Signe de vie (Sign of life)

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.