully the tropical jungle too. Travel here is awe-inspiring and exhausting. Once its done you just thank God that you've made it!

More Virungas Links

Sorry, blogspot's "hyperlink" doesn't work...oh technology!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/
2008/07/080711-gorilla-murders.html

http://appablog.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/
us-leads-ministerial-conference-on-
transboundary-conservation-with-rwanda-
the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-
uganda-of-the-congo-and-uganda/

Virungas Trouble

No sooner do I internalize what is happening in the Virungas National Park in DRC from a well-done National Geographic article, and my boss's pronouncements, and there is an attack on conservationists working for World Wildlife Fund and park rangers working for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN). Its really shocking that rebels control ecotourism, just a few miles from some of the best tourism outfits in Africa. I'm sure the security situation in the park will jump to the front of this summit next week. Unfortunately, it takes a few gorillas and rangers getting killed for people to notice...while millions have been killed since the Rwandan genocide was exported to the DRC. The gorilla park is where resource wars are everyday reality.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7497005.stm

Virungas Summit

My boss, a legend of a guy, is off to Goma DRC and Gisenyi Rwanda for one week to coordinate the Virungas Summit. This is mediated by the Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Environment, and Science of the US State Department, and coordinates efforts between relevant forestry ministers from DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda. There is a lot of political baggage between these 3 countries, so this high level meeting has a lot riding on it. NG ran a great article about the crazy realm that is the Virungas, linking the execution of gorillas last year to a lucrative charcoal trade in this densely populated, lawless area. Check it out here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/07/
virunga/jenkins-text

After all the grand fetes for Independence Days, it is nice to get back to work! I will miss my boss, but will have to carry on!