In the village by the river that runs through the forest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sejourn

Hello my peeps,

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

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

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

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

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

Bonjour a Tous!

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

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

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

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

Outpost from the Field

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

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

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

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

98% Cousin

Hello All,

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

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

Independence Day USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arrived in Epulu!

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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