Update on the Pont

The bridge bazaar is getting a little harrier every day. Just between
Sunday and Thursday, 5 large boats have appeared to start hauling big
loads of merchandise, including Primus beer (surprise surprise) across
the river. Two of these boats were brought from Komanda where "Broken
Bridge emergency response / organized absolute chaos" was not so
distantly experienced. At Komanda, the piroguier assocation charged
$50-100 for each of dozens of vehicles which crossed the river
everyday. Markets on both sides must have employed 500 people. Now
some of the same people from Komanda are responding to this broken
bridge by bringing their boats. Also, many locals are enjoying
newfound profits made as restaurateurs, truck cutters, and porters of
planks, beer, and merchandise.

The park guard association ICCN, is keeping pretty good control.
Crossing hours commence at 600h and finish promptly at 1800h. They
have a guy with a loud speaker and says something in Swahili, like
"You are in a 'conservation zone integrale'", which at least
subconciously lets people know they can't do whatever they want.
Vehicles must stay more than 1 km away from the bridge while they wait
their turn to offload their merchandise by the river side. Then the
village chief and police collect $20 for the privilege of offloading
their merchandise. The prices on all the stuff that crosses the river
is undoubtedly marked up for these petty charges and delays.

We are dealing pretty well with the situation, trading fuel with ICCN
and Gilman Conservation who are on the other side of the river. Papa
Michel, my favorite sentinel at our compound is at least 60 yrs old
and somewhat hard of hearing, but has managed to keep lunatics out of
our compound. We're even guarding someone's vehicles as they continue
on to Kisangani and will return for their vehicles after a few weeks.
As Papa Michel proudly recounted, the ICCN granted these people
permission to leave their vehicles in our compound because "Il y a
beaucoup de sécurité la bas/There is lots of security over there".

The serenity which makes Epulu so charming is gone for the moment.
There is no walking out over the bridge alone to watch a full moon
glance of the rushing river. Instead, there are the incessant beeps
of Nile Coach buses, motor bikes vrooming, and the distant crashes of
who knows what. Also, there are people everywhere outside of our
compound and the ICCN station. Mostly people are acting ok - they
seem to know this is Wildlife Reserve, and there are certain rules and
restrictions. They're also enjoying the opportunity to make a few
dollars.

Congo bridges falling down

My small village Epulu has bridges over the rushing river of the same
name, which is a tributary to the mighty Congo. Epulu is in the
center of the massive Okapi Wildlife Reserve, and therefore is a
well-chosen and picturesque headquarters for park management and
conservation NGOs. Epulu's bridges grant marvelous views of the
surrounding primeval forest, glorious sunsets which disappear towards
scads of unknown, more westerly villages. They are also a good
lookout point for harbingers of distant lightning and nastily grey
clouds, which forebode incoming thunderstorms.

Furthermore, the bridges enable daily foot traffic between Epulu
village "centre" and my side of the river where most people have their
gardens. Ladies traverse while carrying huge loads of charcoal home
from the forest, uniformed school kids (white shirts, blue shorts and
flip flops) amble on their way to school, pygmies port large bundles
of fresh leaves on their heads to bring the okapis their choice of 30
types of fresh leaves everyday.

In addition to local traffic, the bridge is a national road between
the cities of Kisangani and Bunia, which was improved a few years ago.
It is one of the rare good roads in DRC, which is famous for its
neglected infrastructure which was both symptom and cause of the
severe under-development, among other things. Roads either
disappeared into narrow footpaths, or were maintained in a "artisanal"
manner in which people dug when stuck, in some cases gorges that are
10+ feet deep. However, this road is continually maintained (thanks
to World Bank & Chinese funding, not the government), which
facilitates lots of traffic.
Cattle move to market hundres of kilometers away, huge beer trucks,
trucks with migrants sitting on top, trucks that are nearly as tall as
they are long, coach buses, and all manners of transport use the route
and therefore these bridges. Since 2007, due to a fallen bridge over
the Ituri River, this national road has been a bit handicapped. An
overloaded truck brought down a 200 meter bridge and limited traffic.
Only since the beginning of October, was this bridge finally repaired,
which has opened up long-distance travel across the massive Orientale
Province.

Now we are a bit deranged...there is a massive 60-ton double truck in
the Epulu River with the bridge crumpled underneath it. No one was
injured or killed, but the truck was more than 2x the legal limit,
carrying timber east towards Uganda. Vehicles, fields, ladies, are
all on the opposite side from where they might need to be every day.
And road traffic on our national road cannot continue.

Fortunately, there are two pirogues in Epulu. I'm sure that the needs
to make daily crossings or long haul transport, may bring another wave
of Congolese resourcefulness. But the bridge fall will likely bring
forth a frustratingly opaque demonstration of malfunctioning
governance and public service sectors. As we wait for someone to fix
the bridge, rumors will float, passage methods will develop and the
river banks may be damaged and Epulu will function differently. The
mamas will slide down the river slopes to mount the pirogue, while
schoolchildren wait on the other side (or just stay home), and a young
male piroguiere will demand money from the both for their passage.

I just hope nothing like what happened at the Ituri River banks
happens here. More than two years without a bridge turned both banks
into huge market places, full of hundreds of porters moving timber,
beer, and cheap Asian electronics and goods, as well as trucks and
buses onto man-powered "hand over hand" rope ferries. As Conrad, or
maybe it was me, once said, "the chaos...the chaos....". We had to
cross with our vehicles every few weeks and pay $50 and wait 1-2 hours
for the privilege. But there aren't going to be ANY vehicles crossing
here.

The advantage is our bridge is less than 40 meters long and we're
located in a protected area, and both banks are occupied by
international conservation NGOs, which might help to protect the
surrounding area. The disadvantage is that this is Congo, where
outsiders fear to invest or work, and where civil servants are rarely
called so due to merit. This chaos always presents opportunities to
pad the pocket of a mal-trained, ill-paid, or fat individuals. I
can't make any bets about what will happen with the bridge, so stay
tuned....

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#

Thoughts for Thursday

What's going on in Congo?

Last weekend I passed the infamous "bridge" which has been laying
awkwardly in the River Ituri for the last two years - brought down by
a massively overloaded truck - which appear to be common here.
Meanwhile, a mega-entrepreneurial exhibit of Congolese
opportunism/desperation manifests itself in markets on either side of
the river with young girls selling doughnuts, kids selling peanuts,
and a bunch of kiosks and little restaurants. People are surprisingly
indifferent to mzungus (white folks) who arrive and take tons of
pictures of what looks like absolute chaos! They've just become used
to it, or are more interested in their business. Well-muscled young
men haul yellow crates of Primus beer from truck to boat, and at $10 a
day, make fat cash compared to the average Congolese. I didn't see
the stout log-chockers this time. They foist huge timber cuts upon
their heads and look like their back or neck could give out at any
time...and you'd better get out of their way when they're porting
downhill towards the ferry.

The deckhands include the piroguers, who push their hollowed-out log
pirogues as far upstream as they can before chuting across the river
with the current. Then there are the teams of 5+ who pull the fully
loaded ferries across the river the old-fashioned way - hand over hand
man power. These ferries feature the empty Primus trucks, Nile Coach
passenger buses(!!), and any smaller or larger vehicle - really any
vehicle at all! Somehow there is only one main rope - and it looks
like a big boat jam, but teams with smaller ropes hop from boat to
boat and "portage" some boats around the bottlenecks.

I was a bit bemused to realize for the first time that Primus (which
seems to make up about 1/4 of all cargo - Congolese like their Primus
could go without saying) was going both ways across the river. Why
the Primus-huckers from opposite coasts don't organize a clean swap I
just can't understand? Presumably it has to do with glass bottle
ownership?! Literally, they must spend hours or most of a day -
moving Primus off a truck, onto the the ferry, and then across, and
then on to a waiting truck on the other side.

It won't be long now until this scene changes, as the Nepalese UN
Battalion has put the new bridge in place. It looks great to me as we
won't have to wait an hour or two, and pay $50 just to cross. It
probably looks not-so-great to the several hundred people who made
their money from the bridge being in the river. It certainly cannot
be forgotten as a metaphor for much of Congo. If things actually
worked, then who gets to benefit?

Now I am the man of the house, as my roommate left. Some of his
British sayings may stay with me and even pop up from time to
time....dodgy; thick idiot; and brilliant; are all sayings I enjoy!
So my Mama has a bit less to do now, which is good because she works
hard. Yes, I have cooked absolutely nothing in the nearly 3 months
since arriving; Mama cooks and cleans everything. I would have little
idea how to manage the charcoal, search our market-less village for
ingredients, or have the patience to prepare. Needless to say, my
cooking career appears yet very hopeless. She has worked here for a
long time, has three young kids with adorable names: Lydie, Astrid,
and Don de Dieu (Gift of God). Truly she is a lovely lady, who
patiently puts up with my incomprehensible and infantile French, and
makes the best darned natural peanut butter because she knows I like
it.

Other ramblin thoughts: In Congo, people have a little more flair to
their fashion than the neighboring countries. Here, people might have
one pair of jeans, but it will either have Chuck Taylor sneakers,
clocks, or "Obama" embroidered on them. For another example, some
women have braids that literally stick out in every single direction -
which leads me to wonder if they are exempt from hauling water - which
is typically carried by women on their heads.

If I grew up here, I'd probably walk everywhere, be given daily tasks
of fetching water, soap, vegetables from the town center. Kids are
given pretty free reign, but I think they're pretty obedient and
better at sharing than most kids in the US. Also, if we were lucky
enough to own a motorcycle, my entire family of four might ride it
together when we needed to make a road-trip.

Also, while I sit here writing a bunch of goofy thoughts back to some
readers I wish to reach, talking about all these wild experiences I've
had thus far this year; villagers of Epulu mourn a park guard and a
porter who were killed in a fire-fight with elephant poachers
(apparently 3 of who were killed). Things might be all and well for
me, but for mostly everyone else here, life is a pretty big
struggle...too many people are lost here to different maladies due to
lack of available routine medical treatment, accidents and violence.
Somehow globalization through different time scales (recent debt, poor
multilateral policies, or ancient colonial hauntings) could be
considered the primary fault here, while in my US home, our problems
are comparably small and mostly home grown. Then again, the poachers
who pulled the trigger were undoubtedly Congolese - so it is not
outsiders who will fix things here, that is clear; but finally we're
starting to realize we have an effect.

Jo-elle

So now its official...my name is pronounced "Jo-elle", as a concession
that one syllable Joel is just too easily confused with Jo or John for
francophones. Even Americans who I meet, will be introduced to me as
that, though I don't envision keeping it once back in the states. It
only sounds ok when its accompanied with other French, thats for sure!
In other contexts, I think it is just a woman's name :)

De Brazza's Monkeys

I can't complain about being in an office because I saw a de Brazza's
monkey family walking across our power lines! These monkeys are
absolutely magnificent looking with their stern russet orange brow and
hind quarter markings. It was the first time I've seen them, as
they're pretty rare and never stray away from water courses, so the
office just luckily happens to be in the right place. Wonderful!

In the village by the river that runs through the forest

Hello hello from DR Congo! I am very glad to be back in the little
village of Epulu, after a very very long trip in the exterior. Had a
fantastic albeit somewhat tiring trip!! This included two real
workshops and one pseudo-workshop and altogether lots of moving around
and not a lot of real work. The first week I attended a workshop in
Butare, Rwanda at the National University. They have an extremely
impressive Center for GIS (housed in the former French Cultural Center
building) and their staff have high competence and capacity to provide
training and services to the region. My host Bob, is an American man
who is setting up an MSc program in GIS, which should be off the
ground soon and hopefully attracting Congolese and other students from
the region. It was really fun to be in the workshop with 15
intelligent, motivated conservationists from Rwanda, Congo and Uganda.
Also its a little easier for me in Rwanda because it recently adopted
English as an official language. Very nice to meet people my age
working for the government or in the national parks system studying
species like the golden monkey of Volcanoes, conservation of forest
fragments which hold small populations of chimpanzee, and setting up a
community reserve in Congo to protect eastern lowland gorillas - the
most threatened of all great apes.

After the workshop, I met up with the Myhres - World Harvest
missionary doctors who have raised their family in Bundibugyo, Uganda,
and Ashley, one of the mission's teachers. This was their first ever
visit to their neighbor Rwanda and were shocked at the border by
having to switch which side of the road they were driving on, and not
being hassled for a visa fee. Rwanda has no visa requirement for
Americans and several other countries - making it a really easy place
for tourists to come. The people are absolutely wonderful too and the
country has caught on to making tourists and guests comfortable. Its
a good place to be!

After Butare, Ashley and I split off from the Myhres who headed via
Serengeti and Tanzania to take their two oldest to boarding school
outside Nairobi. In Kigali, my friend Peter from Clark Univ., drove
us all around the city and showed us how clean and developed it is. I
was really shocked in Kigali to be handed a helmet when hailing a
motorbike taxi! We had a great visit. Then we got on a big slow bus
back to Kampala, Uganda where I had another workshop - this one was
setting priorities for the conservation of eastern chimpanzees - which
are found in DR Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and a few in
CAR and Sudan. Congo probably has 95% of the population, but
estimates have very little confidence. There are unexplored intact
forest blocks the size of some of the other countries within eastern
chimp range which had zero information - biologists had seemingly
never gotten there. Hopefully WCS will be able to get into some of
these places and also get to know some known populations better so as
to preserve them, because they're undoubtedly most threatened in Congo
too because of imminent forest degradation and continued preferences
for bushmeat - which are minimal concerns in other range countries.

I also loved returning to Uganda - Kampala and a few days in Entebbe -
the people are lovely, and I have many friends there. As fortune had
it, the Massos were in Kampala on a break from their home in Sudan,
and my friend Godfrey, who I taught with in Bundibugyo lives there now
too. He's an earnest man of faith and a dear friend, who I've been
able to keep in touch with over the last few years. Very fun to see
them and other familiar faces at some of the hotels.

After a long week - we took several days in getting back to Epulu -
slow going but good. We stayed in Kampala again, Kasese in western
Uganda at a great cheap ($21) hotel with a health club, sauna, and
steam room(!) before hopping back across the border to Beni. We were
greeted at the border with some low grade hassling - a sign that some
"civil servants" still have a ways to go. Nevertheless - the trip
through Virunga National Park afforded some glorious views of savannah
grass lands, forests, and the Rwenzori - mountains of the moon.

In Beni, it was nice to meet Meredith and Grant, two Americans who are
teaching and working at the Bilingual Christian University of Congo,
probably the only bilingual university in the country - and also a
higher ed institution with a new vision rather than most which are
either crumbling or rebuilding. It aims to change Congo with the
renewal that Christ affords us all. Certainly Congo has so many
needs, and renewal with start with this hope! Its off the ground
thanks to good leadership; the founder is a local Congolese man,
PhD-educated in the US, who has developed decent fund-raising through
the American NGO "The Congo Initiative".

Check it out: http://www.congoinitiative.org/

Anyways it will be fun to hang out with a bunch of Christian American
"wazungus" (Swahili regional word for little kids - acceptable and
adults - rude - to call me and other white folks) when I go to Beni
from time to time.

Now I'm glad to be back in Epulu - the place where the monkeys
frolick, the rain pounds, the river rushes, and the moon and stars
glow of the dirt tracks and tin roofs. I think my gladness for the
return is a good sign that Epulu is becoming home!

Sejourn

Hello my peeps,

Chillin in Butare Rwanda tonite. I got here this morning after an
early bus ride from Kigali the capital. Its truly the land of a
thousand hills! Beautiful and orderly! Even the roads are mostly
quite good. Its quite a contrast from what I'm used to - in that
there is little forest left here, a taxi system, multi-ethnic
restaurants - stuff like this.

My way from Epulu to Butare was this. A 6 hour drive and night spent
in Beni. I did find a new favorite restaurant in Beni RDC - where
I'll go from now on. They served pizza! At any time of the day too.
And had crocs to decorate their courtyard's fountain. Nice one!
Sunday I caught a flight from Beni to Goma - which was only 1 hour,
but had to have been the most magnificent flight scenery I've ever
seen/most photos snapped per minute - even though it was cloudy. We
flew right over Virunga National Park - Lake Edward, the Albertine
Rift and past the brooding Nyiragongo volcano before landing in the
runway thats been carved from a the 2002 lava flows. At one point,
our little plane was level with really unique looking afromontane
vegetation - 10,000 feet and equatorial rays makes for some pretty
unique environments.

After all that - hopped the border and got on a bus to Kigali which
took three hours. I sat next to a nice Rwandan nurse named Capitoline
and spoke with her a melange of English and French - Rwanda is
friendly to francophone and anglophones! Score. She even bought me
some roast goat!

When I got to Kigali it was nearly dark. Very clean and quiet city
from what I saw. A friendly guy Marcel found me and took me to get a
SIM card, a ticket for an early morning bus from a different company,
and told me how to find my hotel - all without asking for anything.
The hotel had Indian food! Quite nice!

Now I'm in Butare at another workshop - number 2 out of 3. Its nice
town. More soon!!

Bonjour a Tous!

Comment ca va? Things in Epulu are going well - yesterday I moved to
Beni via motorbike. It was a long ride at 6.5 hours and I'm still
recuperating - feels like I got beat around a bit - kind of like doing
groinies for hours, keeping your abs flexed and legs bent - probably
something like what a catcher feels like after a 15 inning game -
except without the mental exercise - I just balanced myself and
watched the world go by. Eric trustily drove me and we made like
Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunn all the way - without freezing
together. We encountered some horrible muddy roads which amazingly
(?) had far more trucks than the good road - I don't quite understand
why. I've only been between Epulu and Beni via 4-wheel drive vehicle
in which we had avoided this shortcut road and done much more like a
big L. 290 km was reduced to about 230 using the hypotenuse. It was
very interesting to see the dramatic change moving from Orientale
Province - sparsely populated with fields cut into towering virgin
forest - into North Kivu province - with rich, dark soil and nearly
every square inch in some stage of cultivation and people everywhere.
The outlying cultivatation around Beni is huge - the fields extend at
least 20-30 km around the city.

Attached are some photos of Masika, the baby girl chimp (~21 months
old) and one of the 14 captive okapis who also call Epulu home. Its
fun to be able to visit these creatures and see other wildlife right
around. Anytime I go out from my house, its possible to see monkeys
and birds, and when I gotta go out at night for a bath or to the
latrine, I've spotted the glowing eyes of a servaline genet (a slinky
cat-weasel mix with a long striped tail), some kind of a duiker (a
tiny forest antelope the size of a large rabbit - a bushmeat delicacy)
and a potto - a surprisingly-fast prosimian - a nocturnal primate.
I'm gonna try my hardest to hit the jackpot of forest wildlife-viewing
in reverse order:

3) chimpanzee, 2) a forest elephant, 1) or even better and more rare -
an okapi! There should be ample opportunity!

The French is coming! Slowly slowy - - and even more slowly slowy -
or pole pole - is Swahili. After I get my feet under me more, it'd be
a good idea to hire a teacher. Everyone speaks Swahili, whereas only
the rare educated speak French. Considering the poor state of
education here, its surprisingly how well some of the staff speak
English - puts me to shame but all I can do is try. Until it just
comes.

Outpost from the Field

Jambo ! ("Hi" - in Swahili). I've been in Epulu for more than 2 weeks
now, and have been enjoying life here very much. This weekend was
especially good, as my roommate Thomas and I took a hike far into the
forest.

We departed Saturday after the rains ended, and with our team of 3
headed out to Lenda - a plot set up for long-term ecological research
in the forest. Our "equipe" consisted of Stanley, an educated man
from Epulu as our main guide and organizer; a man named Mapole man who
knew all the scientific names of the primates and has worked with the
local conservation organizations. Last but not least, we had an Mbuti
man who lead us through the forest. He knew every leaf, tree, and
fruit and which animals eat them, and he'd communicate in Swahili to
our guide. We hiked somewhere around 20 miles in two days, and were
so deep in the forest that returning to Epulu felt like returning to
big civilization. Our Mbuti guide was especially impressive during a
3-hour morning outing spent visiting different edos close to the
forest plot. We bushwhacked through machete-hacked trails and
animal-maintained trails, frequently seeing the dung of the
elephantine trail engineers. Apparently, they constantly eat and
constantly "go". The Mbuti would follow a trail, and every few
minutes cut a very sharp turn onto another trail. A few minutes into
our journey, I had no idea from which direction we started, and each
turn enhanced the feat of finding our way back to camp. We never once
turned around, and the Mbuti showed confident navigation skills like I
have when I'm following directions and signs to a familiar place. I
guess the signs were in the forest, just couldn't be seen by my eyes.
The edos were quite amazing - a sudden clearing in the dense forest
from which many trails lead. Despite being dry and "non-actif" -
harboring no large animals, we saw where the elephants, buffalo, and
antelopes had left their footprints or muzzled into the salt-rich
soil, and hense maintained the clearing.

I'm doing fine - things are busy! I'm trying to get a grip on the new
job, the French, and getting acclimated to Epulu. We have a big GIS
training workshop in 2 weeks, which I'm preparing for. It should be a
lot of fun and put my French and teaching skills to a good test. The
best will be meeting WCS employees from different sites around DRC -
Virunga, Kahuzi-Biega, and of course here, employees from the Okapi
Reserve.

I should prolly visit and post some photos of the okapi soon right?
Let me get on that:)

98% Cousin

Hello All,

I've been in Epulu for a week now, and it is indeed a beautiful place. Its easy to be fond of the crazy calls of parrots in the morning, or branches shaking violently as monkeys ply the upper reaches of the trees. The wildlife is magnificent - even some of the insects are unimaginably beautiful OR scary.

There is an okapi zoo here in Epulu run by an American NGO called Gilman International Conservation - which contains 14 captured, named, and well-cared for adult okapi. The site manager Rosie has also been taking in orphaned chimpanzees. When I visited Epulu last August, there was a very sad looking baby chimp tethered to a chair in a park HQ building as it'd been turned into the park guards. More than likely, its mother and maybe others had been killed for bushmeat. When I met a baby girl chimp named Masika who is here, I thought it might be the same I saw, and was thrilled as she was healthy and playful. I learned that Masika has only been here for about 3 months and the chimp I saw was moved to a veterinary facility. These two will never be wild again for sure, but I'm glad she is getting good care. It is so stunning to see her many facial expressions and moods - curiosity at meeting a new person - running to me, bumping me with her head, then running away, excitement at being fed papaya, smiling(?) when their tummy is tickled, biting me after being fed, and the first time she climbed me and let me hold her like a baby. She's similar to people in so many ways. I'll keep visiting her, as she needs TLC in her mother's absence.

Independence Day USA

I can imagine people in America are surely enjoying fireworks, roman candles, cookouts, swimming, and lots of Red, White & Blue. Its my favorite holiday!
I'm not going to find the most raucous Independence Day celebration here, but Epulu is good!

One reason people really like America in Africa these days is of course because of Barack! In fact, even here in Epulu there are signs of affection for the most powerful man in the world, who has a Kenyan father. The office here has a 2009 calendar of "The Two Youngest Presidents in the World", featuring none other than Kabila and Obama. I'm not sure the claim is true, but regardless - they share relative youth at about 33 and 47 years of age.

I don't believe they've met, but the middle picture of Kabila & Obama in the White House sure does look like the picture of Kabila & George Bush meeting in the White House. Interesting!

For those of you wondering about my safety - well Epulu is very very safe. I have a small cat (un petit chat) to protect me from the rats.

Also my first security update for most of the cities in the east (Beni, Bunia, Butembo, Goma) was a resounding "It goes!" (Ca va!). The insecurity continues north of Goma to Butembo and the area around Bukavu is really terrible, as the Congolese army is chasing the Rwandan rebels. The LRA is still hiding in some parts way to my north too. These places are very far from me. Hopefully peace can return to all of these places.

I hope this message finds you well, enjoying your holiday weekend and thankful for America.

Arrived in Epulu!

Dear Friends,

I've reached Epulu after an interesting journey which I could only
make with the help of the street-smart, experienced helpers (drivers,
market-navigators, friendly folks at WCS offices in Beni & Mambasa).
Epulu is a small village at the center of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve,
which functions as the headquarters for conservationists and park
guards, and perhaps more tourists some day!

I say the journey was interesting, because I just realized how
helpless I am. After staying in Entebbe, Uganda for two nights, then
flying to Beni, DRC and staying there for two nights, we departed from
Beni to Epulu for what ended up being an all-day affair.

First of all, with my limited French, its difficult to think of what I
want to say (which I'm not all that great at in English!).
Nevertheless, people graciously and forgivingly try to figger me out!

The drivers Jupiter and Jean-Pierre successfully navigated the
washed-out roads, which having other African roads from which to
compare (Bundibugyo) - were not horrible.

The river-crossing where a bridge is out is very interesting! We did
unfortunately run a motorcycle off the road which was carrying two
gentlemen. The rules of the road, are that the biggest gets right of
way, and they need to follow the track, even if its on the opposite
side of the road (they aren't so much like lanes).

The gentlemen were riding the opposite direction as us and tried to
move off to the side, and ran straight into the ditch. We stopped as
the shaken moto-riders brushed themselves off, and looked at their
bike in the bushes which was now facing the opposite direction. They
were fine and the bike was fine, and we avoided major confrontation.
When we arrived in Mambasa, which at 70 km from Epulu, is the closest
town with a major market and fuel. Some people approached Jean-Pierre
and and some heated discussion ensued when they tried to get the
police involved, saying someone had died because of us. It was
clearly a ridiculous attempt to gain advantage from our organization.

Further on, a goose ran into our truck and was severely injured or
killed (I couldn't see if the owner who ran after it with a machete -
needed to use it). Immediately JP stopped again as a crowd formed -
$10 appeased the owner enough it seemed.

After fueling up, we arrived in Epulu around 5 at night. It was just
in time to greet a few people and find my house (chez moi). Its a
simple house without electricity for the moment, and with an
out-kitchen, out-house, and out-bath. I was offered hot water for my
bucket bath - nice! There is wildlife literally out my back door -
red-tailed monkeys, hornbills, and birds I'll have to learn to
identify. And also inside! Something cleaned up my dirty dish and
moved a lemon peel across the room, and I won the battle with this
hellacious-looking large insect that had glowing eyes and darted after
me. I supposed we'll learn to coexist to some extent, or better yet,
that they'll learn to fear me.

So far so good - Its gonna be fun time in heart of the jungle!

--
Joel A. Masselink
+++++++++++++++++
jmasselink@gmail.com
Wildlife Conservation Society
Epulu, DR Congo

Returning to "big" Congo

I'm returning to DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo, the "big" Congo, former Belgian Congo) for a year, leaving on June 27th from the USA. I'll live in the small village of Epulu at the heart of the Ituri forest. Epulu is the headquarters of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve - protected habitat for this "forest" giraffe which is found only there. The okapis have an prepubescent/awkward appearance, but their beauty is a gentle, shy disposition and the rarity of an encounter with them. Epulu is the home to a mix of gardes de parc, conservation biologists, and M'buti pygmies - the original inhabitants of these forests, who are allowed to live and hunt within the park, as they have since time immemorial.

My work will support Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) activities throughout the DRC - projects in the swamp forests of Salonga, lowland gorilla habitat of Kahuzi-Biega, volcanoes of Virunga, and the endless green mountains of Itombwe. How can I not be thrilled to see the magnificent scenery, and to learn from people who have struggled and persisted through the instability of life in Congo, yet exhibit a beautiful 'joie de vivre!'? Keep up with my adventure here!