In the Forests of Ituri

In Exile (observing elections from a distance)

2011-12-26T08:35:00.001-05:00

For DRC's recent elections, there was a lot at stake – the rule over a country of 70 million people, which borders 9 countries (Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo), and has vast resource wealth. However, the state institutions are being rebuilt after corruption and wars devastated the country. DRC remains impoverished, recently being rated 187 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, which measures such indicators as literacy, maternal and infant mortality, life expectancy, and wealth.

The Congolese population has the most at stake as they've have been waiting a long time for their government to start functioning and to stop preying on them. So given recent wars, continued instability, and significant tension, we acted with a lot of precaution. Offices were shut down from Dec 3 – 10, while the election results were tallied and final results announced. I went into exile in Uganda on Dec 4, while waiting for the results to be announced on Dec 6. The electoral commission however delayed the announcement 48 hrs to Dec 8, which was delayed at the last minute until Dec 9. These delays were due to logistical problems and also general disorganization that reigned from the start of the campaigns to the end of voting.

The wait was a bit intense, though we all knew who would be re-elected, as the incumbent stuffed ballot boxes, used state resources and institutions for his campaign, put friends in all major election commission and supreme court positions, and touted democracy the entire way. Shameless! But, given the possibilities (literally anything you could imagine has already happened in DRC), it was still interesting to follow and also to try to gauge what the reaction would be.

Beni, the eastern city where I pass through on my way out of the country, seems like a relatively calm place, but my friends who live there often here gunshots at night, and insecurity is chronic. On voting day (Nov 28), a large group of armed men attacked the central prison, killing the prison guards and freeing over 400 prisoners, allegedly so that they could go vote! Then on the morning of the original results proclamation day (Dec 6), a militia attacked and released more criminals. But then things returned to normal in a few hours. We knew the situation was volatile, but with very isolated incidents across a huge country. Any more disruptive reactions to elections might bend toward a longer-term trajectory or take part in the capital city over 1000 miles west of me. So, I returned from exile for about 8 days. On our return, we passed through an area where a bus had avoided a roadblock set by unidentified armed men and one passenger was killed when they shot through the back windows. This was yet another sobering reminder of the insecurity that plagues the country.

In my village, it was business as usual, though election chatter dominated among my colleagues because the opposition and different observation groups contested the results. After working and planning what needed to be done over vacation and early in 2012, I left again to pass a few days in Beni before vacation officially started. When I arrived there, rumors circulated of imminent attacks, so my bosses told me to just go!

On Tuesday, the incumbent was sworn in while only one head-of-state attended, Robert Mugabe, the 173 year-old Zimbabwean dictator who destroyed their economy. That was a strong sign of the illegitimacy of this regime. Even their closest allies like South Africa, Rwanda, and China were noticeably absent.

Meanwhile, the main opposition leader apparently held his own inauguration ceremony Friday. He was not allowed to hold it in a Kinshasa football stadium as originally planned. He's basically under house arrest, which is fine because he's 78 and likes his house a lot. It seems we're in for a political crisis, which we hope won't degenerate. DRC can't afford it. But they also can't afford for democracy to get trampled all over. Where will the rule of law and justice begin with an administration that abuses it? Development cannot happen without it.

Pre-electoral period :

2011-12-18T05:15:00.001-05:00

(written Nov 15, 2011)

I've just returned to DRC during the month of campaigning prior to Nov 28 presidential and national elections. There is a lot of anticipation in the air, and frankly lots of worry. There is nothing concrete that gives us reason to worry but it's just uncertainty, volatility, and immaturity and cutthroat nature of politics in this region that has people concerned. There are clear signs that these elections will be fraught with intimidation, voter fraud, and muscling in whatever way possible, as the rules of fair play are difficult to enforce here.

For good coverage of the elections, there is a good blog by Jason Stearns, an American human rights researcher, who has a network from which he acquires credible information. I'm keeping my eye on his blog these days, just to get a feel for the situation.

Voting is done by emotions here – so if the incumbent hands out $10 or pieces of printed cloth to a group of poor citizens a few days before the election, they can easily forget the 5 years of corruption and ineffectual governance that has plunged DRC to the very bottom of the Human Development Index, while insecurity at the hands of the national army persists. Even nations like Niger, Chad and Mali, who have few resources and dictatorship government, are ahead of DRC. It is quite sad, as there is so much potential here…but its only that. I now see the negative sense of the word "potential" – when everything is there, but nothing has yet been done. I'm talking about the state government. Congolese themselves are survivors, habituated to making the best of any situation. They've never been able to expect anything from government, as it has always functioned to siphon off of the people rather than to provide services. Dictators have come and gone and come again, but opposition isn't able to clearly break from this system. So the system may not change no matter what happens. Congolese will survive, but what level of suffering will they be able to endure?

Birds on the brain

2011-11-24T01:26:00.000-05:00

Thanks to July’s trip with my parents to western Uganda, my long pathetic search for a hobby has finally yielded something. Ornithology! - simply the science (?) of identifying birds! Given my choices in life, I am living in a mega-hotspot for birds - frequently traveling in the Albertine Rift which bridges the Congo Basin and East Africa's savannahs.

Anyways, with my parents, we visited Bigodi wetland which is a community conservation project just outside of the Kibale National Park in western Uganda. This project generates revenue for community members by leading tourists on guided primate & bird walks. Our young guide Alex was inspiring. Within seconds of debarking on our bird walk, he was shooting off cock-eyed looks through his binoculars and telling us which species we were seeing. A few minutes into the hike, Alex, exclaimed, “Oh, I hear a golden-backed thrush! I’m going to get him to fly overhead!” Then Alex whipped out his iPod and portable speakers and quickly played the call. The bird responded by flying directly overhead and repeating the recorded call. Wow! That was amazing!! As we proceeded, sometimes we’d hear birdcalls a long ways off. Other times we’d stop to talk and by chance, catch the glimpse of bird perched silently in the undergrowth close to us.
“What is that one Alex?!”
“It’s a blue-breasted kingfisher”; “It’s the larger cousin of the woodland kingfishers which you probably already know”
“What bout that one!!”
“That one is Ross’s turaco, one of three turacos found here. Frequently in groups of three”;
“Wow, this is your lucky day. That is a white-collared oliveback, see its white collar! OH wow! Even the female is here! I only see these about three times in a year! And we are getting such a good view of a couple!”
So this cool guy and fun experience convinced me that I should become an ornithology hobbyist! Other fun outings on the trip around Fort Portal crater lakes, Kabwoya Wildlife Reserve, and Murchison Falls National Park provided many new bird sightings! And back in Massachusetts, I went out with my new ornithologist friend Russ to a saltmarsh where we (read: he) identified 53 species in one day!
Now, I couldn’t hold the jockstrap of Alex (pardon me for trying to remember vulgar high school slang). I frequently search vainly for that incessant chirping in the forest canopy and viney tangles, but the darn bird won’t come out and show its beak! Oh SNAP, he just flew off! I can’t get my binocs to my face fast enough…and he’s gone….
Also, I have a very small capacity to forcefully imprint new calls into my brain. However, I find birding to be tons of fun! I wander all around Epulu with my binoculars and see things that I never cared to notice before. Having spent the better part of two years here already, I’m finding some birdsongs are already inprinted in my subconscious, but now I am matching the song to its singer by its color, size, shape, size, patterns, and behavior.
I was super lucky to have my new birding fetish coincide with the extended vacation of one the very few Congolese ornithologists. We went out birding together several times and he gave me some key tips and helped me with identification. Also, knowing that someone finds this interesting was important ego-booster. In fact, I’m not the first, second, third or fourth. Epulu has a rich history of conservationists (of whom I couldn’t humbly hold the jockstrap for) and ornithologists, who have successfully identified well over 300 species of birds in and around the central sector of Okapi Reserve!
To date, I’ve successfully identified about 25 of these birds, but my list is growing every day! There are easily another 25-50 that I wasn’t able to identify. And, I may be nuts, but I swear on my life that I saw the most seductive forest bird that one could ever imagine existed. Imagine a beta fish in bird form – black but with two long white tail feathers on either side of the tail, it was floating up in the canopy! There for 5 seconds before I took my binocs down and started running around in circles in excitement. Then it floated off, never to be seen again! But I know he and many others are still out there, waiting to be discovered.

PS. The little guy in the photo is a red-cheeked cordon bleu - a type of finch that we saw in Kabwoya Wildlife Reserve on the shores of Lake Albert in Uganda.

10 things I miss v. 10 things I like

2011-11-16T02:57:00.000-05:00

Things I miss about America
1. Ice
2. Ice cream
3. My family!
4. Snowstorms
5. 24/7 electricity (not counting freak October snowstorms or hurricanes)
6. Instantaneous everything (Smartphones)
7. Driving
8. Flush toilets
9. Newspapers, nightly news & even local news
10. Sweet desserts

Things I like about being in Africa
1. Carol

2. Having a cook!
3. Exploring, hiking, birding, enjoying incredible nature
4. My cat Kidogo (my other kitty Minnie, Kidogo’s mother,died recently )
5. Simple village life
6. Awesome lightning and showers during thunderstorms
7. Not driving
8. Excitement of new experiences
9. When things work
10. Juicy pineapples, mangos, and papaya

Pre-Election Period

2011-11-13T07:07:00.001-05:00

I’ve just returned to DRC during the month of campaigning prior to Nov 28 presidential and national elections. There is a lot of anticipation in the air, and frankly lots of worry. There is nothing concrete that gives us reason to worry but it’s just uncertainty, volatility, and immaturity of politics in this region that has people concerned. There are signs that these elections will be fraught with intimidation and voter fraud, as the rules of fair play are difficult to enforce here.

For good coverage of the elections, there is a good blog by Jason Stearns, an American human rights researcher, who has a network from which he acquires credible information. I’m keeping my eye on his blog these days, just to get a feel for the situation.

Voting is done by emotions here – so if the incumbent hands out $10 or pieces of cloth to a group of poor citizens a few days before the election, they can easily forget the 5 years of corruption and ineffectual governance that has plunged DRC to the very bottom of the Human Development Index, while insecurity at the hands of the national army persists. Even nations who have few resources and dictatorship government, are ahead of DRC.

Its sad for the Congolese people, as there is so much potential here…but its only that til now. Here we see the negative sense of the word “potential” – when everything is there, but nothing has been done yet.

Massive Ivory Seizure

2011-08-26T09:28:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday, over 1000 tusks were seized from a boat in Zanzibar headed to Malaysia. This means over 500 African elephants were killed.

This huge seizure underscores the point that the war against poaching and the wildlife trade is being lost. The demand in China and Japan is huge, value attributed to ivory is rising. Therefore sophisticated smuggling networks have been created. Let us redouble our efforts for protection of African Elephants and also to the education of the world's citizens about our natural environment and the flora and fauna which share this earth with us.

Click Here for the original article

Tusks From Over 500 Elephants Seized in Zanzibar
DAR es SALAAM, Tanzania, August 25, 2011 (ENS) - Tanzanian officials have confiscated 1,041 elephant tusks they found hidden in sacks of dried fish at the Port of Zanzibar, authorities said on Wednesday. The island of Zanzibar is located in the Indian Ocean, about 22 miles off the coast of mainland Tanzania.

Shipping documents for the container in which the elephant tusks were discovered show the destination as Malaysia.

Two suspects are in custody and are being questioned, Zanzibar police spokesman Mohammed Mhina told Reuters.

"Interpol officials from Dar es Salaam have arrived to investigate the incident," he said of the international police force.

The seizure comes as 27 wildlife law enforcement officials from 11 Southern African countries gather in Gaborone, Botswana this week for a training session on the prevention of illegal trade in wildlife given jointly by Interpol and the nonprofit International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"This seizure makes it clear that the ongoing Interpol wildlife enforcement training, which IFAW is supporting in Gabarone, is vital to saving elephants - particularly those elephants of the Congo Basin which are most threatened," said Kelvin Alie, IFAW's Wildlife Trade Programme director. "While we gather to discuss combating the ivory trade, elephants continue to be killed for their ivory."

"At a certain point you stop saying these seizures are alarming or surprising and accept them as a grim and inevitable reminder that we are losing the war against wildlife trafficking," said James Isiche, IFAW East Africa director. "We need a global outcry to spur investment in creating the necessary wildlife law enforcement capacity to take on the international criminal syndicates who benefit from these massacres."

Yet conservationists say they were "stunned" by news of the seizure. "Just imagine discovering the remains of at least 521 dead elephants in a single haul," said Will Travers, CEO of the Born Free Foundation and president of the Species Survival Network. "This news has truly numbed us all to the core, and made us even more determined to redouble our efforts in the fight against elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade."

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, approved a complete ban on trade in ivory in 1989, following a decade of bloodshed when 700,000 elephants were slaughtered. But since then there have been numerous concerted efforts to re-open legal trade, and two legal sales of ivory approved by CITES.

"Many experts believe the battle for elephants must not only be fought in the forests or on the savannahs of Africa, or even in the ivory markets of the Far East, but in the corridors of power at CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species," said Travers. "Africa's elephants need action - and they need it now."

The elephant battles at CITES are truly something to behold. Elephant and ivory trade discussions are possibly the most divisive and contentious issues discussed by the 175 countries that have signed the treaty.

In 1999, CITES approved a legal export of 58 tonnes of ivory from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana to Japan.

In 2008, China joined Japan as an approved "ivory trading partner" in a decision that the United Kingdom government justified at the time as an attempt to satisfy demand and thus reduce poaching.

In 2009, the second CITES-approved shipment of 108 tonnes of ivory to China and Japan took place, despite an international outcry that such legal trade would surely only stimulate demand, and therefore increase poaching.

In 2010, Tanzania and Zambia both asked CITES for approval to sell their stockpiled ivory. However, a group of 23 African elephant range states, known as the African Elephant Coalition, prevented this from happening. More ivory trade proposals are predicted for future CITES meetings, which take place every three years.

Conservationists point out that elephant poaching levels now are rising. "Seizures of illegal ivory this year alone run into tens of thousands of kilos; and the price of illegal raw ivory in the Far East has risen exponentially," Travers said.

A recent report by the EU-funded Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants Programme (MIKE) reveals an upward trend in poaching across East, Southern and Central Africa.

"There are not enough elephants left on this planet to meet Asian demand for ivory," said Shelley Waterland, Born Free's wildlife trade expert.

"Enforcement efforts are essential, but so is reducing demand. A complete ban on any trade in ivory whatsoever must be the only way forward if we are to have any hope of saving elephants across their current range," Waterland said. "Many fragile populations will simply not survive for very much longer if this level of threat continues unabated."

China is now recognized by CITES as the single biggest consumer of illegal ivory. "With the growth in disposable income of Chinese citizens," Travers says, "many believe the demand will keep on rising."

As a matter of urgency, Born Free is calling for China's status as an approved ivory trading partner to be withdrawn.

The group says all countries should agree that future proposals to sell stockpiled ivory be abandoned.

The conservationists are calling on Interpol and the Lusaka Agreement Task Force to step up measures to infiltrate and destroy the organized criminal gangs that operate the poaching syndicates responsible for the current high level of illegal elephant poaching.

In addition, conservationists say money is needed to support law enforcement. "What elephant range states now need is the commitment of the international community to financially support these highly skilled and motivated trainees to be able to meet the task of protecting elephants and stop the legal trade in ivory which facilitates poaching and illegal trade," said Alie.

An African elephant trust fund for the implementation of an African Elephant Action Plan was launched last week at a meeting of the CITES Standing Committee, which manages the affairs of the agency between the tri-annual meetings.

CITES officials and conservationists are urging the international community to join the Netherlands, France and Germany in donating to the African Elephant Fund, which has a goal of $100 million over the next three years. The fund is intended to help pay for priority elephant conservation actions identified in the African Elephant Action Plan, which has been agreed by all 37 African elephant range states.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2011. All rights reserved.

Abraham Conservation Award recipients

2011-08-25T12:25:00.001-04:00

The two park guards from Okapi Wildlife Reserve who were killed on 23 Dec 2010 will be posthumously honored with the Abraham Conservation Award, a prestigious honor which recognizes the sacrifice, courage, and bravery with which individuals have acted to protect nature. The guards' widows will attend a ceremony on Sept 25 in the capital city of Kinshasa. May their sacrifice not have been in vain and the memory of their courage be forever appreciated.

OKAPI WILDLIFE RESERVE
James Kumbayangu Biangbale, ICCN, Second in Command of the RFO guards

James joined ICCN in Epulu after paramilitary training in 2002. He continued para military training and was named instructor at the Ishango training (Virunga) in 2005 because of his high achievement. His bravery and clever strategizing caused him to rise in rank becoming the associate commanding chief of the guard force in the RFO. On this occasion 23 December 2010, his mixed team of guards and military encountered a group of 48 poachers with lookouts hidden in the forest. James team captured one, but as James spoke with him, another, still hidden, fired on James from behind. Struck in the hip he continued to encourage and guide his guards until he died. This included not only instructing one of his team on how to fire a rocket propelled grenade, but also use of his own arm. He died an hour later.

Kambale Bemu, ICCN Patrol guard
Known as Didi, he joined ICCN in 2008. He was appreciated as brave and responsive in guard patrols. He was particularly recognized by his superiors for his refusal to take bribes when posted at potential mining sites. In the same confrontation that cost James his life he forged forward and took two bullets while recovering an arm. The injury cost his life 2 days later, before he managed to reach the road. In the battle the ICCN managed to recuperate two military arms and to kill 8 poachers at the site. The identity of the uncontrolled military that were among the poachers has not been made public, nor are any in custody.

Elephant Poaching publicity

2011-08-23T23:06:00.001-04:00

In the last month, several important articles have been published which document the massacre of African Elephants since 2008.

Orphans No More, National Geographic, September 2011:
After the trauma of attack and loss comes healing—and a richer understanding of the emotions and intelligence of elephants.

- this article depicts the complexity and "humanness" of elephant emotions as encountered at a unique orphanage / rehabilitation center operated by the David Sheldrick Trust in Kenya. One must note that very few elephants actually arrive in an orphanage and elephant orphans like them are scattered all over the African elephant range

Agony and Ivory, Vanity Fair, August 2011:
With a booming illegal-ivory market in China and impoverished poachers desperate for tusks, Alex Shoumatoff discovers, Africa’s elephants face an “extinction vortex.”

- this article travels to Kenya, Gabon, Zimbabwe, as well as Hong Kong and Guangzhou to trace the lethally sophisticated and antediluvian ivory trade.

Okapi Reserve retains Imperiled Status

2011-08-23T15:59:00.003-04:00

Since 1997, the Okapi Wildlife Reserve has been inscribed on the dubious list of 35 UNESCO World Heritage Sites which are "in danger". It is reviewed at the annual session held by the World Heritage Committee which appears to be composed of all manner of conservation folk.

DRC's other sites inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger were also retained. They include: Virunga National Park, Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Garamba National Park, and Salonga National Park. DRC's extraordinary biodiversity continues to be under extraordinary pressure.

Forest from Above

2011-05-22T09:16:00.001-04:00

Its way more than just broccoli! Here is a photo taken from a Cessna piloted by Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) for the purposes of Law Enforcement Monitoring in the Okapi Reserve.
I was lucky to participate in one survol which had the goal to locate illegal activities and human installments seen from a pre-defined flight path. We took a 2 hr flight over a mixed-species primary forest. It is incredibly diverse from the air as seen in this photo. The diversity of colors due to flowering and leafing - different heights, shapes, and dimensions of crowns, make for a hypnotically stunning viewing-experience.

We located 3 existing villages and 1 new village - very very deep in the forest. The largest one had about 20 houses while the smallest was one isolated hut! It is amazing that these villages survive so far from roads. What is their method of subsistence? Who helps them out? These questions will have to be followed up by launching ground patrols. One village was mining gold and had recently been confronted and dispersed by park guards. We didn't see anybody down there, but maybe they were hiding in their houses. Telltale signs of water-filled pits, houses, and even an orange tarp made it easy to spot.

Also we located some edos which are clearings maintained by animals - typically large and mammalian - such that the vegetation is significantly reduced. Edos are attractive because of water, minerals, and eventually became a sort of social scene perhaps? We saw a series of 4 each of which were over 100m long...no animals down there at the time of our flight, but its interesting to know that activity is or has been significant there. Not much is known about how edos are used.

Two Park Guards killed

2010-12-27T06:33:00.003-05:00

There is horrible news from the Okapi Wildlife Reserve this Christmas. Two park guards, James; command officer, and Didi, were killed by poachers. They were on a patrol deep in the forest. Didi died of injuries, so his brave colleagues were able to remove his body from the forest today (4 days after the incident). James was killed immediately, and his body is still at least 2 days away from being removed from the forest. His body is being attended to by other courageous guards, who are helping to move it out of the forest and towards the road.

It is tough for all their colleagues, the park guards - who daily act bravely to protect the natural heritage of the Congo - knowing that death is an uncertain reality. It is much worse for the families of these two men. I don't know if they left widows or children, but assume they both did.

Will post more info when it becomes available. We hope now that they can both be properly buried as soon as possible.

Gorilla Tracking!

2010-12-17T14:25:00.005-05:00

Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern DR Congo, is a World Heritage Site, due to its universal value to conservation. It used to harbor 75% of the eastern lowland gorilla (gorilla gorilla graueri), which is only found in DR Congo. The range of these gorillas was literally invaded by warring and anarchy over the last 15 years. Kahuzi-Biega was the scene of massive mineral exploitation - invaded by as many as 30,000 miners, all of who had to eat!
These gorillas were even hunted for bushmeat - killing many of the groups which had been habituated to tourism...very very sad.

However, park management has worked hard to counter negative forces - mining and rebel groups in the park, to protect its gorillas. Kahuzi-Biega was the site of the first gorilla group habituated to tourism - and here I am with the old man who was there at the beginning - Bwana Pilipili (basically his name is hotsauce or pepper :-).

Now tourism is open, and there are 2 groups habituated - including Chimanuka's group. His name means Eureka! - because after the war, park guards feared that all silverbacks had been lost, but he was found. He now is the silverback leader of 37 individuals! He and his 16 females very productive - now with 20 children, including 4 sets of twins! It is an amazing experience to spend a few minutes with gorillas - thinking about how they've resisted, how their Congolese protectors have persisted, and just watching them eat, play and watch you! Truly an international treasure.

Polar opposite neighbors

2010-12-13T14:04:00.002-05:00

I'm currently in Goma - the gory- or hollow-named Congolese city on the shores of Lake Kivu. It is on the border with Rwanda, and filled with people, vehicles, and lava! Just 15 km from the city stands Mount Nyiragongo - one of handful of the world's active volcanoes which has a permanent lava pool in its center. It is a mirror image of those baking soda volcano sets that you should buy for Christmas, and people live ALL around it. On clear nights, a bright red glow can be seen from Goma and clear days reveal a constant steam.

In 2002, Nyiragongo erupted sending most of the city's residents fleeing as lava covered much of the city. To the west of Nyiragongo, and also in Congo, is a younger and even more active volcano Nyumalagira. As you move east, Congo shares two dormant volcanoes - Mikeno & Sabyinyo - with Rwanda. Then Rwanda & Uganda contain the 5 oldest volcanoes. All these dormant volcanoes comprise one of two blocks of the mountain gorilla's range!

Goma has horribly bumpy roads - hardened lava waits to be smoothed as people trip continuously. Goma has dealt with a lot in the last few years - receiving massive influxes of refugees from continuous conflicts. However, the huge UN presence has held up the hard-working, endurant local economy. Lava-block walls encircle new manses and there are many more under construction. There is not a lot of quiet around town. But one shouldn't expect quiet in Congo anyways!

Goma and its neighbor border town; Gisenyi, Rwanda; are nearly perfect metaphorical synonym's to the reputation of their respective countries.

As soon as you arrive in Rwanda, there is no more lava (did a volcanologist draw these borders?) and calm and order is restored. Where Congo has roads paved with lava' Rwanda has paved roads. Rwandan taximen hand a helmet to passengers! Gisenyi is a quiet resort town - very few people compared to the gigantesque, crowded Goma. There are artificial sandy beaches formed on its beautiful shore. Locals hit the beach and swim - boys practice flips off of hills, couples cuddle in the park, and expats and local middle-class go to resorts to swim in pools and water-ski. It has a very calming feel to it as opposed to the dirty, claustrophobia-causing, and intimidating Goma. Relations between the two countries are quite good now, and the border is open 24 hours a day. But given the choice, Congolese stay in Goma, and Rwandans stay in Gisenyi!

RIP - Papa Jeepay

2010-12-13T13:37:00.004-05:00

November cruised by with lots of force (French for "strength") with Thanksgiving and preparation for a long voyage, on which I've already departed. Finally I've been lended a quiet night alone at the hotel - a good time to drink some red wine and give a little update.

My organization lost Papa Jean-Pierre JeePay last month - he was a veteran chauffeur for the last 18 years. He plied the sometimes impossible Congolese routes, the often impracticable logistics - to become the longest-lived employee in Epulu. He was 55 years old, a husband, and father of 3 boys, and friend to many. I didn't know him very well - but he was always polite, an exemplary worker, had a great laugh, and looked really cool in his Puma sweatsuit. His Swahili dropped off his tongue like oranges from a moving truck. The real heroes in conservation are people like Papa Jeepay - the people who commit to their job - not for glory - not for making a name for themselves as a scientist - but for their family and for their country. They grind everyday, don't really imagine what else they'd do, and don't complain too. He simply worked because that's who he was.

Last November, when Epulu's bridge collapsed, Papa JeePay was one of the unfortunate who flipped out of the crossing canoe on his way to work. I thought "Oh, thank God it was JeePay - he is strong as a horse, and could probably swim even Epulu River's mightiest rapids". He probably could - but maybe all the work seemed to catch up to him eventually.

Earlier this year, he had problems with a nerve in his leg. The morning of the day he died, he asked somebody to pray for him, saying his health wasn't very good. He worked so hard in a difficult environment, that he must have become very tired. He died suddenly of a heart attack on Nov 19. RIP JeePay - may you take a well-deserved rest. You should know you are missed and you did a great job for your family and your country.

Monster Trucks

2010-11-08T14:53:00.002-05:00

As soon as one arrives in the Congo, its impossible to ignore the size of the trucks. Immediately after crossing the border from Uganda, I saw the tallest truck I have ever seen. It was piled maybe 25 feet high with clear plastic bags of clear plastic bottles. My boss explained that the bottles are being brought to a local beverage factory. EEK - whose gonna recycle all thos bottles???

Also, there are huge, huge petroleum trucks which ply the routes far into interior Congo. It would be interesting to know how far petrol actually travels in from the east Africa coast (Mombasa, Kenya is the deep water port). Surely to Kisangani, but maybe further down the Congo River? It is far - which is a bit of ironic, because the mouth of the Congo River is on Africa's west coast which is extremely rich in oil resources (Angola, Republic of Congo, Gabon).

The funniest truck I saw, was this huge truck stuck in the middle of the road - with a huge mudflaps that read "OH!!! GOD". Its not really funny when I think too hard about the broken down truck...it really sucks. But maybe I think broken down trucks are kinda funny like some Africans think people getting injured is kinda funny - looking at the other point of view is probably quite appalling in either case. A goofy mudflap message, thats what made me laugh. Though some of the old trucks still plying routes here ought to have been retired decades ago.

Last year, an overloaded truck carrying illegal timber collapsed the bridge in Epulu village - cutting a National Road for a few days (until a crossing-method was devised), causing many delays and added costs for a whole month, which impacted the entire regional economy. It was a lot shorter than the bridge-downing that lasted for almost 2 years and had been resurrected a mere month before Epulu's bridge-downing. With a little luck, 2010 has seen no bridges falling down! But the trucks are stiill huge!

Differing viewpoints on leopards

2010-10-11T06:30:00.001-04:00

Last week, a leopard was caught in Epulu. It weighed about 30 kg, and
was lured into a cage by a small puppy during the night. It had been
roaming around the village the previous nights. The population
demanded intervention from the traditional chief and park guards. A
trap was set and less than 24 hours later - voila, the leopard.

I rode up to see the leopard, hoping to see it alive, but it had been
shot by park guards. The entire village of Epulu nearly came to see
its carcass. Why all the intrigue? For a villager, the leopard
represents mystery and sorcery. The leopards are controlled by a
sorcer, who keeps them in his house, where to other villagers, they
appear as a dog. The sorcerer walks around with his leopard at night,
and if you seem him with it, he'll tell you the leopard is a dog. The
keeper of this leopard will die soon - within a week or two, but not
more. Finally, everybody will know who was the keeper.
Their viewpoint is that the leopard is an opportunistic hunter, who
will kill anything, even a man. The village chief had some sort of a
witchcraft cleansing ceremony with the leopard, before it was examined
and measured by the park guards. The meat was distributed and I don't
know what was done with the skin or body parts.

The leopard is the biggest cat in the tropical forest ~60kg, and the
top of the foodchain. Even for a conservationist, leopards are
mysterious - they are poorly understood because they are solitary,
shy, and moving all the time. Leopards routinely patrol their
territory - walking 25 or more km every night. Leopards are the only
predator (besides man) of the okapi and other large mammals of the
tropical forest. Of the 13 okapis in Epulu, the animals born in
captivity have shiny coats, perfect striped patterns on their
hind-quarters and well shaped ears. Those animals which had been
captured often have scratch marks which interrupt the striped
hind-quarters, ragged ears, and dull looking coats. The scratch marks
certainly come from a leopard - these swift predators stalk prey which
can be more than 4 times its size, ALONE - not in a pack.

This animal had a grave wound on its right front paw - he or she had
pulled himself out of a metal snare. The right front paw was
gruesomely mangled - maybe fractured, very tender and open to
infection. He or she was maybe three years old - 5 years away from
being mature. Leopards live at very low densities - and there may be
a few hundred total in the whole of the Okapi Reserve - which is
larger than the state of Connecticut.

The forests are growing emptier and emptier as a result of
commercialization of bushmeat hunting. Leopards are lured to villages
where they can opportunistically find a loose chicken, dog, or goat.
Near villages, risks for leopards are also increased - from being
trapped or injured by snares. They'll certainly survive most snare
wounds for a while, but they are then forced to stay close to villages
in order to survive.

Since ages and ages ago, villagers have fear of leopards as dangerous
man-eaters - and controlled by sorcery. They justify the killing of
the leopards to assuage their fears. It is difficult to cross this
gap in viewpoints - from conservationist to villager. Normal human
activities - or dark sorcery - could be responsible for leopards
searching for their death near villages. A hunter who let out a metal
snare will see the leopard's fur in his snare or will find that his
snare has been destroyed. Will he be able to acknowledge even to
himself that he caused the early death of king of the forest? If yes,
will he care? Or his he caught up in the sorcery rumormill too.
Rumors of other leopards persist - more sorcerers? or just more kings
of the forest in danger?

Epulu - the most historic village in DR Congo

2010-10-09T12:31:00.002-04:00

The Congo is probably the last place one might think of as a vacation
place - or even historic place for that matter. But it is (or has
been) both! These days, you'd be hard-pressed to find any good news
about Congo in the international media to make you think so. But it's
just coming out of quite a rough patch. Things were pretty bright
around Congo in the era just before independence from Belgium in 1960.
Before going downhill - fast!

I'll just discuss Epulu before this time as its interesting enough for
a whoile post. This village was founded (not sure what that means)
when an eccentric American anthrolopologist named Patrick Putnam,
moved here in 1927 with his wife. He started building a hotel,
capturing animals and interacting with pygmies. He stayed in Epulu
until his death around 1953. Epulu is referred to as Camp Putnam on
old maps.

In 1952, a Portuguese named De Medina established the Okapi capture
station, managed for the Belgian colonial authorities. They started
capturing wild okapis to export to zoos round the world, while
maintaining a zoo in Epulu, which had 28 okapis, more than double now
here (13). Some savannah species were even imported to Epulu's zoo.
One American man who grew up as a missionary kid in northeastern
Congo, apparently got rid of their pet lion when it started to show
its wild instincts. It came to Epulu's zoo in the 1950s.

The only African elephants that have been successfully domesticated
for tourism come from Gangala-na-Bodio in the Garamba National Park.
(Aside: Garamba, a World Heritage Site, is in the northeast corner of
Congo - most recently famous for being the hideout of the Lord's
Resistance Army under Joseph Kony; and the simultaneous disappearance
of the last wild northern white rhinos). Anyways. 14 of these
elephants were brought to Epulu's zoo for some reason - apparently, to
consolidate the Belgian administration's domesticated or captured
animals. Verbal accounts say that these elephants were kept in cages
where my organization's offices are currently. The elephants would be
brought down the road a few kilometers and released into the forest to
eat for a few hours, then someone would blow a whistle and they'd
return to the road. I have no way of validating or disproving this
story of how they fed, but if its half true, its amazing.

A Belgian man named Davids biult Hotel Okapi - at a picturesque spot
along Epulu River, which drew crowds of Belgian colonial authorities
every weekend in the 1950s.

Colin Turnbull, renowned anthrologist and author, came to Epulu in
1958 or so, spent 3 years living with pygmies before writing his
seminal work "The Forest People". Turnbull's main wingman Kenge was
famous for years afterwards as a forest guide. His son Colin was one
of my most recent guides in the forest near Epulu.

After independence in 1960, Congo sunk quickly into political turmoil.
It became Africa's most important theater in the
Cold War. Patrice Lumumba was the first elected Prime Minister, and
quickly began courting the Chinese and Soviets. He was quickly
assassinated with complicity of Belgium, USA, the UN, and other
Congolese political factions. Lumumbist communist-leaning loyalists
did not disappear, rather they waged war throughout the eastern part
of Congo - the Mulelist Rebellion. The Belgians were long gone
already, but any intellectuals had assumedly cozied up to the Belgians
and were sought out and killed.

In 1968, the Okapi capture station along with all animals - was
destroyed. The okapi capture station and zoo was rehabilitated in the
mid 1980s under the Gilman International Conservation's Okapi
Conservation Project. It weathered periods of strife during Africa's
World War. It was twice occupied by rebels - 1996 and 2002 - who
allowed zookeepers to care for and feed the okapis. The population is
now 13 - and 2 okapis should be born next summer. Its not easy to
maintain anything in Congo - but all the efforts of brave Congolese
and conservationsts throughout the years have kept the Okapi Wildlife
Reserve and the okapi zoo - a site of national pride and world
heritage.

My view of this history is certainly seen through a western lens -
which I admit, is far from telling the whole story. But the story of
this village - even the western view - deserves to be told. Come and
visit and feel the magic and mystery of a the most historic village in
DR Congo.

Signe de vie (Sign of life)

2010-10-03T09:27:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends, Family, and followers of my blog,

Please excuse my long hiatus from my blog. I'll resume it shortly. For a long time, I had nothing to say, just due to my inability to express my feelings about my experiences. But I think its better for me to say what I can, even if its not profound, so you can know what's going on in DRC. I get emails from friends sometimes which say - why don't you make any more sign of life (signe de vie)? I hate to hear it really - but one thing I've learned is that keeping in touch is quite difficult despite the enabling technology. To correct this, here is at long last - a signe de vie!

Since my last update in April, a lot has happened:

May:
-trip to Bunia, capital of Ituri District; between Epulu and Bunia, there is a rather abrupt transition from forest to savannah in Bunia, the elevation makes nights chilly

-visit from American friends to Epulu (Brandon, Chelsie and Megan) who teach at Christian Bilingual University of Congo in Beni; we visited the okapis, got attacked by ants, played bananagrams, hiked to the local inselberg, ate like kings & queens (thanks to two mamas doing the cooking!) - They got to see another part of Congo and I got to share Epulu living with them.

June
-visit from the Myhres to Epulu - the Myhres are a missionary family who have lived in western Uganda (5km from the Congo border) for the last 17 years. All four of their kids grew up in Uganda. The two youngest - Julia (13) and Jack(12) came with Scott & Jennifer to help Jennifer complete one of her life goals - to visit the okapi. Having lived through scary years of 1996-98 when a Ugandan rebel group attacked their home area of w. Uganda and then slunk back into the jungles across the border in Congo - it was nearly impossible (and uninviting) to visit eastern Congo. They will soon be moving to Kenya, thus limiting this time as literally the only possible window for the visit. We had a perfect visit. Again, visited inselbergs and ate well courtesy of Mamas Asumpta & Marceline.

-we visit Nyankunde near Bunia - a mission station set up by African Inland Mission and other missionaries - which thrived as a nursing school, hospital, and well-known primary and secondary schools. Nyankunde was destroyed in 2002 by an ugly massacre during the civil war (or African World War) - one of the only places in Congo where there was actually Congolese tribes fighting each other. An older American couple carried out some of the early construction in Nyankunde between 1965-85, raising their kids there. Now long after their kids have grown, they're back to rebuild some of the same buildings they built in the first place. Amazing people - Rich and Ruth Dix.

-leave Congo with the Myhres, watch world cup, go chimp-tracking, visit friends Carol, Zaituni, Godfrey, and Evelyne in Kampala

-arrive back in the USA after one full year away. Back with Dad & Mom again!
-meet Brayden Haringa, newborn son of Matt and Samantha.

July 5 - Aug 6
-Spent 5 weeks studying French in La Ville de Québec, which quickly become one of my favorite cities. Exploring old Quebec and making new friends gave me lots of practice opportunities. My level was Enriched Intermediate - maybe a little to high for someone who has never taken a French class, but it pushed me and now I have a higher level of confidence. In Quebec, I have found my new favorite vacation spot. Its got its own lovely and proud culture - not European or American. I'll return there frequently to practice my adopted (and loved) second language - French.

August
- visit from college buddies: Cory W, Steve & Emily - and young Henry! - we did Boston like it was their FIRST time! Duck boat tours, fighting some redcoats, dunkin' donuts, perfecting the Boston accent, Boston creme this and that, lots of catching up and rehashing the days past
- trip to North Carolina to visit my dear sister Leah. We hit the beach and slapped the bass big time. Also got to meet Asher Frey, son of friends Craig and Rachel
- trip to New York to visit the big bosses and sleep a few nights in the Bronx Zoo - an odd place to navigate at night!. Also I picked up 8 trunks which were my responsibility all the way to Congo.

September
- back to Africa!
- back in Epulu, not much has changed -
-Minnie, our little cat had a little kitty of her own - called Kidogo, which is Swahili for "small"
-Ashley, a British chap, will be my roommate all year - he's great company!
-Joelle, our cuisinière's baby is 11+ months old, has a little ponytail, and is readying to walk and talk

Now I'm glad to be back. There's a lot of work here in Epulu! Also, my life here is pretty simple and I don't have the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, or doing comparison shopping, buying piles of equipment! I just work and enjoy village life.

Thanks for reading! More soon - about Epulu, my home village; which is easily one of the most historic places in DR Congo.

Inverse Economics

2010-04-19T01:53:00.001-04:00

Lately I've become increasingly aware of the confounding nature of economics in what is the nation-state of DRC. Ancient tax policies from the era of an economic idiot dictator remain in place more than 12 years after his death. The only taxes which exist are for international trade - of which a huge majority are imports. To make up for it, there are so many taxes that companies usually evade taxes by using illegal means. If they go by legal means - they pay bribes to get a little bit of relief from some of the dozens of taxes. How much of these taxes go into actual human service development? It is a rhetorical question I think...

The "development" of the country is in the hands of Chinese who gave up a little of their fortune for a whole whole lot of the DRC's wealth. Rumor has it that the DRC gov't hardly negotiated and the terms of the contract have not been revealed. The gov't gave access rights to copper mines (for 25 yrs) for 9 billion dollars worth of infrastructure development in a country the size of western Europe that hadn't had any infrastructure development work for 30 years - until this contract was signed in 2005 or so. So they need the 9 billion in infrastructure improvements, but its Chinese leading the road-building while Congolese provide the day labor. The minerals are extracted and leave the country raw. For a country that has so many minerals, a mineral processing industry would be a logical sector to develop, but just like the past 100 years, every commodity crosses out of Congo in nearly its rawest form possible.

World Bank projects fund the rest of the progress. The president talks of 5 Building Sites (Cinq Chantiers) - Education, Health, Infrastructure, Employment and some other sector (should be electricity!?). Its mostly nonsense, since there is basically 0 sign of all the chantiers. None of the chantiers is visible outside of Kinshasa the capital - where the most powerful (or menacing) 8 million of DRC's 70 million residents live. With all these new buildings and roads, who will maintain? with which equipment? Who will pay for it?

On a micro-level, cultural practices still have a negative effect on the economy. Polygamy is still somewhat common - with some grand patrons having 4 wifes and 10-20 kids depending on their virility. Half of the kids are obliged to never finish or even attend school. Also, brides must be bought for a hefty price depending on their beauty. My young colleagues say the system is growing to treat women more and more like merchandise. Once the payment is accepted, the groom has the responsibility to pay for the

While recently celebrating my birthday, I learned that the birthday person has to pay for their party. If you expect presents you've come to the wrong place, because you get a whole lot more questions related to "why didn't you invite me to your party? / where is my beer? " than "how was your birthday?" And its not like what goes around comes around, because most people don't bother to celebrate their birthday. I can't say I blame them with the expense!

There is certainly potential for economic growth with so many people struggling - access to any new item at a reasonable price could bring a fortune to a well-placed and well-funded businessman. The reality is more that people come to Butembo to buy cheap shit from Dubai which usually breaks soon after the people leave. Having no warranties, the people are obliged to come back and buy again the next month or the next year. The businessmen maximise their profits, but the consumers are left to deal with the horrible options available to them. Prices are high because demand is far far higher than the supply. There is so little available startup capital, so people are stuck in poverty trap and can't pursue their ideas.

Tourism - basically forget it - unless you're willing to pay for one of the most expensive visas in the world, be met by harrassing officials at the border, and deal with unreliable, uncomfortable or unreasonably expensive transport or lodging. Look across the eastern border at Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda who have none of the resources of the DRC (except the ones they got from there). These countries have similar natural wonders and huge profits from the tourism sector because they are organized.

Credit? - nope. Insurance? - forget it. Stable currency? - DRC uses the dollar - thats at least a good idea.
The major matters of human security - savings, retirement, health care, are only available to a very few and is nothing like what is available in the west.

This accusing post is just meant to show the reality. I often find myself feeling bad for people here. What can people do other than to pray to God that things change? The territory of DRC was originally set up to be plundered, and in effect, this has never really changed. We must hope!

Language Power

2010-03-16T01:44:00.001-04:00

One of the premier ways world power can be understood is to look at the dispersion of languages and language speakers. Nation-states are often synonymous with language groups. The French, German, Dutch, Chinese, and Korean....while other nations are divided by their languages - such as Belgium, Switzerland...

In Africa, there are far more languages than a westerner (particularly the average American!) can fathom. Every tribe - whether they be separated by a few kilometers or live symbiotically with other tribes, typically retain their tribal tongue. Sometimes these languages are spoken by only a few thousand people. Some are not written, and others are in danger of dying out with the elderly, particularly as other regional/national/int'l languages gain in importance.

The Ituri forest has been home to groups of "pygmy" hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. I hate the term pygmy, but there still isn't a better one to use. During the Pleistocene ice age - Bantus expanded from modern Nigeria into the Congo Basin looking for agricultural land and started to live alongside the pygmies. The pygmies have often adopted the languages of their closest Bantu allies, because they depend on them for their basic livelihoods. In fact, the perception that pygmies are completely reliant on the forest is utterly false - they get a slight majority of their caloric intake from the forest, while much comes from their relationship with agriculturalists. Certainly, they still hunt and gather and prefer it very much to agriculture! Their reliance on Bantus, and vice-versa (!) has presumably endured for hundreds and maybe thousands of years. The Bantu languages typically garner more importance than the mother tongue and may lead to a language dying out.

In eastern Congo, Swahili is a bit of a lingua franca that unites a melange of dozens of tribes, but it is not really the mother tongue. For at least the last 500 years, Swahili has evolved as a trad language between African tribes and Arab traders from the Swahili coast of Tanzania/Zanzibar and Kenya. The language can be found inland as far as these traders were able to penetrate - centuries before the Europeans started to penetrate the central African jungles.

The DR Congo was drawn up hastily on a map during the 1885 meeting between European colonial powers, and now has 5 national languages - French, Kikongo, Tshiluba, Lingala follows the Congo river from the Atlantic coast to Kinshasa and 1000 miles upstream to Kisangani, Swahili unites the eastern provinces esp. the cities of Goma, Kisangani and Lubumbashi. Since I've arrived in Congo, I've met several people who speak 4 or 5 languages - typically those who speak English have mastered Lingala, Swahili, French and maybe a tribal mother tongue.

As an American (often synonymous with speaking only one single language), I have struggled to gain a passable level of French since I arrived here. But when I talk with ladies or children in the village, or even try to follow a group of Congolese men sharing a funny story, I am often left marveling at the tones of Swahili but am not really understanding anything!

Many Congolese complain that they are powerless with their colonizing tongue - French. Belgium, left Congo as a Francophone country - and now Congolese cite the effects of colonialism regimes in the disparate levels of development between the Francophone and Anglophone countries in Africa. Their neighbors Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania are all a bit better off than Congo . They hope to eventually add English, as it perceived to be the dominant language-power and it is. If a Congolese speaks English, they can't miss finding a job here. Sure, Google has introduced search engines in many languages, but searching in English will undoubtedly give you the best results if you search for something technical, scientific, or business-related.

So I am left being begged to teach people English while that isn't my job at all. People who typically don't speak French, greet me with it, assuming their inherited colonial tongue is the way to communicate with a white person. I'm also given huge smiles and the source of lots of laughs whenever I attempt the lovely Swahili. It truly is the heart language of everybody here, and in the same way I am so refreshed to speak English when the chances come.

Follow up on baby Forest Elephant

2010-02-19T01:02:00.001-05:00

I've been told that the Mama elephant was likely killed in the nearby forest and her tusks removed by poachers. The baby elephant was then stabbed with a spear by an opportunistic villager. The baby was buried this time, which makes three dead elephants in two months, including two babies.

Five or more well-armed poaching groups are currently operating within the Okapi Reserve. They are tasked and supported by the military - all the way to the highest levels of the military of Province Orientale. The price of ivory continues to be high and RFO park management continues to be blocked by the relative political might of the military compared to the ICCN (Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature). Until this will is changed or broken, or ivory prices decline, elephants will continue to be lost, and many park guards will enter into a very dangerous work environment.

Conservation gains and losses

2010-02-17T02:38:00.005-05:00

I must make a small disclaimer with this post....I can't speak with authority in matters of conservation. Despite working with one of the top conservation NGOs in the world - I often don't catch a lot of details or patterns due to my elementary understanding of the culture, context, and language. However, its pretty easy for me to identify the most obvious conservation defeats and conservation progressions when they present themselves, so I'll present them as accurately as I understand them.

On my way back to the Reserve de faune a okapis site, I stopped in another one of my organization's offices and happened to meet the chief warden of Mont Hoyo Nature Reserve. This reserve is the only intact forest that connects the easterly forests of Watalinga (DRC)/Semuliki (Uganda) with the more westerly Ituri forest of DR Congo - both of which have recently confirmed populations of the elusive okapi - the Watalinga has estimated only 50 animals left. Mont Hoyo was gazetted in 1948 and became popular with tourists to Belgian Congo. It is reknowned for its mountainous terrain in which is hidden impressive limestone caves. The surrounding mixed savannah and forest had harbored elephants, okapis, and other large animals. Much of the Mont Hoyo/Watalinga/Semuliki region has been off-limits due to insecurity since the first Congo Civil War began in 1997, when Mont Hoyo was completely abandoned and left unprotected. With the return of relative security, my organization is performing socio-economic surveys to assess local communities' perceptions of the ancient reserve. What are there livelihoods like? Where does their income come from? Would they support a protected area in their backyard after living for 13 years without a sense of one?

The chief warden has just received 20 guards to protect Mont Hoyo, and a Swedish NGO is rehabilitating the 13-km route into the Mont Hoyo reserve, where they'll also rehabilitate an ancient hotel. Further work includes working to delimit the boundaries with community participation, wildlife and botanical surveys to assess current state of the nature, and development projects to support neighboring communities. Success is on the way!!

Upon arriving in my site Tuesday evening, my colleague informed me of horrible news. He had just seen a baby elephant on the side of the road - 40 kms from the park headquarters - it had a bullet wound to its hindquarters and was unable to walk. The picture below shows the picture taken by my colleague. He estimated this baby stood about 1.2 meters tall - not sure how old that would make it - but my guess is certainly less than one year.

This second case comes only one month after a nearly identical case in the same general location. In early January, another baby elephant that had been shot was struck by a vehicle during the night, and left laying on the side of the road too - alive, but unable to get up and walk. My friend and park guards went to see it, and were very careful because the mother hovered and occasionally trumpeted from the shadows of the nearby forest. An agitated mother could charge and kill a person if she wanted to...

Eventually, the park management made the difficult decision to kill that first baby elephant and distribute the meat to neighboring communities. Unfortunately, there was not much they could do. The mother hovered nearby, and she could possibly be killed by poachers who were evidently nearby. Furthemore, violence could have broken out between the park guards and poachers. Best to have one dead elephant than possibly two and gunbattle.

These are disturbing events, especially now that its occurred twice in a little more than one month, in the same general location, and involving babies. Elephants have the longest gestation of all land mammals - 22 months!! - not sure about the length of whales gestation. A mother is able to produce babies between the ages of 8 and 20, so that leaves room for about a maximum of 5 if she's producing every 3 years....in all likelihood more like 3 babies in a lifetime. In terms of maintaining population numbers, its a lot worse to lose a baby than a mom whose already produced. The purpose of killing babies is a bit puzzling - is it by accident when trying to kill the mom - maybe, but wouldn't big mom be easier to shoot than the little baby? Mom has ivory tusks - baby has none. Mom has much more meat than the baby. Forest elephants usually move in small units - sometimes just a mom and a baby or two. I suspect in yesterday's case, that the mom was also shot or completely frightened off, because she was not found close by the baby. Are these poachers killing the babies to lure the mom to kill them too? Are they trying to get retribution at ICCN park guards for increased anti-poaching activities? Is a small market for elephant meat starting up? Difficult questions that don't have a clear answer...One thing is clear - the remaining elephants in our reserve are under serious continued threat. Many poachers are operating in the forest, and they must be defeated.

Also, if two baby elephants have fallen on the side of the 120km national road that cuts directly across the giant reserve which is 14,000 sq km, are there more cases in the forest that no one knows about? Very sad news and a conservation loss indeed.

Gravity

2010-02-17T01:28:00.001-05:00

I'm in Kinshasa, and am realizing again its pretty darn difficult to do anything (quickly or at all) in this behemoth of a city. Its got a sense of gravity that makes everybody tired. There is traffic, dirt, pollution, trash, and general sense of tiredness - at least most buildings, cars, and manual laborers look very very tired. There is no 9-5 rush like other world urban centers - it starts earlier and goes later and is full of delays all throughout. Mid-day traffic jams are accented by the tremendous heat and humidity- especially if your vehicle's form of air-conditioning is wind thru the windows...

I am glad I don't live here - and I have the blessing of returning to a petite village where there is none of the above chaos. Furthermore, I don't have to sleep in a hotel room many more nights....where nothing works exactly how it was designed to. The AC - the most vital of all items - has functioned mostly, and the backup fan system functions...but beyond that the sink and shower has never functioned, the toilet mostly functions, the tv has one channel which is a bit shaky, the lights in the bathroom have never functioned, the lights in the bedroom must be screwed in and screwed out with non-flammable/melt-proof material because the lightbulb is piping hot. The electricity occasionally goes out and then it just starts to be boiling hot and its a good idea to head to the office nearby and pick up a cold beer on the way, hoping I can find a functioning fan at a minimum.

The hotel's free simple breakfast contains baguette and butter, tea or coffee, I was told starts at 7. But that is when the mamas actually start setting it up....which includes washing the tables, chairs, and dishes. So around 8 oclock one can sit down for the baguette and coffee. If you demand for an omelette, add another hour and can arrive at the office at 9 am. Officially the office opens at 8, but everyone arrives more toward 9, and if there is rain - sometimes can't even make it in! For every good route, there are 10 or 20 that are utterly horrible and full of holes and lakes when it rains. With the horrible state of the routes, and the heat, vehicles have a tough tough existence.

The transport is a wild mix of the nicest and worst cars you could imagine,
-some with steering wheels on the right side - good for Congo, many on the left - more difficult for Congo,
-brand new hummers and mercedes SUVs which just got shipped over
-ancient cars which probably were "mis au monde" in the early 80s and have no original paint and look like someone took a baseball bat to the body and windshield, but are still being limped along - or even pushed....
-oddities such as 3-wheeled Indian motorcycle taxis and the occasional 4-wheeler.
-taxi-vans are like an aluminum box on wheels which have a few wood benches and if the windows are sometimes just a round hole cut through the metal body. They frequently have a lopsided lean which makes me think they could just drop their wheels at any moment - judging by the cars in and on the side of the road, they often do. The body of one taxi-van I saw was at least 10-degrees off from the direction it was traveling, making it look it look like it was just kinda skidding along.

We were obliged to take my colleague's minivan for one day-long errand because our vehicle went ill. The Univ of Kin is a long ways out of town and traffic made us take about 2 hours just to arrive there. Then as we were working in the Cartography laboratory..the power would occasionally flicker and go out....so you need a backup system or plan for everything in this city!!

In Kinshasa, I was asked constantly for money - homeless street kids, security guards, waitresses, hotel workers...nobody has enough money to live in this terrificly expensive city, so they live very far away and take slow transport in and out of their work places, making their ledger line break into about an even 0. Street-hawkers sell every sort of thing - tissues, water bags, shirts, clocks, belts, shoes, and my favorite are the really sweet maps!

On rare occasions I find something which i think - wow, this is nice, clean, or aesthetically pleasing. So when I think about what is nice, I must completely change my standards. If you look around, lots of Kinois are smartly dressed and carrying on well. The city is expansive and chaotic - people, traffic, and potholed streets in every direction for 20 miles it seems. Why do people like to be in Kinshasa? Because everyone else is - and that's got its own gravity. Don't expect to find something nice, or to be on time, or to stay clean or not sweat. Go with the flow, enjoy the craziness, sweat, smile, get dirty, try to fight the gravity. Don't try to understand the chaos or you'll become overwhelmed. Adjust and let it pull you a little bit.

Christmas Miracle: the Bridge is fixed!

2010-01-09T08:09:00.004-05:00

On December 20, the Epulu bridge was officially reopened by the governor of Oriental Province. It took only 26 days for the Office des Routes to fix the bridge, which is record time considering the case of the nearby Komanda bridge. That bridge took more than 2 years to fix, presumably because it was more than 4 times as long, other possible routes were available, and more than 500 people had work, and several corrupt officials directly benefited from the costs of transporting vehicles across the river.

Let's hope that 2010 will mark an incident-free year for bridges, so that I don't have to make a predictive model of how long they'll take to fix, because that wouldn't be interesting all.

Variables include:
X = Other Routes possibly be taken
Y = Merchandise tonnage
Z = (number of people who benefit * 5) - number of people who suffer
ZZ = number of corrupt officials who benefit

Not interesting....

The fast action can be attributed to political will behind fixing this bridge because National Route 4 connects Orientale Province and there were no practical options for goods transport but to continue crossing at the broken bridge site. Thus, transporters had to pay officials for the right to offload goods, villagers to actually offload their goods, spend a night or two in town, and have another vehicle waiting on the other side of the bridge. The effect of the bridge being out was increased prices of beer from Kisangani's Primus factory moving east to population centers like Beni, Bunia, and Butembo, while it also increased the price of food (beans, corn, and potatoes) and cheap Asian manufactured goods (tvs, stereos, flashlights, batteries) going west to Kisangani and even Kinshasa more than 1000 mi away.

So Epulu is a little bit deforested near the river but not too much the worse for wear. Many villagers were able to make some cash out of this whole disaster. How can this be prevented from happening again? It will take basic law enforcement, which is hardly easy in this country where most people live on less than dollar a day.

Update on the Pont

2009-12-03T06:43:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-25T01:39:00.003-05:00

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...

2009-11-18T01:07:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-16T01:48:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-08T07:24:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-25T16:16:00.001-04:00

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!

2009-10-25T15:24:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-02T06:30:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-25T09:01:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-24T01:55:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-09T08:56:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-02T09:50:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-01T10:46:00.001-04:00

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

2009-08-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-07-28T05:25:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-20T03:09:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-09T05:01:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-04T06:59:00.007-04:00

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!

2009-07-03T05:54:00.001-04:00

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

2009-04-22T13:45:00.003-04:00

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!

Unrest in North Kivu

2008-11-02T11:34:00.002-05:00

The offensive by the CNDP (National Congress for Defense of the People - Congolese Tutsis) rebel group was extremely aggressive this week....they seized control of Virunga Park HQ, and Congolese army and UN compounds. They are getting propped up by the Rwandan gov't. The Congolese national army is a big problem. As soon as the CNDP starts firing, they run to the hills, and start looting and hurting the people they're meant to protect. The civilians are at the mercy of the CNDP, who thankfully are not outright attacking them. However, the CNDP are certainly living off what civilians have left behind, and are not overly concerned with protecting them. They are expansionist, and seeking greater control over the North Kivu region. They control most access to Virunga park, and some motivation for this offensive may be plans to control gorilla tourism, charcoal-harvesting, logging, and mining for themselves and Rwanda. Politically, CNDP also wants the DRC gov't to finally move the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide or their progeny to be extracted from the national army and possibly moved back to Rwanda to either stand trial or be reintegrated. This process is tough - after 14 years, its difficult to decide who really should be DDR'd(disarmament-demobilize-reintegration) and sent to Rwanda. This lack of clarity plays into the hands of the CNDP to expand their power. Let's hope some political diplomacy will be able to quickly bring some solution to this - such as pursuing DDR of the Rwandan genocidaires, and offering amnesty and quick integration of the CNDP into the national army. Unless a mandate for international special forces to do battle with the CNDP, it is quite apparent that the CNDP ambitions will not be quelled by the current MONUC mandate to fire only when fired upon, and the undisciplined national army. Thankfully the international community seems to be rapidly pursuant of a solution...lets hope it is rapid enough to save some lives of civilians who are caught up in this mess.

Post-DRC Publicity

2008-09-15T20:58:00.004-04:00

Hi, back in the US, I've paid attention to how often DRC is in international news. The best sources of news are MONUC and BBC. Tuesday night, National Geographic Explorer is hosting back to back 1-hr programs focused on different issues in the Congo - and I urge you to watch these informative views of this complicated, fascinating place.

Tuesday, Sept 16 on National Geographic Channel
9 EST - Gorilla Murders - Virunga Natl Park, East DRC
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3817/Overview

10 EST - Congo Bush Pilots - have served as the only reliable transport during the last 30 yrs, flying humanitarians, missionaries and businessmen all over the jungle.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview

I am so fortunate to have had a great learning opportunity this summer, and am thankful that all travels were safe...planes, cars, motorcycles, border crossings...I am fortunate. People who shouldn't get hurt sometimes do....a 23 yr old professional pilot flew me all the way across DRC on a humanitarian flight 3 weeks before he piloted the same flight and perhaps the same plane crashed. It was carrying a copilot and 15 passengers and bad weather somehow caused it to crash into a mountain. He had amassed an incredible amount of hours on the Beechcraft 1900 and other planes, but something went wrong very quickly between Kisangani and Bukavu. This NGO was the only airline that the USG, UN, and other humanitarians are permitted to fly, and has a perfect flight safety record since its founding in the 1980s. Its a tragedy, as a talented man's life was cut far too short, but he truly lived and served in his given years.

Fortunately, the two other staff members who worked my flight were not on the plane that crashed. Rest in Peace to the pilots and humanitarians who have given their lives in the service of others.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/3818/Overview#tab-Photos/0

The Journey in Ituri (Pt 2.)

2008-08-22T22:47:00.006-04:00

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.

Voila! Bienvenu!!!

2008-08-21T21:36:00.002-04:00

Bonjour du monde! I am back in the USA already- enjoying summertime! This is after a wild week of travel to 3 countries and transportation methods of varying comfort levels. AirServ flew via a few other outposts which gave me some great aerial views of the primeval forest landscape of central DRC. Finally we arrived in Goma, the city bounded by all of the following: volcano, beautiful lake, Rwanda; and refugees and rebels lingering not far away. Its a beautiful setting...with any sense of stability would no doubt attract lots of tourists.

After asking around about tourism in the area, I was steered to head to Rwanda. As an American, no visa is required, and the place is anglophone friendly. Gustave, the chauffeur, drove with me to Volcans National Park thru the terraced Milles Collines (thousands hills) and tea fields of the countryside. Beautiful! That park is the one to visit for tracking mountain gorillas high up on the slopes of green volcanoes. However, I neither had $500 or the time, but got to imagine how cool it would be to sit close to these humble beasts for an hour.

In Beni, a smallish city north of Goma in north Kivu, I met with Wildlife Conservation Society who drove with me the 300 km to Epulu in the middle of the Okapi Faunal Reserve - a world heritage site and famous protected area in the Ituri Rainforest. The drive was beautiful...the roads surprisingly good and crowded with smart looking people and livestock. We killed or straddled no less than 5 chickens and goats as we barrelled along. The ride also included a ferry ride across the Ituri River, whose bridge had collapsed a year ago under the weight of an overloaded truck. This has really disrupted business for those who transit thru, but has spawned some local economic activity - vegetable/fruit markets, boat builders, supervisors and ferry pullers(?!) - definition: those on the boat who hold and pull the rope that spans both shores hand over hand.

Jean-Remy, the WCS officer, and I hiked to a forest plot of 10 hectares on which every tree has been mapped and catalogued - the process takes a year, and has been done 3 times in to monitor 5 year intervals of forest dynamics. A few BaMbuti pygmies are caretakers for the plot's camp, and help a Congolese PhD student researching Lianas...its fun to look at these vines and to try to figure out where they start and end. They know the forest well...every fruit, tree species, footprint, and disturbance. One of the pygmy guides said something about rain...as I strained my ear, within 10 seconds began to hear the distant sound of rain. Luckily the canopy protected us from feeling anything more than a light mist. We returned to the agriculture by settlements along the road, and after 6 hours in the forest finally saw some monkeys...3 or 4 different kinds. We stayed right next to the Epulu River at the home of American primatologists - After climbing around a tree by the river, Jean-Remy told me about the home-school teacher who was attacked by a nile crocodile there! We closed the night with a Primus and some plastic chairs under the moonlit sky in the tiny village's Okapi-emblazoned bar. What a place! More to come about the journey later....

Well..that is just the first few days...but

Into the Bush

2008-08-09T18:09:00.004-04:00

I am 10 days from departing Africa, and finally have an exit strategy. It is pretty much the coolest I could have ever hoped for. After 2.5 months of developing a macroview of USG-funded conservation efforts in the Congo Basin, and being lost in the loveable chaos that is Kinshasa….I’ll leave the megacity for the forest to visit on-the ground conservation in Okapi Faunal Reserve, a World Heritage Site in Ituri District, DRC. Okapis, or “forest giraffes” – are odd looking, and have much shorter necks than their savannah relatives an adaptation to foraging in forests. This region has multiple conservation issues – rare endemic species, pressure from hunting, degraded local livelihoods due to human immigration for economic opportunities like gold mining,.
Monday, Aug 11 I depart to Goma, the eastern city on Lake Kivu, which gets partially destroyed every few decades by nearby volcanic eruptions. It is also the de-facto IDP camp of the hot-zone of the various convoluted conflicts. For two nights, I hang out there in transit to Beni, a city one hour north by plane. From Beni, I’ll travel about 300km on improved roads (gravel tracks) with conservationists from WCS through primordial forest to the ranger station in Okapi reserve. A high population of pygmies live and hunt in the park and use inobtrusive methods (hunting duikers with dogs and nets I think), while the “national highway” that bisects the reserve for commerce between Bunia and Kisangani, opens the park to human traffic and increased human migration. The settlers clear thickly forested land for agriculture and hunt with snares and rifles. The soil is quite poor in nutrients and requires frequent rotation and long fallow periods. The human presence in and around the park is factored into management procedures as CARPE and conservationists try to preserve livelihoods of natives and key species.
Nearby is the only legit logging concession in all of eastern DRC, for a company who leases the land and pays taxes. They have problems with immigrants on the fringes of the property cutting timber for themselves. The company has a saw mill which produces value-added timber products for export.
After returning to Beni, I’ll take a taxi thru the safe savannah part of Virungas park north of Lake George to the Uganda border. There I’ll meet great friends for a few days in Queen Elizabeth NP and some wildlife. What an opportunity ya? It has been a heck of an time, learning about this complex place, and learning about USG activities to promote conservation and management of natural resources of the Congo Basin.

Longtemps!

2008-07-26T10:16:00.002-04:00

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!

Virungas Trouble

2008-07-09T18:16:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-08T17:42:00.004-04:00

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!

DRC Independence Day

2008-06-30T17:20:00.000-04:00

June 30th, 2008

If ever there was a day deserving a blog entry. On June 30, 1960, Congo was granted independence from Belgium, and started the road to sovereignty and governance by citizens. It has not been easy, but now is a time when there is much hope. The traumatic recent past been followed by huge international efforts to rebuild Congo into a state. While that’s a lofty endeavour, it is encouraging to hear about people working with Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration projects, peace talks in the east (complex and subject to demands/chronic saber-rattling), and training eager troops to hopefully protect and serve. This holiday is followed later this week by the USA Independence Day, which allows us to reflect on the foresight, and conviction with which so many have served our country for the good of the future. May the US and DRC continue to strive and improve the reality of their visions.
This long weekend, allowed for a trip outside Kinshasa once again. Some friendly veteran DRC Foreign Service officers invited several newcomers (summer interns and short-terms) to camp in Bombo Lumeni National Park. Check out the photos…it was different than one might expect from a national park in the Congo…no monkeys, snakes, impenetrable jungle forests…rather a beautiful savannah landscape reminiscent of safari regions of East Africa. There was thick gallery forest along the rushing clean Bombo or Lumeni rivers, which we floated down with the currents (sometimes taking our lives into our own hands). We also explored the nearby savannah, with its unique trees, crunchy ground, and wide vistas. There was little wildlife as it used to be a hunting reserve, but there were plenty of birds, plants and insects to see. On one exploration outing, we attempted to follow a trail to some rapids further along the river. An abandoned flipflop foreshadowed our subsequent reaction to stepping on an army ant nest or hidden tunnel/megahighway. As we all cursed and jumped in the river, the pinchy little buggers just didn’t let go until killed, sometimes breaking the skin. That’s a very small consequence of all the exploring that we did, and for that I am grateful. These weekends are very useful to experience and understand more about this massive, complex place. Work this week will be short and exciting…Tuesday a Congressional Delegation sweeps through for 24 hours in DRC, Friday is off, but I dress up and play host for the official July 4th celebration at the Ambassador Residence expects 1000+ guests. Saturday is the American employees picnic at the Ambassadors… I’m expecting/hoping we’ll go traditional with hot dogs, baked beans, and lawn games! In the meantime, there is lots of work for me to do, setting standard map templates for the 12 different conservation landscapes that USAID/CARPE funds. My coworkers are expert, friendly, helpful, and great teachers. So far its been a valuable experience – truly inspiring me and exciting me for another month of work, year of education, and a career ahead.

Out of the Green Zone and into the Country

2008-06-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

I was finally able to escape after almost 4 weeks in the “green zone” of Kinshasa, called Gombe. Celestin, a longtime diplomat driver, drove Ruksandra, Cecily, Cynthia, Tiffany, Becky and myself an hour outside Kinshasa. Our destination was N’Sele Farms, which had been a lavish residence of Mobutu’s when he was shaking the coins out of Zaire’s pockets in the 70s and 80s. This complex was a few kilometers from le grande flueve, and had been the site of his pineapple plantation and pineapple juice factory. Today, it rarely receives tourists judging by the overgrown parking lot and several residents coming out to greet us. Some men gave us a brief “official” tour of the grounds, walking us past the outbuildings which serve as the homes to several good looking families with lots of small children. The artificial pond is empty and much of the grounds are used to grow their manioc. The Chinese architecture had been meticulously stenciled with traditional Chinese and occasional African vistas. This had no signs but was right off the highway and recommended by our embassy as a Day-trip. Surely it was worth it!

After the tour, we tried to go down to a meeting complex WITH a sign “Centre Touristique” by the river, but a roadblock prevented us. Apparently they didn’t get our reservation. Celestin, the driver, masterfully handled several roadblocks, explaining we were “diplomatiques” with a certain destination. Nothing like an old guy with a lot of worldly knowledge!

We followed the well paved road with occasional large potholes past a steel mill, adjacent large village, and ended at a restaurant right on the river. We ordered some Maboke river fish and manioc. It took forever but it was a wonderful setting to sit by the river watching the water traffic: occasional barges, water taxis, pirogues, and some speedboats about a mile away along the Congo-Brazzaville coast. The river is just giant, if not for the current; one might think it was a finger lake.

After this we attempted to find the Congolese dance class, and were directed “Go right at the MONUC, down the bumpy road, take the fourth right at the blue Primus bar, and at the end of the street you’ll find a NEW theater”. It was dark, and we were in the middle of a bustling part of town, and managed to find our guy Jacques. He wasn’t teaching the normal class tonight, but we got to watch him and a student practicing their modern dance until the power suddenly went out. This gave us a chance to talk with him about his vision for the advertised group dance class. Not sure I’ll be any good but he is, and maybe I can be delegated to play the bongos instead. Today was a lot of fun, and finally felt like we got out into real DRC!

#17

2008-06-21T20:56:00.002-04:00

How sweet it is! Boston Celtics: 2007-08 World Champions.
This championship is the first one I can really remember, despite being in born in 1983. This is the 3rd Celtics championship of my lifetime. Wow, though the NBA has fallen some from its 80s glory days, the championship level requires team chemistry and defense, and boy did the Celtics make us proud this season! How fun is it to see sacrifice and dedication to excellence rewarded in this way. Paul Pierce and the guys made me so proud. I am so glad I was able to watch games 5&6 from 2-5am on Monday and Wednesday this week. Despite being a zombie the following day, it wasn't in my chemistry to skip the Celtics versus Lakers finals. The Celtics were classy and respectable. Truly the teams and individuals that win always have those traits. Nothing like being a sports fan in New England these days!

Hope for a real Victory

2008-06-21T09:10:00.003-04:00

After 20+ years of marauding into peaceful villages to kidnap, steal, and kill (somehow in their devil's mind equivalent to grocery shopping), the Lord's Resistance Army is returning to its common tactics, after 2/3 years of relative quiet in the jungle. My heart goes out to the Southern Sudanese gov't who has done its best to mediate while also trying to put its own pieces back together caused by terror from the same hands-the Khartoum/LRA regime. The LRA kept backing away from appointed meeting spots and times to discuss a ceasefire; asking for the ICC to drop all charges, and have resumed attacks in CAR, and Sudan. The LRA saber-rattling prompted the armies of South Sudan, Uganda and fledgling forces of DRC, whose legitimacy still gets mud-slung by its record of abuses, to commit to demolish them. For justice sake, I hope the international community supports a bombing to take out their jungle camp right now, before another corner/border of Africa is further embroiled in hell.

I support Captain Ronald:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/YSAR-7FQLN4?OpenDocument

US condemns LRA, but will it mean anything?:
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17631

Queen Mother’s Birthday

2008-06-19T17:53:00.001-04:00

…why do I care? I don’t, sentimentally, everyone loves birthdays, but I don’t even know Queen Mum’s name. Attending the Queen’s Birthday Party at the British Embassy is something to do, something that keeps life exciting. While I sit around on my wireless internet and dream of what to do this weekend, exciting poignant stories to put on my blog, to make myself seem worthy of doing something overseas, I can hardly justify a purpose in why its worth my working here. Yeah I might have more patience than most to produce maps-GALORE, but don't know much how to help the crippled dude who sleeps on asphalt right outside my compound, and waits for who knows what tomorrow. I look for excitement, who am I gonna meet, what connection will I make at the next party, what will I do next?? ….i wonder what that dude looks for…a cigarette or two to mix up the day? Wonder why he sleeps on the asphalt rather than under the beautiful budding tree a few feet safely off the road? Is he taking a chance at getting hit? What about Gabriel, the 5 year security guard who makes sure American diplomats are safe and secure while he stays up all night and gets paid a minimal salary, dreaming how wonderful it might be to practically apply his engineering degree. Not here, not yet… the few development projects prefer international graduates, because the Congolese schools aren’t much good. Well he’s certainly no dumber than me, just a victim of longitude and latitude it seems. And what am I to do; to work my hardest, to tell his plight, to be thankful, and to help where I can. Is giving 50 cents to or ignoring a begging woman the best decision in the midst of society that looks at donation as deliverance…whats best in the short and long term? For me to discuss problems of the Congo over an expensive, suitable lunch, with some of the best minds in the world, or to go low-budget and fork out my money and let the chips fall? It’s a crazy world…wonder what the guidebooks say?

Building Natural Resource Management

2008-06-18T15:36:00.003-04:00

Peace and governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo will improve with the capability of natural resource management. With competing interests of foreign economies, internal corruption and neglect of local populations, natural resources are not capable of being managed or quantified. With the global demand for the basin’s resources, and the global value for providing a massive carbon sink and maintaining the hydrological cycle, it is in long term interests of all stakeholders to build capacity to manage natural resources. Stability for the whole region is affected by these resources.
This can only be achieved with donating contingent on goals being met. Some European countries are throwing huge amounts of cash at the Congo Basin with little clear plan. As carbon becomes a legitimate market, huge money transactions will involve DRC, but it will be foolish to throw money at a state just to say you did…I think the US is taking a very pragmatic approach here, and really could not handle the huge funds Europe is talking about. Funding the state doesn’t work here yet, its failed time and again, and without clear goals, monitoring, and adaptive management, donating is doomed to profit few and harm many. Lets hope donors plan and harmonize with other stakeholders in the region for the sake of practical results rather than self-preservation.

http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17604
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17606

Links about situation in the East DRC

2008-06-14T08:17:00.005-04:00

The fragile East:

Repatriation efforts for Rwandan FDLR rebels
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7432186.stm

Nkunda's rebels
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/africa/
10congo.html?fta=y

DRC, Uganda and South Sudan prepare for battle with LRA
http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17576

In other news, some other interns for State Dept. and USAID arrived. It is great to have some people in my peer group and similar life/work situation. I am enjoying learning from my intelligent, helpful, and dedicated coworkers who have built CARPE into the the top regional environmental program. It's well-spent USG money that should have a great impact on conservation efforts - incorporating people's livelihoods as primary consideration. Without that conservation can be harmful.

Dispatch from the "Field"

2008-06-10T15:34:00.002-04:00

My Kin Ticker:
14 days in!
12 swimming/nature viewing sessions at the pool - nature being palm & banana trees, kingfishers, birds, and low-flying bats!
14 evenings enjoying a porch!
9 lunches at the New Aladin Lebanese restaurant - expat hotspot
1 lunch at the ambassador residence (2+ to come)
1 French tutoring session with Mr. Jules
6 acquaintances named Jacques
5 acquaintances named Jean
~25 rides with drivers who obligingly help me practice French
1 "goat-bar" dinner...you pick the goat pieces and while they cook, enjoy Primus beer and street-hawkers selling boiled peanuts
12 pictures taken...Kinois don't like cameras much!
1 car-pedestrian accident sighting - the flashmob didn't get too angry, the driver stopped, the woman looked ok, and the driver drove her to the hospital
0 sickness:)
3- times being called "Mondele, Blanche or American"; pretty conservative!! maybe I just don't understand!
333- times I wished I spoke French!!!!
4 times seeing nearly a whole car being hauled down the road in a wheelbarrow
6 scenarios dreamt for how to get from here to Uganda in August:)
3 sightings of the massive Congo river!

Bemba and the ICC

2008-06-07T14:34:00.003-04:00

At English club, the topic university students discussed was the arrest of Jean Pierre Bemba and its consequences. Bemba's family is from nearby Kinshasa, worth 100s of millions from Mobutu-era cronyism. He was an "opposition" rebel during the 2nd Congo War (1998-2003), one of the four Vice Presidents during the transitional government from 2003-2006, and lost the presidency in a runoff to Kabila. Bemba was the eventual Presidential runner-up in late 2006 in the first democratic elections since 1960. In 2007 he was elected a Senator, and because there was signicant tension between him and the national army, employed a sizeable personal security detail which led to the last fighting in Kinshasa in March last year.

He was recruited by then president of Central African Republic to aid him against rebels that threatened and eventually overthrew the CAR government in 2003. Bangui is just across the DRC border/Congo river and was the site of widespread sexual violence during this time. The Int'l Criminal Court was commissioned by CAR to investigate and just last week Bemba was arrested in Belgium. This led to protests at the Belgian Embassy. Protestors were irked because Bemba was arrested in Belgium not in Portugal, despite their membership in the ICC. This might be just a timing thing, but maybe Belgium is trying to assert their "authority" here...I don't know. The Belgian consulates in two other cities have since been closed.

The politics here are touchy. Bemba who enjoys local support who sees the current president as an outsider in Kinshasa, despite being a warlord responsible for troops involved in atrocities. There is always the western meddling too. People have good spirit though. Students respected each other's views. Its a fascinating place, the politics really control the livelihood of so many....and have struggled for so long. For justice this arrest is good, for the politics, I gotta hope this opens an opportunity for someone out there who might be a better politician than Bemba.

Researcher found in the bush

2008-06-04T18:39:00.002-04:00

After nearly 10 days in the bush, a bonobo chimp researcher was "found". The articles say that a 23 year old German lady separated from her teammate when they were looking for these rare monkeys near Salonga National Park. Articles say some priests apparently rescued her, but I may speculate that poachers found her...pretty amazing, to save themselves they could have done anything BUT bring her back to priests in their village (2 days away from where she was lost). This just gives me the sense that not all illegal poachers, artisanal loggers and miners are evil; they're humans just trying to get by.

Friendly Sunday night

2008-06-01T15:39:00.002-04:00

Today was mostly isolated til this evening when my neighbor invited me to his church party in our compound. Around 200 from the Int'l protestant church showed up for an outside dinner. Met some American expats, missionaries, and Congolese young male students who attend local protestant universities. They're in the English club and go to the American Corner to learn about US culture. Of course, it was nice to be able to speak English, and amazing that they speak their 3rd language so well - 1)Lingala, 2)French and 3)English...wow, puts me to shame. Also, there is some good music coming (mariah carey and some native) from somewhere and cheers about some football match. Kinshasa is growing on me! Just need to learn how to order ingredients for a good goat recipe.

The Pillagers

2008-06-01T09:27:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the blogfunk - patience is needed on my part. Knowing the history of DRC is important to understanding the present..why resources worth gobs of money coexist with poverty, scant law, and disorder. Lumumba was determined for independence in 1960, and quickly alienated the US, UN & Belgium with his "At any cost, with anybody's help" rhetoric. Early on the CIA got involved behind the scenes to ensure Congo didn't go Red...its difficult to understand why we were so scared about this, as Belgium had left Congo with infrastructure but little capacity. It wasn't long before Lumumba was taken out, and Western support thrown behind Mobutu to keep him in our fold. We showered him with $$$ and praise as the early 1970s saw some development, stability and world attention as Don King promoted his two boxers Foreman vs. Ali for the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle". This was apparently the height of the Congo's glory, which crumbled as Mobutu formed a kleptocracy which still echoes today. He pilfered all the money he wanted from the national banks, bought homes all over Europe, chartered Concordes for his flights to visit political allies in the west. Bush and Reagan frenziedly stuffed dollars in his pockets as a "deposit" against communism in the region. Now sadly its difficult to see why it was worth it. From just below the elite, every civil servant had to start robbing and begging to make it. This took off like a disease under Mobutu, and echoes of it are here today...in 1991, looting in Kinshasa by the unpaid military still scares people about protests. Other pillagers have come from closeby, as the Rwanda 1994 crisis seems to have just been exported to the east DRC, causing resource-funded regional battling. Ethnic battles here seem to be taming as ceasefires and reintegration efforts continue. What's in store for the future of this place? We can only hope that American interests here can be conducted with wisdom, foresight and morality. Though the US contributes 0 troops to the 18,000 UN peacekeepers, they supposedly fund a good chunk as penance for our sins.

Je suis Kinois (i am kinshasan)

2008-05-30T17:06:00.009-04:00

Try it out...garbage..sounds naturally french! Not so, its camelote...really a pretty word for trash. Kinshasa is turning out to not be so crazy...but maybe I'm still a bit sheltered. As my American seatmate on the flight here said - Kinshasa is the ranger training for African cities. My introduction to Congolese negotiation was a few vociferous discussions about seating on the airplane...and it happens on the street too. Gombe is the area of town that was secured by the UN peacekeepers or MONUC a few years back, and is home to most of the embassies, NGOs, and expat residencies. Tuesday, Bemba a former Vice-president/warlord, was arrested in Belgium for crimes against humanity, indicted by the ICC. This touched off small demonstrations in Gombe where Bemba's thugs battled the army in Feb 2007 after the election. We didn't see much, as protesters prevented us from lunching in the normal Lebanese eatery. It was kinda subdued because people are just kinda tired and hungry with the prices of food. There's not much excitement to report, though I'm finding exercise to be kinda limited to swimming in the pool in our compound. Going out after dark is not recommended and frankly, I don't really know where I'd go. I finally went on the roof of my work building to see the Congo river...man is it huge..pics to be posted soon. Otherwise, views of Kinois life between home and work are tons of people out and about, working hard, trying to make a buck...soda, bags of water, clothes, maps, even a sad looking dog...all offered by hawkers to stopped cars.
Forest conservation programs encounter some odd results these days. Despite all these dollars spent and the DRC moratorium on logging since 2002, relative "stability" has logging at full-force. We're not here advocating fences around the forest, but planning, monitoring, and auditing rather than an all-out pillage....an all too familiar action towards Congo's resources. So now for the first weekend in Kinshasa?! I guess hitting the French and forestry reading hard is a good place to start...exciting ja! Bon weekend!

Made it!

2008-05-28T17:06:00.002-04:00

Hi...Bonjour du monde! Welp, I am in Kinshasa, and have now settled in, and started to figure out what I have to got to do to survive (and thrive?). First off, learn French! My English/high school Spanish/Sesame St. French MIX is not gonna cut it. Apparently French is rare among males, so not to be insensitive to women...but guys, if you want to meet girls, head for French class! Kinshasa first impressions....lots of people! Expensive - a box of cereal was $15 USD! I skipped it for now...too rich for my Dutch blood. Its hard to import goods here because of the poor infrastructure. There were derelict skeletons of bridges over the airport road, and the planes themselves looked kinda recycled. For accomodation, I'll be in kinda an island fortress compound, with not too much access to the streets. Its not recommended to roam by yourself, as its just so big. From what I've heard, people are feeling food prices really bad....they've historically been high, and recently spiked.

What better than to have a tropical thunderstorm the first evening...clouds made it dark by about 5pm, whipping the palm trees with wind and rain. Kin la Belle, Kin poubelle...its all here at the start!

Mefloquine Monday

2008-05-19T19:36:00.003-04:00

Kin la Belle, "the beautiful", and Kin Poubelle, "the dustbin", two fond nicknames of Kinshasa on the river Congo. Depends where you stay I guess. In an 800 pp Africa travel book, Kinshasa gets about 4 pages, DRC about 8...for the 3rd largest city and country in Africa. It seems there is little to learn about this place prior to arrival. There's about 300 miles of paved road in an area equal to east of our great American river...it possible to drive crosscountry? Kinshasa sounds intense...sprawling, potholed, dangerous, and unfriendly to tourists. But the nightlife is hailed, as Congolese music is famous across Africa....the airport is an alternate landing site for the space shuttle..and construction of an $80bn dam, twice the size of Three Gorges may soon commence.
Unreachable yet in the same country, remote tropical forests host rare species like the giraffe relative Okapi, Mountain Gorilla, and pygmy chimp Bonobo. These forests and the tribes who rely on them are invaded by pilferers of diamonds, coltan, gold, mahogany or more valuable logs which filter through UN-patrolled lawless regions via illicit networks to the world market.

So thats what I know...the truth is I know nothing and I can't wait to learn!

1 Week Countdown!!

2008-05-19T00:44:00.005-04:00

Hi Audience, one week of USA before summer travels and work in Congo. This week, I'll pack all requisite travel/work STUFF, move completely out of my apartment, talk about GIS at a technical high school, cram-listen French CDs, and get the mind right! Getting the mind right should include hanging with the family and friends, watching the Celtics and Champions League soccer, eating some good home-cooking, and communing with nature. There are lots of logistics I could worry about, but really its not worth it. Flexibility, being in the moment, and a longview perspective, will serve best in making this opportunity valuable. A good dose of humor and sensitivity too...I'll pray for the eyes to be open. Adventures, places, friends, await.