After spending our night in Epulu, Jean-Remy and I went to visit the Okapis in the "zoo". For conservation purposes, 14 okapis are kept in large open-air pens, complete with trees and close lines holding the branches they eat. Using their long tongues, okapis prefer to eat upwards like their taller cousins. They are strikingly innocent and beautiful. They freeze still and stare when they hear people. One eventually was brave enough to approach the fence to say hello...tres jolie she was! Their body is similar to a horse, head to a giraffe, and rear-end has the black-white pattern of a zebra.
Later, around the park ranger facilities I heard a loud cry, and saw a baby chimpanzee tethered to a table leg. The story was that its mother was killed and the baby was abandoned and ill, and turned into park authorities. It had to have been the saddest looking little animal I've ever seen. Hopefully they had some way to get it to an orphanage.
After a long journey, we returned to Beni. The town has 4 Monuc bases, but fortunately there is little for these blue helmets(from South Africa, India, and somewhere else) to do! It was fascinating to visit Beni after spending time with missionaries just across the border in Uganda. They've lived in the Bundibugyo district for 15 years or more, only 5 miles from the border, but due to chronic insecurity and uncertainty, have ventured little into the DRC. They receive patients at the health center who speak French or are Congolese residents, or sport the local "French cut" flattop hairstyle, but see very little commerce go thru to Congo - save for a few massive road graters recently. The border has basically been a barrier for the missionaries travels and work. It has has left Bundibugyo underdeveloped - seemingly the end of the road, cut off from the rest of Uganda by the towering Rwenzori mountains, and little thru traffic to DRC. During the upheavals of civil war, many rebels made chaos of this border region. They had myriad questions when we met, about what it looks like, how its different, is it just forest?, etc. It felt no different from Bundibugyo. Mud and wattle houses lined the roads which were crowded with tons of people/livestock/transport, while little children relentlessly called out to me "Mzungu! Mzungu!". Save for the French signs, its the same on the surface. People probably have low standards for local government and services.
The road between Bundibugyo and Beni was improved by the EU in 2005. The guys watching the gate on the road told me it was easy to pass thru to Uganda - 72 kilometers to the border, through the primeval forest of Virungas National Park. Unfortunately I was unable to take this fascinating route this time, but hopefully others will now! Some of the missionaries have longed to pass into Congo to try to spot an okapi, so with the relative stability of this micro-region, they will be enabled to fulfill those desires.
No comments:
Post a Comment