Tales from the DRCongo

This chimpanzee has lived most of his life in the Kisangani Zoo, alone. I'll write up a more comprehensive update to Cleve's Kisangani Zoo report from 2009, but Freddy is certainly suffering.

Sunset in Kisangani

2011-04-20T11:04:00.001+01:00

Sunset in Kisangani a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

PPRD Visit

2011-04-20T11:02:00.001+01:00

PPRD Visit a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Political party candidates visiting Kisangani is a big deal - parade at the airport!!

Kisangani Falls

2011-04-20T11:00:00.001+01:00

Kisangani Falls a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

J'avais oublié

2011-04-20T10:46:00.001+01:00

Monday, 6:43 am

I had forgotten the chill of the air in the morning, as it rolls off the river, fat and moist and cold.

I had forgotten the hazy glow of a cavernous room, lit from above by a single bulb

I had forgotten the thick woody smell of Kisangani, where most still cook by fire, and bricks are made in towering mounds that pulsate with heat.

I'd forgotten the angry hum of the generator, constantly buzzing in the background, eager not to be forgotten because it is your only source of electricity or light as the night enters Kisangani and permeates every room of the house.

I had forgotten too the hot stickiness on the back of my neck, sleeping against a foam mattress in the stagnant heat of the night and sweating through my hair.

Yet I imagine most people in Kinshasa never experience these things, for while this is the Congo that I love most, the morning clattering with birds and rustling and cocks crowing, it is nothing like the capital city, hot and dry and brown.

Our trip to Kisangani yesterday felt long. We woke up at 5 to get things done before we left, and the airplane at noon was delayed because pilots were missing, and they kept piling us onto and off of the bus that only went 200 meters to the plane and back to the hollow lounge. The airport itself is chaotic, as men scream at each other and it reverberates in the huge cement room, and everyone is keen to "help" as they surround you. Official workers are not always in official uniforms, and I find that, to preserve my sanity, I tend to outright ignore about 90% of what is said to me.

Travelers in the US complain of body scans, but flying in Congo is far more invasive. There is a security check at every door, and at least 4 doors before you even reach the lounge. Each check wants not only your passport and ticket, but your Ordre de Mission, your visa, your profession, your origin, how long you are staying, and each man eyeballs you as though you couldn't possibly be flying for any reason but SIN! Or anti-government treachery.

Even just to leave the airport on your flight, you need a "Go Pass". For domestic flights, it costs $15 for the privilege of leaving Kinshasa, but for international flights, it costs $50.

Can you imagine traveling anywhere in the US where they needed your stated purpose for traveling, written by your employer, stamped and signed and sealed? And had to pay just to leave??

My bags were searched twice by white-gloved "agents" who, unlike their counterparts in the Western world, scoured even the bottom of my bag with a hungry, eager look in their eyes. It's hard to believe that something is forbidden on the plane when the first question they ask is "what is this?"

After much scowling and arguing, they walked away with only my Tom's toothpaste and 2 batteries, so, if you're in Kinshasa and want some Tom's, check the markets near N'jili today.

It's about a 2 hour flight between Kinshasa and Kisangani, but it feels a world away. Kinshasa has few trees left, but Kisangani has them in abundance, surrounding the airport, flanking the roads. Kisangani is a relatively big town, but it still feels quiet and wild. Though it is considered one of the "big" cities of Congo, we have no electricity right now because there hasn't been any for 2 weeks.

Along the river from the front stoop where I sit, surrounded by verdant green, I can see an old street lamp and birds flying into it, as it may no longer work to provide light but can still provide shelter. Just over the wall of the compound is a tall pole with tattered remnants of a Congolese flag, fluttering in the cool morning breeze.

I wish I got to spend more time here, but I know I will be able to next time.

Until we meet again, Kisangani

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Kisangani, à coté de fleuve

Waiting for Transport

2011-04-10T10:30:00.002+01:00

Midday on the Boulevard, No Means to Get Home

Kinshasa is an enormous city, sprawling across western DRCongo and along the banks of the Congo River. In addition to many many many Congolese nationals, it is packed with expatriates, from government workers, embassy staff, people from the ICC, the UN, to NGOs, big and small.

To accommodate all this traffic, Chinese engineers have flooded Kinshasa, engaged in road building and construction enterprises, attempting to modernize the dusty unpaved roads and put in proper drainage systems to save the new roads from rainy season.

The city is full of its own systems too -- secret hand signals and noises that alert individuals to the presence or need for goods and services. People at the side of the road lazily hold their hands out, index finger extended, and twirl it around, as though pointing to a dog chasing its own tail. It means that they need a taxi. People selling water make a kissing noise, perhaps to remind you that your lips are parched and in need of some of their delicious refreshing maji.

The men selling sodas clink their metal bottle openers against the glass, and it's a sound that travels quite a distance easily. Other services, like a traveling shoe shine man, makes his own noise. While I've seen the traveling pedicure man at work, I've yet to hear his call, but I am curious to know what it could be!

The Boulevard, the main road down the center of Kinshasa, had once been a lazy avenue of trees -- flanked with landscaping to escape the dusty urban grit. But this past year, the trees were cut down, the grass removed, the landscaping abolished, and the Boulevard was transformed into an 8-lane superhighway!

It's amazing to drive down this highway, partially because there is no posted speed limit, but also because it is an extremely high quality road that seems to not take into account the needs of the hundreds of thousands of pedestrians that Kinshasa is replete with. Zebra stripes (crosswalks) were painted to help people cross the Boulevard, but in reality, people must dart frantically across this enormous mid-city highway, day or night, and cars rarely stop or slow down. It's hot, and dusty, and barren, and the sun bouncing off of the stark concrete compound walls and shop fronts gives little reprieve to passers-by. The trees are gone, and the grass and flowers, and Kinshasa has achieved its goal of feeling less like a town and more like a city.

Bread Mamas -- all heading away from the bakery

The infrastructure that runs to support a city, however, is missing here. There are lots of workarounds -- individual men have push-pushes (big two-wheeled pushcarts) and local shopowners pay these men to collect the garbage that they accrue and that accumulates on the roads and walkways in front of their shops. There's little truck-distribution of most goods, but very early in the morning a huge horde of ladies waits, their empty buckets waiting, in front of the bakery to collect the freshly-baked bread that they will sell that day. Driving along the side roads, it is a veritable parade as these ladies walk, heads laden with bread, the air thick with that fresh bakery smell.

Bicycle Taxis in Goma, DRCongo
(Photo I took in 2006)

But certain workarounds are more difficult than a parade of bread-bearing ladies at the side of the road. Kinshasa, as it grows, has no means of public transport. At the periphery of the city, there are motorcycle taxis -- wewas -- but these motorbikes don't seem to travel inward to the city center, nor are they as ubiquitous as the bodaboda motorcycle taxis of Kampala, Uganda or even Goma in eastern DRC. In Kinshasa, there are regular taxis: cars that people signal with the rotating index finger, and they are typically piled with six passengers, hunched and cramped in the back seat.

The amended flag of 2006
(the red stripe was added)

The minibus taxis are the most visible, painted in the country colors of bright blue and yellow. Perhaps in 2006 when they changed the flag to include red, it was meant not to represent blood, but instead the copper rust on these minibus taxis.

Because, despite the rust, and the doors falling off their hinges, and the windows made of tape or plastic bags or cardboard or some combination of all three, these vans continue to run, because they MUST continue to run. As Kinshasa continues to grow and expand, giving more economic opportunities to the Congolese, the necessity of travel, especially over longer distances, taxes the current privately-owned transportation system. And, as a result, during peak travel hours, I have seen upwards of 100 people waiting at the side of the road, baking in the sun, waiting for a van with available seats to come along.

All these people are waiting for transport

I asked a couple taxi men why there weren't more minibus taxis being bought to accommodate the extra need. Money. Credit. And Stability. Getting credit to buy a minibus here is nigh impossible, because a country that has only just enjoyed "stability" (or a local approximation of it) for the last couple years isn't really the ideal locale for a loan. Gas is expensive. Repairs are expensive. The roads that aren't the boulevard take a toll on the wheels, the alignment, the undercarriage because they're so bad and riddled with potholes. Few people have the means to set up a minibus enterprise, and, for the time being, the government isn't doing anything to help them out. So people wait.

Push-pushes, cars, and me, waiting at a non-functioning
traffic light in Kinshasa

It's an interesting example of urban planning. For the foreseeable future, Kinshasa will remain a city of pedestrians, but roads continue to be expanded, eliminating walkways, crosswalks and sidewalks. One must take into account too that the people doing most of the road construction (which in Congo is Chinese expat engineers) don't necessarily have the same goals in mind as country nationals. Perhaps too they are less conscious of the needs of the city itself, and more focused on making Kinshasa Urbanized™.

I look forward to continuing to work in DRC and seeing how Kinshasa ends up addressing some of these issues. If the elections this November go smoothly, perhaps creditors will be more willing to lend here, and the cogs of independent infrastructure that have sprung up to deal with other needs of a big city will address the transportation issue. In the interim, people make due! Like this guy, who needed a ride while traveling with lots of parcels, but couldn't find space!

Stuntmen get paid extra for this

Here is a minibus, the conductor hanging out the side (as is usual), stopping to pick up passengers at the side of the road:

Most minibus taxis are painted blue and yellow like this one

Ibiza at Midnight

2011-04-10T09:07:00.000+01:00

Kinshasa is a huge, vibrant city, and one would think that, considering the number of expatriates here that the ensuing synthesis of cultures would make for incredible fun. And sometimes, as with the integrated salsa culture here, it does!

We spent part of Friday night at Ibiza Jazz Club, a smokey and small club in downtown Kinshasa that is apparently ONLY open on Fridays nights. What they do with the venue during the rest of the week, I don't know, but it definitely explains why a Gin & Tonic is $15.

Ibiza was packed, though, and filled with excitement and energy as people grooved, transfixed to the beat. There was a curly-haired expat saxophonist and an older expat guitarist (who was AMAZiNG), and they came and went, as other musicians pinch hit. The conga drummer, a burly guy, looked enraptured, leaning his head back as shook all over with the fervor of the music.

A mix of Latin music, scat, African -- every type of music flowed through Ibiza on Friday night. It felt a bit like a movie speakeasy, with the requisite hipsters, hair slicked back and sunglasses indoors, sprawled on the curved couch with a foxy lady on either side of them.

There was proper salsa-style dancing at the end of the night, as the huge crowds trickled away and left some space on the dance floor for movement. A good night, and a lovely presentation of Congolese nightlife.

Happy 70th Birthday to My Mom!

2011-04-08T07:13:00.002+01:00

My mom, in her natural habitat, knitting before my wedding.
©CKGillette

A lot of people laughed when I acknowledged "The Carol Gould Foundation for Overambitious Daughters" during my first scientific presentation at a conference last year. But I would not have been able to complete that research, or any research, without the support of my mother. When I was in Congo the last time, within the first two months, our generator died, our motorbike died, and between those expenses and some others equally unforeseen, the money that I had raised for the trip was nearly gone, leaving us destitute in Congo with four baby chimps to feed, staff to pay, and research to complete and many more months left to go!

My mom bailed me out, saving not only me, but all of the people who were dependent on me! She's a generous spirit, a wonderful person, and deserves nothing but happiness and cake today!

Please share with me today a celebratory huzzah for this woman who saves chimpanzees by proxy! Without her I don't know where I'd be!

MONUC Plane Crash in Kinshasa

2011-04-06T10:09:00.002+01:00

Flying on a UN plane from Entebbe to Goma in 2006

I've gotten a couple of emails from worried people in the USA, who have seen news of a plane crash here in Kinshasa. What's jarring, at least for the ex-pats, is that it was a UN plane, which we all consider to be "safe".

Lots of the commercial airlines here use extremely old planes, and there is constant fear that they will just fall out of the sky or erupt full of crocodiles or maybe just slowly fall into pieces and one will be left, cartoon-style, sitting in one's seat all by itself as it careens along through the sky with no more plane around it.

But the MONUC flights are supposed to be better than that. Crocodile-free, even. I've flown with the UN over ten times already, and even though the planes were laughably dated -- the plane in the above photo had wood-paneling and ancient, faded orange shag carpeting -- I figured that the UN wouldn't be using it if it weren't in good shape.

UN Copter over Goma

One of the scariest flights I've ever taken was actually on a UN helicopter from Goma to Bukavu, across Lake Kivu. It was me, Willi, and a host of Indian Army guys, and when the copter shook so violently that it felt like each of the bolts would shimmy from its hole and we would explode in a shower of aluminum over the lake, even THEY looked nervous. But still the pretense of safety persisted.

Lots of aid workers fly around DRC with UN flights sometimes several times in a single month. I think the recent crash will make everyone wary for a while, and will certainly make MONUC stricter about adhering to weather advisories. I actually filmed the storm that downed this plane, and that can be watched here.

Mendes Masudi, in front, at a TL2 Workshop in Kindu

In the interim, it's important to mourn the people who died on the flight -- 32 of the 33 people onboard (29 passengers, 4 staff). Names haven't been released to most people, but Terese discovered that an advocate of TL2 was among the dead.

From Terese's blog:

As vice-governor he was our strongest ally in the provincial government. He pushed hard to get the first no-hunting season established. He wanted six months with no hunting and no bushmeat in the market. Finally a three month season became law.
It was his staunch support that gave credibility to the case for conservation of Maniema’s rich Lomami hinterland. Congo’s forests have lost an advocate. Alas.

Remettez le Bonobo

2011-04-06T09:05:00.002+01:00

During my meeting yesterday with Minister L, a man was apparently brought in who had been trying to sell a bonobo. Minister L and I were discussing the dangers of pet ape trafficking, and he said, sort of offhandedly, "We have a bonobo here right now -- do you want to see it?"

It's always alarming to be confronted with a situation such as this one. A bonobo or chimpanzee, removed from its family and its natural habitat, is an awful thing to see. If you can imagine a tiny human orphan, starved, too-skinny, wild eyed and being massed by people and picture its fear, it comes close to the terror experienced by great ape orphans. For we all look huge, and unfamiliar, and terrifying, as most human experience for great apes involves hunting by the humans and fleeing by the apes.

It was therefore incredibly reassuring when the door opened and Fanny walked in, Fanny whom I met early in my Kinshasa visit when I went to Lola Ya Bonobo. To know that the appropriate people were already aware of the situation and that it was being handled immediately eased my sense of alarm.

The bonobo was brought into the office, terribly skinny, and already suffering from some of the side-effects of prolonged dehydration. I stayed 5 meters away, to prevent spreading any of my own disease, as many orphans succumb to disease soon after they are confiscated. Two of our orphans in Aketi did, and one of the effects of not having been able to eat or drink for 5 days.

But most others crowded around the baby, and his look of terror was awful. Despite living in Congo, most Congolese have never been outside of the major centers like Kinshasa, and therefore have never seen firsthand some of the megafauna that Congo is full of. Curiosity and excitement brewed in the office as people clamored around the grated windows, standing on their tippy toes, straining for a peek.

Fanny had brought a variety of fruits, and the bonobo, confronted with the bounty, immediately grabbed a banana and began eating ravenously. It's a good sign when the feelings of hunger overwhelm the feelings of terror, as many confiscated orphans are too scared even to eat. But it doesn't always ensure survival or success. The bonobo cried loudly, a sound that, in the wild, would bring his mother to his side immediately to comfort and protect him, but without a mother, he was left to cry alone, his mouth, overstuffed with banana, frozen in a grimace of fear and submission.

Fanny made sure that all of the documentation was provided from Minister L, legally signing over guardianship of this orphan to Lola Ya Bonobo. It is SO important here, as I've mentioned many a time in this blog, to have les documents. It's what saved me on the airstrip when we were trying to escape Aketi.

It seemed to take forever, though, the process of making copies, reading everything over, again and again, and finally signing the papers and utilizing the all-important embossed stamp that makes a hand-written piece of paper a legally-binding Congolese document.

Thank goodness that Fanny left when she did, as the original proprietor of the bonobo returned, requesting money or that Minister L "Remettez le bonobo" (give him back). Another crowd ensued, which thankfully dispersed after only 30 minutes, but the tension was high as we finished our meeting.

At the end of the day's events yesterday, I left inspired to do more -- and hoping fervently that this tiny baby bonobo survives. I will of course update on both counts.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

Sound the Alarum

2011-04-06T07:03:00.001+01:00

I am a whistle blower.

It's a dangerous occupation here in Congo, where lots of the people who are corrupt are able to be so because of connections with higher-ups, but failing to circulate the reports of bad behavior is akin to condoning it in my mind.

Dian Fossey was a whistle-blower too, and everyone knows what happened when her whistle blew too loudly too often and people got tired of hearing it.

Yesterday I finally got to meet with a relatively well-connected member of the Ministry of the Environment here in Kinshasa. I was given his contact information from an influential conservationist that I met in Kyoto last year, to give you a sense of the power of collaboration and networking even here in Congo.

Lots of the government positions here are often arbitrary titles; men assigned to duties who might not necessarily care about their wards, making collaboration difficult if not impossible.

Most (not all) of the men I encountered, tasked with protecting the environment in Aketi fell into that basket, making my impassioned pleas on behalf of the chimpanzees I was trying so desperately to save that much less effective.

Yesterday, however, I told Minister L exactly what I'd witnessed in Aketi. I told him about the 44 orphans that Cleve and I had witnessed over the course of a little more than a year. I told him about the elephant and chimp meat in the markets, about the men who traveled along the main roads, without fear, their bicycle baskets laden with the distinctively smelly elephant meat, and yes, I told him of stories I'd heard of ladies in the market, paying off the local environment minister in order to continue selling illicit meats.

It could have gone terribly. Minister L could have taken it as a critique of his country, of his government, but the look on his face when I told him these tales suggested otherwise. He seemed genuinely horrified and appalled, and listened with rapt attention.

I don't hate his country, and he understood that. I've worked here now for over two years, and he saw my passion to protect its patrimony. I told him about my research, and he understood that I hope to safeguard the miners from disease as much as the chimpanzees. My French isn't by any means perfect, but he understood that the real problem in north Congo is that no one knows what's happening there, and therefore no one has the information to stop it.

One policeman on every major road (of which there are no more than 4) would inhibit the easy trafficking that happens now, and Minister L and I formulated a plan to meet with the local chiefs and ministers not only to educate but get such a regulation in place. It is now a distant goal, since it needs to be proposed, funded, structured, planned, but the fact that it was in great part his idea, and that HE seemed so passionate about it, motivates me to move forward with it as early as I can.

So often, the sense of infantilism seems to inhibit intuitive problem-solving here in Congo. If some NGO or some expat or some country will come in and plan it all and do it, why bother to even theorize? Yet there are some here who are capable, and motivated, and need only the structure and the means. It's important to support that, and after the productivity of my meeting yesterday, something that I feel committed to doing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

Cine Majestic

2011-03-24T18:39:00.001+01:00

I may gripe about being stuck in Kinshasa for extra weeks, but Foreign Service people here typically have 2 year tours, and they've got to keep busy!

We took a big group trip on Tuesday to the local "movie theatre" to see a "special showing" of The King's Speech. I hadn't actually seen it while I was in the States, but love Colin Firth and was obviously interested in the post-Oscar buzz.

I don't know that I would have ever found this place, and the other FS people here have commented that any social activities circulate only through word of mouth.

It was about 15 of us, piled into a small room that was appointed with some extremely nice and plush chairs surrounding a table that held an LCD projector. They didn't have popcorn, but they did sell semi-cold beer and wine.

We didn't get tickets, because "the man with the key [to the ticket book] had gone" which, for those who have worked in central or eastern Africa, is a common error that borders on farcical. I giggle every time I hear it, and think about Ian Clarke's book of the same title.

I chuckled too as the movie started, and I saw on the projected screen that we were watching a bootleg DivX rip using VLC. Hehehe. David G would be proud!

I actually really enjoyed the film, and it was nice to have another group outing after our exciting trip to Maluku. Tonight the theatre is showing Black Swan, and I may go with another expat who hasn't yet seen it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Maluku Resort

2011-03-23T13:39:00.001+01:00

In the spirit of getting out and getting to know Kinshasa, I spent my Sunday with a number of State Department and UN friends on a little boating pilgrimage to a Portuguese "resort" called Maluku, on the banks of the Congo River.

I don't know how I would have ever found it myself... we started the day early in order to get to the marina and take out the boat, a US Embassy vessel appropriately named "Getaway" since, when it's not being rented for day trips, it is the evacuation boat for certain Americans.

The marina itself was lined with fancy speedboats, yet surrounding this stashed wealth were people, literally living on the fringe of society. Camped in rusted old tugboats, many of them clearly askew as they slowly sunk with time, laundry line hung between cracking masts and naked flagpoles. A line of stilted houses, made not with tin or wood but hung on the sides with old billboards or ripped and dirty flaps of cloth, cluttered a sand dune that sat between the channel out to the river and the river itself.

It took about an hour to get there, the sky was still overcast when we left, and its grey haze, reflected in the still water made it difficult to distinguish between water and sky. It was early still, and Sunday, and still we saw the occasional fishing boat, the men inside in the midst of a beautifully coordinated dance as they released their net into the water and pulled it out.

When we arrived, we were among the first, and we sat in our fancy yellow beer-sponsored plastic chairs and put our things down on the beer-sponsored tablecloths. Eager and opportunistic young men came from the shore and from the trees to sell us things: catfish, still alive and wriggling, so heavy that the young men struggled to bring them up the hill from the beach.

Men came from the forests along the edges of Maluku, arms laden with fresh avocados and green lumpy lemons.

I thought we'd be relaxing and reading, but the good collection of folks chatted until, after about 2 hours, our food came. Delicious, FRESH fish right from the river, grilled and sweet, if not a bit bony.

I was the only one who felt like swimming after such a big meal, most likely on account of the unknown factors of the river mores than the full stomachs.

There are all sorts of "exciting" waterborne parasites, which I felt were more of a danger than any real threat of crocodiles :)

I planned originally to go into the water in flip flops, but two steps in told me that if I went in with them, they weren't coming back with me. The bottom of the river was slick, slimy, and impossibly suctioning. I took my feet out of the shoes even to get them out of the mud, and threw them back to the shore.

The slick slime of the bottom gave me some pause as I waded out deeper, needing to go quite far to even have water above my knees. If I had gone much farther, I would have ended up in Republic of Congo, right across the river!

The water itself, though brown and murky, wasn't cold and felt refreshing in the hot sun. The current was strong, but I wondered what it would take to actually swim across to RoC.

After the swim, we relaxed more in our small little grass-thatched shamba, watching various cargo boats and makeshift sailing boats go by, their plastic tarp sails taut with wind.

Big logging boats went by too, a small tug followed by 50+ logs, bound together and floating on the river, their guardians standing, watchfully, on the surface of the logs that were also dotted with their rudimentary sleeping tents.

By 3pm, we needed to get the boat back, so we packed up and lazily boarded The Getaway, the afternoon sun scorching us as it bounced from the still water.

I've traveled a lot by boat in Congo, and what strikes me most often is the vestiges. We passed lots of old, half dilapidated factories and retaining walls, and in the distance I spotted a greyed and crumbling diving tower next to an old waterslide.

Everyone was tired when we got back, and over sunned, though I'd made sure not to get more burned after my Saturday burn!

Funnily, I discovered later that "Maluku" means "crazy" in Portuguese.

Crazy indeed!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Someone Else's Network

Fresh Capitaine from the Congo River

2011-03-23T12:27:00.001+01:00

Fresh Capitaine from the Congo River a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Yum!

Internet Peeping Tom

2011-03-22T12:39:00.002+01:00

a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

I don't have Internet access (yet) though I am due to go to the company today.

So in the interim, I hide in the bushes by a neighbour's house who has free wifi, and I creep.

Along the Water's Edge

2011-03-22T12:32:00.001+01:00

Along the Water's Edge a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Kinshasa may be metropolitan, but traveling along the marina, it's hard to believe when you see all these shanty huts

Swimming in the Congo River

2011-03-22T12:29:00.001+01:00

Swimming in the Congo River a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

A Little Sunburned

2011-03-19T22:08:00.002+01:00

A Little Sunburned a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Gingers and Africa don't always mix. Despite my best efforts today at the pool, I got some sun...

The Exotic Mundane

2011-03-19T21:49:00.001+01:00

I've been remiss in posting on the blog, because I hold such a high standard for things that I consider publicly newsworthy. By comparison, it feels like my last Congolese sojourn was filled with high adventure, and this one is laughably dull, but I've been having a good time and experiencing some wonderful wilds, even though I haven't been in peril.

I've been particularly lucky to have had my friend H here, who, before she left for the States, did the wonderfully conscientious thing of telling her friends that I could use entertaining.

Two such people have done just that, inviting me out to things more regularly than I can even sustain. One works for USAID and the other for the UN, and we spent Wednesday night salsa dancing until the wee hours.

I find the Kinshasa-based obsession with salsa to be sort of funny and yet appropriate. During my time in north Congo, nothing got people up and active better than a little piece of dance music. Contemporary music, let alone international music like salsa, didn't have much impact aside from the very little played on the radio, but most native Congolese music is distinguishable by its ass-shaking beat.

The grooves of salsa end up melding so well here as a result. The fluid undulation of the spine and the legato gyration of the meaty female Congolese derrieres is really something to behold -- we went to two DIFFERENT salsa clubs on Wednesday. The first was just starting out, but intentionally luxurious and classy. The second was more established, and the owner, a dapper fellow with relaxed long hair smoothed back, had hired a feisty and short dancer named Safi to dance with various patrons. Wow, could she dance, and it was electric in the wee hours of the morning to watch her, along with the owner and several other very professional-seeming dancers in this cyclical tango, hips swaying, their hands clapping above their heads at beats within the music.

The nightlife of Kinshasa for the expat is somewhat limited, so since Wednesday I've run into the same collections of people several more times.

I was among a large collection of expats today at the Grand Hotel, paying $15 for the honor of swimming in a clean and fancy pool next to the President's residence. No insurrection happened today, thankfully, but I did also pay $15 for a rather tasty club sandwich. Not something I can afford to do regularly (nor would I want to) but it was a nice excursion out.

It continues to feel like I am on holiday. The undertone of peril isn't even taken seriously. Tomorrow I am taking one of the US Embassy evacuation boats out onto the Congo River for a picnic with friends. I'm legitimately excited to get out of the city and see something new, and maybe swim in the Congo River! Crocodiles be damned!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Corktree US Embassy Housing Compound

La Salsa Congolaise

2011-03-19T19:25:00.001+01:00

La Salsa Congolaise a video by amalthya on Flickr.

Brilliant dancing at Club Sai Sai

Marvelous Mangosteen

2011-03-15T09:28:00.002+01:00

Marvelous Mangosteen a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Juicy, its meat not unlike that of the lychee, the mangosteen is a beautiful fruit.

The outside looks like a die-cut stamp, and the skin is hard and difficult to cut. But once you get it open... What a treasure!

Maybe coveting this weird fruit is what made Charlie Sheen go crazy!

The Egg Men of Kinshasa

2011-03-14T18:36:00.001+01:00

The Egg Men of Kinshasa a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Putting your head to good use!

Getting to K-now K-inshasa

2011-03-13T15:39:00.001+01:00

Having resolved to make the most of my time until I head into the field, I've had the privilege of spending time with Terese in the TL2 Project Office and around Kinshasa.

And, as much as I have envied the protection and security enjoyed by the people who work for the US government here, I have come to realize too how restrictive it is, and how I should enjoy the freedom to go wherever I please!

I am so thankful to Terese too for including me in her plans here. I've met some wonderful people, and had absolutely riveting dinner conversations that weigh very heavily on the future of my own research within the country.

Last night we went down to Embassy Row to walk Georg the Dog, and get a little exercise and enjoy the sunset air as the city finally cooled down. What a difference, really! Since I've been in Kinshasa, nearly 2 weeks now, I'd yet to see a single non-Congolese-person walking on the street.

It's remarkable since Kinshasa really is a town of walkers! But there on Embassy Row, along the edge of the Congo River, there were all sorts of fair-skinned diplomats and families, roller-blading, walking their dogs, and enjoying the beauty of the day.

I appreciated so much finally getting to stretch my legs again. We ended up doing a bit of jogging, but only to escape from the stray dogs who were intent on picking a fight with Georg!

The Congo River is really remarkable, and what a shame that I'd never gotten to see it from Kinshasa before. The last time I was here for only a day before moving onto Kisangani, but now that I am in Kinshasa through March, it's excellent, being able to take the time and enjoy the sights.

How funny that, across the river, is a whole separate country. Terese told me stories of walking along the DRC side of the river during the wars in Brazzaville, witnessing the red flashes just across the water. I imagine itt was similar for people in Brazzaville during the DRC wars!

The coup attempt still lingers within the city. A huge section of the walking path was "interdict" to walk upon, so enforced by large bands of red-bereted soldiers, sprawled lazily in their plastic chairs with their automatic weapons propped up haphazardly next to them.

There was a big tank too, and I snapped some ninja photos of that that I wish were less blurry, but not at the expense of my safety!

Today, after we worked hard in the morning, we went to the Patisserie Nouvelle, a darling little coffee shop in Gombe right across from city market. We sat outside, drinking our tea and eating delightful little buns and, eventually, delicious omelets! The outside air was warm but not stiflingly so, and between the intermittent sounds of birdies chirping, one could hear the grind of ancient motors or the peppering calls of hawkers saying "Cartier! Cartier!" as they shook their box of fake gold watches at passers-by.

Perhaps we will go later to buy yummy sweets, that were Oh So Delicious to look at, but, full from brunch, we declined and instead went home to sleep off our food comas.

Congo was not entirely forgotten either, as, upon emerging from the patisserie, we were surrounded by hawkers and beggars and street kids. The tall lanky mute (who I think was deaf) was still patiently watching our car, and took great effort in orchestrating our exit from the parking lot, however unnecessary. The street kids scowled at him as he got a little money for his work, and we pulled away, careful to avoid the many potholes that are pretty standard on even the most rehabilitated of Congolese roads.

Now it's back to work, readying for another exciting dinner companion in just a few hours.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

Sunset over the Congo River

2011-03-13T12:32:00.001+01:00

Sunset over the Congo River a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Gorgeous peaceful happy evening. That's Congo-Brazzaville across the river!

Ninja Tank Photo

2011-03-12T22:33:00.002+01:00

Ninja Tank Photo a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Apologies for the blurriness of this photo of a tank near the president's house, but photos are verboten and I had to be extremely sneaky!!

Hard at Work at the TL2 Project Office

2011-03-12T15:26:00.002+01:00

Hard at Work at the TL2 Project Office a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

Trying to keep myself consumed in finishing abstracts for my own
publications and presentations and helping out with TL2 needs. I can't
complain -- there is air conditioning and a mangosteen tree and an avocado
tree. I may become a tree-dwelling monkey and live here forever.

LRA rhymes with "delay"

2011-03-10T12:49:00.001+01:00

It is impossible to plan for everything, I know, but I really REALLY tried to foresee delay when I plotted this whole trip. It's the reason that a 3 week training yielded a 7 week trip, basically giving Congo a month to en retard me and thwart my field-efficiency.

My original timetable left me in Kinshasa to get all my paperwork for 2 weeks (1Mar-15Mar) then be in Kisangani for a few days, then head north up towards Bili, which is in the Bas-Uele District of Province Orientale. I mention the location so that when you read this you will understand why and how it changes my plans considerably and forces me to find alternatives whereas before they were not necessary.

That being said, the LRA isn't something to take lightly but there are also a lot more claims of LRA activity than are justified. It's like a more violent version of Elvis sightings. Still, the original plan to start training near the 15th of March is now delayed until the beginning of April. My buffer is shrinking, and my time in Kinshasa is growing.

I talk to my colleagues/collaborators today about the new schedule, and the real likelihood that I'll get less time with Annie in Nairobi than I hoped and potentially have to do a lot more rushing.

More news after our meeting, as I work in a proper office with internets aplenty.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

Paradise!

2011-03-09T19:37:00.001+01:00

The sun shone brightly this past Monday, as I was driven through the periphery of Kinshasa to visit the only bonobo sanctuary in the world, Lola ya Bonobo. In Lingala, it means "Paradise of the Bonobos," and after a day there, I cannot disagree.

Bonobos were once considered a subspecies of chimpanzee, because of their similar environments and appearance. Many people can't tell the difference between the two even now, but their primary difference is in their behaviors. Bonobos in the wild are separated from chimpanzees as well by the mighty Congo River, which is impassable, though I'll no longer say that most great apes avoid water!

The bonobos of Lola are remarkable in their affinity for water. The babies play in it as though they were neighborhood kids in the fire hydrant. And even the adults on the edge of this river loll in the water, blowing bubbles, sprawling languidly, and splashing around.

It's a behavior also seen sometimes in the wild, but having worked with almost exclusively chimpanzees these past few years, who tend to avoid water entirely, it was so funny to see!

Though, considering the heat of the day, I can't say that I blame them! I was nearly ready to get into the river too!

A lot of the day was consumed with behavioral observation, sussing out the little differences between these bonobos and my chimpanzees. Amongst the babies within the nursery, it didn't seem that different. Play-stomping around, sprawled in their mama's laps, chasing one another back and forth while swinging from anything and everything, I missed my chimp kids, now at Lwiro, terribly.

I spent more time by the fence of one of the adult enclosures, watching a group interact as their waited for their 15h feeding.

The group was broken into a much smaller pod than the 21 bonobos who filled the enclosures,and as they waited in the grassy shade along the bank of the river, there was a calmness about them as they groomed and played and frolicked at the water's edge.

Chimpanzees in captivity tend to get pretty agitated during this period, and there's lots of screaming and intragroup conflict as the tension rising from anticipation becomes overwhelming. Carrots! Mangos! TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT! And excitement becomes tension. And tension becomes fear, which leads to hate, which of course leads to the dark side.

So imagine my amazement as the food bearers came, loaded with yummies and the bonobos were silent! There was no fighting, no screaming, no wild displays, as they casually ambled over closer to the fence to get their grub.

It was lovely to see such a peaceful society, and yes, bonobos are certainly famous for adhering this peace with a careful balance of sexual favors.

It's sort of funny that it makes bonobos "famous" in a way, as though it's some sort of tawdry nastiness, some sort of National Geographic-prescribed porn. But honestly, seeing the little group at Lola, and comparing them to the great deal I know of chimpanzees in captivity, I can't say it's a bad strategy.

Humans develop attachments and do favors for those with whom they're intimate, so it makes sense that, within a group, if you want to tighten your bonds to your group mates that you engage in a little hanky panky. A little Charles Manson-esque, perhaps, but it's really the chimps and not bonobos who are out killing Sharon Tate.

This reliance on sexuality for group peace and prosperity ends up sort of altering a lot of the standards I've become accustomed to in sanctuary management.

Typically in any great ape sanctuary, resources are already taxed by the influx of orphans and therefore reproduction is inhibited through the use of contraceptive implants. With bonobos however, the use of implants has also affected the estrous swellings of bonobos, which are understandably crucial to their social bonds since sex is so integral in their society!

For me it was so interesting to see how behavioral differences so impact the management of such otherwise similar apes.

Overall, the day was absolutely magnificent. Claudine and Fanny, the onsite vet and assistant project manager, have done such a splendid job with Lola. Any sanctuary ends up being a huge undertaking, to ensure the safety not only of the primates within, but the human primates as well! The compromise between things like protecting the bonobos from visitors' diseases versus having the visitors get a real lasting experience to better their understanding of bonobos are huge issues, and Fanny is handling them with aplomb.

I hope to get a chance to go back, and that this entry has encouraged others to learn more about some of our closest cousins! For more information about Lola Ya Bonobo, please visit www.lolayabonobo.org

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Avenue Colonel Mondjiba,Kinshasa,Democratic Republic of the Congo

And the rain fell

2011-03-09T17:24:00.002+01:00

Wednesday, Noonish

The rain fell today, finally, after several days without and lifted with it the stifling heat of the city. The sun is out, and with it, I try to lift my moods too from their dark dwelling places.

I don't know how free I feel in this, my public blog, but I've been waylaid by delays and the accompanying frustration, no matter how expected the delay, is hard to process into something productive.

Rumblings are underfoot again that more insurrection is coming, but here in the compound, I don't fear it. Perhaps foolish, I know, but it has become ever more clear to me the disparity between the experience here for Americans in Kinshasa versus out in the field.

Everything in Aketi was uncertain. I had absolutely no guarantees of safety, and had events transpired even slightly differently, it may have been a much more gruesome tale. I don't know if that sort of uncertainty ever enters the picture here in Kinshasa for most of the people who live and work here under US protection.

Certainly I know my friend here has had her fair share of scares, but she seems unique amongst the groups I've encountered here, who live here as just another isolated post in their duties. I have met people who live here who do not speak French, and could not fathom even learning to speak Lingala. They focus on Western activities that they can partake in here -- going to the gym, visiting the newest, most expensive restaurants, salsa dancing and horseback riding.

I was told a tale over dinner the other night of two such people who had been at the Grand Hotel, next door to the president's compound, on the day of the last insurrection attempt. They spoke of gunfire by the poolside like it was a funny anecdote. Beret-clad military special forces scaling the wall and running past the pool as though it was laughable, and all the while, gravity felt as though we were on the moon.

While it wastes time to be overly grave about dangers here, one still needs to be aware of them as legitimate threats, if only to prepare oneself for any impediments.

Yesterday was Women's Day, and my friend and I attended a small gathering of foreign service people in their fancy attire, but it didn't seem as though anyone had interrupted their days to really celebrate the meaning of the day.

It was such a juxtaposition for me from my last experience with Women's Day here in Congo, where the day's activities were halted entirely while women banded together, dressed in their speciality-made outfits to parade through the town, celebrated, as the men cheered them on.

It was particularly special for me to be a part of that day, assimilated with my female staff in my matching outfit as I walked proudly with the parade of ladies down the main street of Aketi Town.

Assimilation seems discouraged within this community... a necessary separation between countrypeople... and that makes me sort of sad. One of my greatest joys in the field is experiencing fully a different way of life, free from cultural norms and trappings.

Yet at the same time, is there a compromise between this safe, isolated and separated life versus subjecting oneself to danger and uncertainty as a result of immersion in another area's culture and subsequent "laws"? Is the liberty to enjoy the natural life amongst another group worth the necessary reliance on yourself and no other?

I don't even refer to protecting myself, but moreso those I love. When I think of the dangers I subjected Adam to on our last trip here, it upsets me horribly and I cannot imagine any future family I may have being any less important to me than he is now. Despite having colleagues who have brought their children into the bush, I cannot imagine ever being comfortable subjecting my own to the sort of perils of the unknown that end up being so commonplace, the deeper and wilder one's surroundings become.

This entry is cranky, and scattered, and I feel like maybe I should have some tea and write about visiting the bonobos instead. It may stop me from missing Adam so much, and feeling guilty for needing this wild so much, not just for my work but for myself.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Corktree US Embassy Housing Compound, Kinshasa

Waiting for bonobos!

2011-03-07T16:02:00.002+01:00

The adult group doesn't come out into the hot hot sun until the food arrives!! The view is so lovely it's easy to be patient.

Bonobo Nursery

2011-03-07T15:54:00.002+01:00

Baby bonobos doing what they do best, or rather, what you want to think they're doing all the time. (I'm a panderer, I know)

Mama Esperance

2011-03-07T15:51:00.002+01:00

Taking care of orphaned primates is hard work. Mama Esperance has been caring for orphaned infant bonobos since 2005. They're extremely attached, just like human children and require a lot of attention.

When days are hot!

2011-03-07T15:43:00.003+01:00

Wow is it hot in DRC today, and were I a bonobo, I'd probably be chilling in the water too! Most chimps I have worked with hate water, so it's interesting to see these bonobos enjoy it so thoroughly.

Holiday in Cambodia

2011-03-06T08:23:00.002+01:00

Saturday, 10:00am

I've spent the last few days not even sure what day it is, and I feel fine. But what's funny is that my experience has been unlike any experience I've yet had in Congo, underlining further the disparity of experience even within country and within people.

It's been one of the easiest transitions I've had thus far because of the very real Western standard of living enjoyed by US workers living and working abroad. Safely ensconced within the compound, I've been eating vittles from Trader Joe's, gnoshing on chocolate covered cherries, and marveling at the store of canned goods and other Embassy-proffered "consumables" that I rarely see in New York, let alone DRC. (as a sidenote, Trader Joe's is a relative novelty in New York and was, until recently, only at 14th street which is hardly nearby or convenient)

But it's been extremely peaceful and nice. My friend and I chat like city girls might, not about the field but about relationships and other emotional minutia. We watch movies from Blockbuster, and she knits socks while I work on my needlepoint and we laugh and kibitz and her cats snuggle us as we settle into her plush couches.

There probably could have been a full coup or revolution as we watched movies these last two days, and we wouldn't really know, since the sounds of the city are removed from this place.

I could, quite frankly, be anywhere. It's a holiday, with air conditioning, and I titled this entry "Holiday in Cambodia" not just because it's a great song but because this has been an experience not at all specific to Congo in any way. The view out her front patio is tropical and green, but we don't experience any of the heat as the air conditioners rumble away. Last night we lost power a few times, but unlike my time in Uganda where my flashlight was readily available and nearby, I just waited here less than a minute for the compound generator to kick in and the power to be restored

There are of course some giveaways, like walking outside to get distilled (drinkable) water and being barraged with the sweet sticky smell and fragrant humidity that I can only associate with central and eastern Africa. Or, for example, trying not to drown the tiny gecko in the sink while washing the dishes from last night's dinner.

I welcome these few days of tropical sloth. Already today I've received 3 phone calls, 2 before 8:30am, attempting to schedule the next phases of projects. My respite here is almost always short-lived.

There is also a sense too of restriction within the peacefully manicured isolation of the compound. Kinshasa is a huge city, and a bit unknown/volatile, and especially with recent events in mind, whiteys are recommended NOT to walk through the city unattended. Which of course is limiting, as I don't have a vehicle. I've always enjoyed the liberty to walk around, and in New York I walk constantly, but here, it does feel a bit trapped.

Nonetheless, these days of resting, enjoying the wonderful company of my friend, are a wonderful start to Congo, if not a non-traditional one for me.

Also, a note: I already am without internet most days, so if I don't post as frequently or don't respond to your email right away, that's why! Don't panic :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Corktree US Embassy Housing Compound

Epic Produce

2011-03-06T08:16:00.007+01:00

Epic Produce a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

I was used to huge veggies in eastern DRC where the volcanic soil just makes everything grow like woa, but in central DRC the veggies were pitiful!

This cucumber purchased at Natty's Grocery in Kinshasa is clearly in the former category. My eyeballs say it all!

Choose wisely!

2011-03-06T08:15:00.001+01:00

Choose wisely! a photo by amalthya on Flickr.

The tomatoes on the left are local, the ones in the center are imported from South Africa and the ones on the right come from Belgium. Seriously, BELGIUM.

It's so funny to think that in the US, organic, local produce comes at a premium but here in Congo, it's the cheapest and the expectation is that some people will actually prefer to get tomatoes from huge distances away instead.

Customs at FIH

2011-03-03T01:41:00.002+01:00

Jaunty berets make things seem much friendlier than they are.

This is my tired face.

2011-03-03T01:40:00.005+01:00

The Belgian Floors

2011-03-03T01:40:00.004+01:00

The floors in the Brussels airport were giving me weird eyeball wigglies. Lack of sleep?

By the Seat of Your Pants

2011-03-03T01:02:00.001+01:00

Hotel Sultani Hall, Gombe, Kinshasa

As we pull out of Douala International Airport in Cameroon, the mist clinging heavily to the plane windows, I cannot help but notice how empty the plane is, and what exactly will befall me once I arrive in the town many expats "lovingly" refer to as Poubelleville. AKA TRASH TOWN.

The last time I came through Kinshasa, my pickup completely garbled my name and desperately followed me around the airport, shaking a sign at me that read "M. Roland" -- I of course only learned of the error much later in the day when I was already $200 poorer, between bribes to the customs officials and the cab ride.

The air is wet and smells of burning corn when I get off the plane. It's so humid, especially in stark contrast to the plane's frozen and arid interior. It's such a familiar smell, especially once I make it down the metal stairs and the heavy wet air is mingled with the smell of pungent and thick body odor.

I don't have any problems at customs, and imagine my relief when I enter the baggage area and there is a friendly-looking gent earnestly holding a chalkboard that says "Mme. Laura"

He greets me, and I head over to the baggage carousel. The good news keeps on acomin'! Both my bags arrive after about fifteen minutes, and Jolly Mr Chalkboard escorts me into a lovely waiting room that is wood-paneled and replete with wrinkled and waterlogged magazines about global economy and world finance from 2005.

I get to chatting with a cool Portuguese business guy and when the van is finally ready to go, we've struck up a nice friendship. It's his first time ever in Congo, and it reminds me a lot of some of my first experiences. Having never before seen some of the slums and ghettos of urbanized Africa, he's shocked and horrified, and I try not to alarm him while I watch a pair of military guys shake down a matatu minibus next to us.

The main driver asks me where I'm going, and I remind him that he's got the information from my friend already, and he assures me that he's got it and everything is under control. Surprisingly, forty-five minutes later, his boss is sure that he doesn't have the address, and my poor friend is MIA, and where exactly am I going to end up?

So... I'm at a hotel. Not in my budget, but I will make due and scrimp on some other things later, I think. I ended up staying in Sergio's hotel, a funny little place in the main business district.

My first room seems to have no lights -- and, upon examination, I discovered that none of the lamps have BULBS. I asked the bellhop, a slight woman who has trouble even lifting my purse, if she could bring me some lightbulbs, so imagine my surprise when she came up twenty minutes later with a new lamp.

The bathroom was still completely dark though, and instead of just bringing me some lightbulbs, they had me change rooms.

Finally parked in one place, I am relaxing and digesting the day. Heather came by, sad to have had our meetup plans go so terribly askew, but I reassured her that if I wasn't homeless and lightbulbless, it wouldn't quite feel like Congo. I will confess to having eaten most of the peppermint patties I brought for two months in a single evening, in light of the bar being closed upon arrival.

But I am happy to be here, and safe, and will likely spend tomorrow writing emails and getting a local sim card.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Rue Romeo Vachon N,Dorval,Canada

Ice Cream in the Afternoon

2011-03-02T23:17:00.001+01:00

11:30am US time

My head is floating in a bubble. I got to the airport a little less than 23 hours ago, and have been en route ever since. It's a lot like leap frogging, travel like this. The hour is manufactured by the automation of the lights on the plane, and the occasional rising or lowering of the tiny portal blinds.

Food and drink keeps coming and going in a fervent attempt to keep you seated and sated. The closer one gets to Africa, the older the planes get, and the weirder the food gets. I'd be willing to test the hypothesis -- the correlation between the poverty line and the hotness and freshness of the dinner rolls.

I'm not even sure what time it is wherever I am right now. The stewardess just brought us tiny containers of strawberry ice cream and I feel like some sort of decadent infant, getting ice cream indiscriminately as a reward for something I'm not aware of.

I sleep on the plane. Sometimes sitting up, sometimes flopped across my tray with my hair cascading all around me. But the sleep is punctuated by more tea and ice cream and Boeuf Etrangé avec spicy club sauce.

Once we touch down in Douala I'll know more about whether we continue onto Kinshasa. Most of the people on this plane are getting off in Cameroon, and I wonder how empty we will be, flying ahead without them all. No news is thus far good news, and my friend in Kinshasa has heard nothing more about further coup rumblings.

I will instead focus on getting through customs, and, with luck, my luggage will have arrived with me. My ride will come too, and collect me magnificently in a whisk of professionalism and take me away from the manic crowd that usually inhabits the Kinshasa airport.

This entry is sounding drug-addled... a clear sign that what I need is not strawberry ice cream but sleep.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:1.5 hours from Douala

Gird Your Loins

2011-03-01T23:31:00.001+01:00

When I'm traveling with someone else, I'm usually giggly and flit. One of my favorite activities is the airplane can-can, humming merrily and carefree as I kick my short legs in the confined space.

This trip feels markedly different, as I gird myself, bracing for whatever may come along. Adam was upset that he would be unable to protect me on this trip, and I had to remind him that I lived in Uganda and Congo before, completely on my own, and do have, deep down, a stubbornness that refuses to submit to Africa-based shennaniganry.

I saw 127 Hours by accident last week (I went to the movies when I got locked out of my house) and I empathized a lot with the brazen mentality of assuming that everything is going to be okay. It's not a BAD assumption... it keeps you from wasting valuable time worrying, but at the same time, it's not actually TRUE.

I didn't want to let Adam know in the airport this afternoon how worried I was. Here we'd been, doing goodbyes on the presumption of "everything will be okay" when he got a call from ABC, relaying a semi-frantic message from our mutual friend in Kinshasa who had grave security concerns after this last week's coup attempt. Though the BBC reported it as a failed attempt with six deaths and several subsequent detentions, it was actually more than 100 people rushing the presidential palace. It speaks volumes for the current climate in DRC, and while the State Department is just recommending vigilance, people are nervous. My friend in Kinshasa has been told to "ready her 'go bag'". I don't think I need to explain further.

It was a bad start to the trip. All the same, I reviewed my potential options and am even now bracing myself for whatever comes. If something bad goes down within the next 24 hours, my flight will almost certainly not take off in Douala (Cameroon). I would almost certainly then fly to Brazzaville in the OTHER Congo and boat over across the Congo River into Kinshasa once things calmed down. I've got a friend in Brazzaville now, and I could probably even stop over at Tchimpounga (a chimp sanctuary) in Pointe Noire.

And if whatever might happen takes longer, during my next two weeks in Kinshasa, I will be with an American friend who works with the State Department. I've got a competent and good network in country, and good/powerful contacts out of country.

I love traveling. I would never sacrifice it. And yet right now, as I can feel the tension in myself escalating... readying for whatever comes next... I miss the airplane can-can.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Somewhere between NYC and Montreal

Preparations are Underway!

2011-02-25T20:15:00.001+01:00

I'm down to four days, now, and while I still haven't finished putting together the final versions of the field collection protocol, I am trying to finish everything ELSE in order to give myself more time to finish those things.

Today I revamped this blog, importing my elements into a more modern setting and adding the ever-important social networking buttons. Ha! Web 2.0 eat my face.

Each of the field teams is getting a GPS and a Nikon Coolpix camera, and I set up the two field kits today, labeling EVERYTHING since, if I don't, I am SURE it will get confused and "lost"...

None of the field teams will have the means to offload SD cards or charge lithium batteries, facts that caused me to go with the Coolpix. It uses regular old AA batteries, and buying extra SD cards is extremely easy and cheap. Sure, batteries in Congo come from China and are crappy as hell, but they're easy to come by in case the guys run out of good old USA Duracells that I'm bringing with me.

The time pre-field is always a bit exciting. There's so much to coordinate, and lots of things that need to be procured. And then they arrive, and it's like FIELD Christmas! My cat Radagast absolutely loves the inclusion of all these boxes in the apartment, because he's a box whore and loves lying on/around/in boxes. He has methodically been testing each box to see which one is most comfortable. I'll ask him to post here later and let you all know which one he chose.

I got a new GPS that is supposed to work better in the field, and ideally improve my coordinates and give me a better dataset to work with, comparing mining sites and chimp faecal collection sites. It doesn't look THAT much different than my old one, but man did it cost a LOT more. Bleuch.

I will eventually post a big thank you list, speaking of money, acknowledging my extremely generous friends who have essentially facilitated the quickest field trip I have ever had to throw together. The decreased time factor made a bunch of things difficult, but with the help of collaborators and friends, I think I am actually going to be able to pull it off! And of course, my mother, who bought my plane tickets and a new tent when we discovered my old one was past repair. She is truly a Foundation for OverAmbitious Daughters, and I endeavor to tell her all the time that I couldn't do any of this without her support.

Yes, my apartment does indeed look like a tornado of packing and preparing today; boxes and sharpies and big internal frame packs. Lots of little elements, in a neat little line. And soon, in a neat little bag. I do like the idea of having nothing but what I can carry on my back, and SOON, it will be a reality!

I now have my visa, my tickets, my schedule, a pickup from the airport, a place to stay in Kinshasa, and a general idea of people I need to see while there.

Adam and I are trying not to be emotional, and save our sad goodbyes until they're really necessary on Tuesday. I've always enjoyed leaving the country as a sort of hard reset. Unhappy? Unsatisfied? Leave the country! Things will inevitably change!

But I'm actually extremely happy in New York this go 'round. And particularly satisfied, and content not only with my circle of friends, but eager to see how interactions with them will blossom and grow. Suddenly "Things will inevitably change!" takes on a nefariously terrifying tone, and I worry that everything I've established here will crumble in my absence, and that, at the end of the world, everyone I care about will forget all about me!

... I didn't say I was logical.

My flight this trip will take me around 36 hours. Here's my itinerary for the interested:

It's essentially LaGuardia to Montreal, Montreal to Brussels, Brussels to Douala, Cameroon, and then to Kinshasa.

Thank goodness I'll have my iPad with me! Suggestions for books I should download to read while I'm in the field (where I traditionally read a LOT) are always accepted!

Accolades and Internet "Fame"

2010-12-21T20:11:00.001+01:00

taken by Cleve during our ceremony

Who would have ever thought that our little story of malaria-laced romance would have garnered so much attention!

We submitted our wedding announcement to the Times in October, and, right before our December 4th wedding, they asked us if they could do a little video about us! We never imagined it would be so popular, but it makes us wildly happy that it IS!

Our only hope is that the attention we've caught on the New York Times, Perez Hilton, and Boingboing can be channeled to the chimps, of course, and our future work!

We did!

Our wedding was absolutely stunning, and perfect, and I nearly cried as many of my primatologist friends pant-hooted like chimpanzees in our honor!

Now that the festivities are over, it's time for us to focus on our goals for the New Year. In addition to spending a week at Harry Potter Wizarding World for our mini-honeymoon in just a few short days, we're also planning our return to Congo in March of next year, where I'll be collecting data to analyze as part of my doctoral dissertation.

I'm currently working to fundraise that next trip, and I'm looking for donations of any amount to help me with airfare, and the procurement of sampling materials!

Raise Money Online

We'd also like to encourage anyone who is interested in helping us to protect the chimpanzees we rescued in Aketi to visit the Lwiro Blog and contribute directly to Lwiro Sanctuary!

Thanks so much for your interest in our little marriage and our work in the Democratic Republic of Congo!

More Press

2009-04-16T11:23:00.001+01:00

Bravo to Cleve!

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3700963,00.html

The Final Distance

2009-04-16T05:43:00.000+01:00

It’s now been two weeks since I crossed the border from Goma, DRC to Gisenyi, Rwanda.

It feels like a hundred years ago, and it’s no wonder that, sitting in comfort at the JGI house in Entebbe, that I’m loathe to recount our hurried journey out of Congo.

But here we go.

***************************************************************

Touching down at Kavumu airport outside of Bukavu was like a dream. We’d made it, and though Aketi Kigoma had screamed through the last hour of the flight, refusing to be comforted, the rest of the chimps seemed calm.

We’d given Kathé our water bottles to play with, mostly to distract her from untying the various ropes and vines we’d used to repair her cage, and she was in a zen place, unscrewing and rescrewing the cap to her heart’s content.

Bolungwa and Django were sleeping, though one of them had felt the need to relieve themselves during the flight. Small plane with five chimps and four people, sharing the ventilation system with a dook? Always a good time.

ICCN was at the airport to meet us, along with about 40 other people who all proceeded to introduce themselves to me as I tried to keep my wits about me and make sure that all of our belongings were offloaded and that the chimps were okay.

I got to meet Ainare, the interim manager of Lwiro, who supervised loading the chimps into the pick-ups. Both she and I were unhappy by the number of people insisting on clustering around the chimps, so we tried to move as quickly as possible. To keep Kathé from attempting any escape maneuvers in the bed of the pick-up, Ainare, a vet, tranqed her and Adam and I were hustled to the airport DGM’s office.

I felt extremely bad that there was chimp poop in the MAF plane, but had absolutely nothing to clean it up with. I only hoped Joey and Jon could forgive us!

Adam went first to the DGM’s while I handled the last few logistical things on the tarmac before joining him, only to discover that he was already encountering problems. It was here too on the tarmac that I learned by phone of our staff’s arrest, and of the warrant that had been issued for Adam.

What should have felt like a purely exuberant day of success was already feeling more like a bad film.

Inside the airport DGM’s office, the immigration chief was questioning the visas we had obtained in Buta in January. We’d been issued ATLP’s, which, according to him, weren’t valid unless our passports were sent to Kinshasa to be issued actual visas. None of this, of course, had been told to us when we got the “visas,” which were listed in Bukavu as a $45 document (but for which we had paid $150 per person). We had a receipt, and technically the ATLPs were due to expire on the 2nd of April, but he angrily insisted that we were in the country illegally and was very firm on his plan of taking us to the bigwig DGM in Bukavu this very minute, with police escorts.

As you can imagine, this was the last thing we needed, but, additionally, Kathé’s knockout was only going to last so long and we were now under a time constraint to get back to the Sanctuary before she woke up.

Ainare convinced the DGM that we would return after depositing the chimps, and that, in return, he could hold onto our passports.

I am, in general, extremely reluctant to let go of my passport but I’d rather go without my passport for 1.5 hours than have Kathé wake up in the back of the pickup truck and freak out.

So off we went. I remember being in sort of a trauma-haze, worrying about our guys in jail, and trying to figure out my next move, all while sitting in the flatbed of the second pickup with the other four chimps - Aketi, Mangé, Django and Bo - trying to reassure them as we bounced and jostled through the rough volcanic-rock roads of South Kivu Province, barely managing not to fall out of the truck, my bra, and all the while fielding frantic phonecalls from Cleve, in Holland, who probably felt equally responsible for the predicament of our staff and equally helpless to save them as quickly as we both wanted to.

We did finally arrive at Lwiro, and Adam and I jumped out of the pickup to deposit our bags at the house and arrange ourselves for the trip back out to the airport to deal with our visa issues while the driver brought the chimps to the new dormitory, where they would be quarantined until their introduction with the remaining population of Lwiro.

Time was once again against us -- it was a 45 minute drive between the sanctuary and the airport, and South Kivu is simply not safe to drive in during the night -- we had to therefore hurry back to the DGM’s to retrieve our passports before darkness set in a little more than 2 hours.

I couldn’t reach my mom, but I managed to reach Rachel and let her know that we’d made it alright. She wasn’t happy to hear that Adam was a fugitive and that we’d relinquished our passports, but she promised to just let my mother know that I was “alright”.

When we finally arrived at the airport again, the sun was aglow in the warm yellow haze just before setting, and it illuminated the ridiculous reflector shades of the policeman who stopped our car at the airport gate. Though Ainare had paid for a 24 hour pass into the airport, the policeman was intent on us paying to enter the airport again -- $120!!

Though my patience was at its end and my stress levels near enough to popping my eyeballs from my head, I explained to him that we were only going to see the DGM and retrieve our passports, and then leave.

I must have looked a sight, as I saw my frazzled hair and wide-eyes in the reflection of his sunglasses, but he waved his hand non-chalantly to allow us to pass, as though he disdained us for not wanting to pay again to enter the airport.

We didn’t have as much luck at the second checkpoint. The officer there, luminescent in his safety-cone-orange trenchcoat, refused to let our car pass. When we offered to walk to the immigration office by foot, he pointed at me brusquely, saying in broken English, “You, okay” and, swinging his accusatory finger at Adam, “Him, no!”

Telling Adam it would be alright and leaving him at the hands of the various street urchins begging at the airport gate, I walked to the DGM’s office, imagining that I’d just be able to retrieve our passports and go.

Ha!

The DGM was busy issuing some sort of fine to a UN woman who had (gasp!) taken photographs at the airport. He seemed to relish making her wait, which of course also translated into making me wait, as the sun crept farther and farther toward the horizon.

I’ll never understand how exactly being tricked and bamboozled by immigration put us at fault, but as I struggled to gain sympathy from these airport DGMs, I realized that there was no way that I was going to get our passports back. As a woman, you can get away with more in these sorts of situations, but even crying didn’t cause these two guys to yield.

One of them, who finally broke and did seem to feel bad, offered to accompany us to Bukavu the following day to visit the DGM. He’d rest with our passports that night, but assured me that he’d arrive at our house at 7:30am with a taxi to take us the 2.5 hour ride to Bukavu.

We’d originally hoped to spend lots of time at Lwiro -- but it seemed this visa problem was going to stymie any hopes we’d had of just relaxing and celebrating our success. With each new roadblock we encountered, it was feeling less and less like success anyway.

Additionally, though I played it close so as not to worry him, I didn’t know what Adam’s arrest warrant would mean for our departure plans. I mean, I couldn’t imagine that it could make its way east in less than 2 years, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to bet on and then lose. As I say often, there are lots of things in Congo that can be thought of as funny, but Congolese prison is just not one of them.

Our new plan was therefore to head to Bukavu the following day, see the DGM, and then board the boat to Goma and cross into Rwanda before the expiration of our fake visas on April 2nd.

It was probably fortuitous that I ran into a man in the DGM’s office whose name was literally “Of the Forest” -- and who was indeed a jungle savior, not only for his detailed knowledge of the boat schedules, but for his friendliness and offer to book us two places on the Wednesday boat at 11am.

Heading back towards the car, I ran into Adam, who I suppose had finally been deemed Not a Threat by the technicolor policeman (Adam was, after all, wearing the Peter the Penguin shirt I made him. Not very threatening) and allowed into the airport grounds.

He too was not happy about our passport situation, but there are some things you can fight constantly and lose or just accept that you’re not going to win and move on from.

We sped back to the sanctuary, and managed to arrive just as the darkness had finally descended. We sat for a long time with the Coopera girls and vented our day’s frustrations. It’s also always a bit jarring when fellow Congo-workers turn to you and tell you you’re brave, and that they’d never have gone through what you did. It, at least, puts things into perspective.

I’d been up since 3 am, but couldn’t sleep quite yet, so we went down to our beautiful room, where Adam took a much-needed hot shower and I flopped on our tiny, ever-so-comfortable bunkbed. My mother called me, and as I recounted the day’s events I felt myself getting more and more upset. Cleve and I spoke too, never a moment to pause and reflect, always more to do, never finished.

Our workers were still in jail, so I didn’t feel right even celebrating the triumph that was getting the chimps to Lwiro, and instead I just lay in the bed, crying not out of sadness but out of the overflow of emotion from the whole day.

Dinner was delicious - spaghetti with sauce and CHEESE and we had great company with the Coopera staff of Lwiro. We didn’t head back down the hill to our room until around 9:30 or 10, and I realized that if we left at 7:30am the following morning, it would be extremely difficult not only to say goodbye to our babies, but I wouldn’t even get to see my kids from Goma.

We texted the airport DGM, and asked him if he could come with the taxi later in the day -- maybe 10:30? Thankfully, he agreed, and not only did we have a schedule the following day that was more lax, but we could sleep in a little, too!

The next morning we had CORNFLAKES (!!) and milk! and I got to catch up with one of my original caregivers from Goma - Balume - who is now one of the HEAD caregivers at Lwiro and doing spectacularly.

We headed over through the mud to see our kids first, who seemed to be adjusting quite well! Kathé was a bit miffed at being indoors, and Aketi was more shell-shocked than anything else, immediately clinging to Adam and falling asleep, but Django and Bolungwa were delighted by all the new foods they were being offered!! And Mangé was, well, still Mangé.

It certainly made ME realize, in any case, how much we’d accomplished, and our goodbyes -- our last goodbyes for a long time -- were extremely hard. Bolungwa didn’t want to let me go, and though we had to rush to be ready for the taxi at 10:30, the feeling was mutual.

Before heading back to the house, we also stopped at the enclosure of the other chimps, and to my great delight, coming over to the enclosure’s periphery, were my kids from Goma. They recognized me, reaching out, curious, wanting me to come over ... ignoring the food that was being proffered at the other end of the enclosure. They were SO BIG I could NOT believe it! I could barely recognize Yongesa, she’d gotten so big! But Kanabiro and Gari and Shege had the SAME faces -- and once again, I found my face streaming with tears, wanting to hold them, seeing them happy, healthy... such a rush of emotions.

Because I’d been around chimps who were in quarantine, it was a bad idea for me to interact with my Goma kids. I had to watch from a distance, encouraging me all the more to come back sooner.

As we hurried back to the house to bring up our bags for the taxi, forgetting that time is forgotten in Congo, I realized too how sad I was to leave Ainare, whom I’d only just met but was already extremely fond of.

Our taxi did indeed come, though, and it took us nearly 3 hours of struggling through the mud, rain, and rocky terrain to finally arrive in Bukavu.

Compounding all of our other worries was our shrinking cash - we’d paid salaries and helped out people before leaving Aketi, including our “fee” to leave via plane to our “friend” the extortive official. And, though my mother had agreed to Western Union us some money to Bukavu, we decided it was best to receive the money after our meeting with the DGM.

The airport DGM, however, was sort of nice and friendly during our 3 hour taxi ride, and we talked with him *somewhat* liberally, though still leaving out pertinent parts of our harrowing journey. Out of all the DGMs we’d yet encountered, I’d probably trust him most with our lives, though all of them are technically mandated in the job description to protect us.

The DGM’s compound in Bukavu was not-so-surprisingly nicer than any we’d yet encountered in our tour of Central Congo. It had four walls, a lack of goats or miscellaneous poultry in the lobby, and instead, was furnished with ornately posh white leather sofas. (Why people in a hot country always go for leather, I’ll never know)

Upon entering the office, however, it seemed routine and familiar. Papers were stacked everywhere with tiny hand-written labels saying things like “Protestant Missionaries” (a big pile) and “Catholic Missionaries” (an even bigger pile), this office held FOUR desks, each with a man dressed in a fine suit.

We weren’t exactly sure which one was the DGM, so as I explained our situation I tried to look each of the four men in the eye. Somewhat less powerful, but hopefully more useful.

Predictably, while two of the men stayed silent, the other two broke off into the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine.

Bad Cop was intent on us printing more of our documents, sure that we had somehow conspired to be against the law.

Good Cop conversed extensively with the other 2 mutes, in Lingala, and I picked up maybe 60% of it, unbeknownst to them, mostly a conversation about not wanting Congo to look bad.

Bad Cop suggested that we get 2 1-month visas at $90 each, despite the fact that we were leaving the country the next day and our existing paperwork didn’t expire until the 2nd.

Even though I cried on cue, the fact of the matter was that we had paid FAR more for some documents that were illegitimate, but not yet expired. Not only was it not fair to penalize us for being tricked, but we’d already paid $100 more per ATLP, and they wanted us to pay $180 on top of that?!

I explained too that we had no money, which was true, despite our having money waiting for us at the Western Union. Bad Cop, infuriated by the fact that we were not cushioning our pith helmets with Benjamins like perhaps other whites he’d encountered, stormed from the office, claiming he was off to find a solution.

For me, at any rate, I felt that inner tension rise as Good Cop insisted that he call the DGM in Kisangani, the boss of the DGM who issued us the fake visa, to inform him of his lackey’s treachery! I wasn’t sure how far Adam’s arrest warrant had made it, so imagine my relief when they seemed to talk of nothing but trickery and less of our Wanted status.

Bad Cop eventually came back in, a proud smile on his face, claiming that he’d found a solution... for us to get 2 1-month visas at $90/each. Hadn’t I heard this one before?

I explained to him again that we didn’t have the money and that we would leave the country tomorrow, but no one ever said conversation in Congo was efficient. Oh, and he also said that we would recoup our money from the Buta DGM once their investigation was finished, somehow trying to encourage us to cough up the $180. Um, recoup our money that was trickily thieved from us? Try not to laugh out loud at THAT one!

They asked us why we weren’t leaving via Bukavu, and continually peppered us with questions about why we’d gotten fake visas, as though we’d had a choice, and why chimpanzees were important at all.

Trying to keep calm and under-the-radar, even after Bad Cop came back into the room with a “new solution” (2 1-month visas at $90 each), it was slightly disturbing to have a new gentleman come into the room and start talking to me about how there was a different sanctuary in Congo that was going to seize all of Lwiro’s chimps. What?!

Not a time to start a fight, I just pretended that I didn’t really understand him.

We waited and waited and waited. At the mark of the third hour, my crocodile tears only partially dried, and with one additional visit from Bad Cop once again suggesting his $180 bailout plan (that was once again rejected), Good Cop finally said that he couldn’t give us new visas for free, but that he would enable our departure from the country the following day, calling all of the relevant people to make sure we wouldn’t have problems.

We even got his phone number, and piled into our taxi to head away, our passports in hand. (HURRAY!) The first hotel, run by a conservationist in Bukavu, was sadly full, so imagine our relief when a nearby hotel, THE HORIZON, had room for us - a big, luxurious room with a bathtub and a TV and a huge squishy bed.

I left Adam to load our stuff into the room, and rushed with our cab driver to the Western Union to pick up the money from my mother. It was, however, closed, and as we raced through the traffic of Bukavu looking for one that was open, I realized that the poverty I claimed in the DGM’s office was perhaps realer and DID necessitate real tears... all the while wondering whether THE HORIZON took IOU’s.

Finally, we found an open Western Union, and our problems were, for the moment, solved. It still didn’t leave us much money to get out of the country, we had to pay the $50/each for the boat ride, and we had to buy our Ugandan visas.

Eating food at THE HORIZON that night was a dream -- bedraggled in our locally-made Congolese outfits, the few bits of clothing we hadn’t given away -- mushrooms on toast for me, BEEF for Adam, cold beers! Things that shouldn’t be tear-inducing sometimes are, despite your tough veneer.

We had only one day left to go -- one day left in Congo -- one more day susceptible to the arrest warrant -- and though there was only one day left it dragged on and on and on.

We did get to the boat docks by 10 am the next day to make our 11 am boat to Goma, and, thanks to De La Forêt, our two reservations were indeed already booked. No one had mentioned to us, however, that we only got 10kg of luggage a piece, but thankfully I had just barely had the extra $43 to pay in excess baggage charges.

There was, of course, a DGM at the docks, to whom we had to explain the whole story ... again. More alarming, however, was the HORDES of military and policemen at the docks. Maybe under regular circumstances it would just make me uncomfortable, but considering our urgent departure needs, it was all the more disquieting. Not helpful was the fact that they all hung around us, asking for money. At least regular beggars don’t have guns! (but do they have *bullets*?)

My heart did stop, however, when a man ran over to us, wearing a bright pink and red shirt that had lots of prints of different kinds of ladies’ shoes on it.

“Are you Lola?” he panted at me.

How much I wanted to say No and run, (RUN, LOLA, RUN!!) but considering I was between a fence and a lake, I had to concede that yes, I was “Lola” and waited for whatever bad news or obstacle he had in store for me.

Imagine my surprise when he was not a harbinger of doom, but an envoy of the Good Cop from the day before, making sure that we were okay. He’d apparently been sent down to the docks at 6 am to wait for us, but had missed us (who knows how), and wanted to make sure we hadn’t had trouble with our Fake Visas.

How nice, as a sendoff from Congo, to have Good Cop been true to his word. Of course, ShoeShirt man still asked for money, which we didn’t have to give him, but hey, it is Congo.

When we finally boarded the boat, it was SUCH a relief, despite one particularly large military man claiming that “Mama Lola” was “abandoning” him (I’d refused to give him money). Despite the boat being full though, it didn’t leave, and as I sat with a front-row view of the countless military and police officers on the dock, my stomach dropped and I was reminded of that moment on the plane in Aketi, just willing the driver/pilot to GO GO GO before it was too late!

It turns out the military & police were there to wish a farewell to some big official, who showed up predictably late, holding up the boat, and as the military guys goosestepped to greet him on the docks, we couldn’t help but snigger. Funnier too was the camera man who accompanied him onto the boat as he took his seat, filming him with great interest. It’ll be a box office hit for sure!

And, as the boat took off across Lake Kivu, the volcanoes at its periphery silhouetted in the grey morning, we were finally on our way.

I would imagine that airlines have a “no” list of movies they shouldn’t show on airplanes, like Con Air or United 93 or maybe even Soul Plane.

Why this $50 luxury boat travel company chose to show Speed 2 then is beyond me (it’s about a cruise ship being overtaken and all the passengers being evacuated, etc). Why not Poseidon or even better, Titanic? At least Titanic is more watchable than Speed 2, and as we watched with the bizarre French dubbing, we couldn’t help but laugh at inappropriately dramatic places.

Worse, however, was the local standup comedy DVD afterwards, performed by a Congolese guy who’d traveled to Belgium. As you can probably guess, most of the jokes were about how CRAZZZZZYYY white people were. I’d equate it with being at the Apollo. Every time this stand-up guy would make some comment about white people in Congo, everyone in the boat turned and looked at us.

Always fun!

But we did finally arrive in Goma, and, our savior, Don, who works at the US Embassy was there to greet us. He stood by as we visited our second-to-last DGM at the port (can you believe how many we had to see just to get out of the country!?), making sure we were alright. This DGM was a bit more enterprising/weasly than the previous 2, and tried to tell me that there was a mandatory fee for every white coming to Goma, a lie I didn’t buy for a minute (and I had a burly Embassy guy to back me up).

With the proper names thrown around, however, he released us without paying a nickel, and Don’s driver drove us away from the port and towards Rwanda at last.

Goma has changed SO much since I was last there -- they’ve built it up considerably and even the elephant graveyard is covered in huge buildings now! The Lebanese restaurant is gone, and Don was eager regardless to get us OUT of the country instead of having lunch there anyway.

It was wonderfully familiar, though, and I was almost sad I couldn’t stay longer.

...Almost.

Arriving at the border, I saw that it too had changed. Last visit, it had been a drab, grey building riddled with bullet holes. They had since painted it bright blue and yellow and red (the flag colors) and they even had a COMPUTER inside the office, though it didn’t seem like anyone knew how to use it.

We, once again, had to explain our situation, and Good Cop in Bukavu hadn’t quite gotten around to calling anyone at THIS post, so a few tense minutes were spent as the border guard eyed our paperwork suspiciously.

He insisted that we leave the receipt and the ATLPs there so that they could “investigate the fraud” -- however much of a joke this may or may not have been, we had gotten out of Congo without having to pay a dime, and if it cost 3 pieces of paper, so be it.

We got back into the car, Don and I both encouraging Adam not to dance until after we GOT to Rwanda, and zoomed through the barrier.

Rwanda was, of course, easy. I know my passport number by heart after filling out so many of these little cards, but for Americans, Rwanda is FREE ENTRY because it’s just that cool.

Don dropped us off at the hotel in Rwanda, and we excitedly made plans for lunch there the following day together. The hotel brought us hot towels to wash our faces, and cold champagne.

It was then that we knew we were free. Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

****************************************************************

We’ll be posting more entries eventually, organizing posts and fixing old tags and uploading more photos once we get back to America. I’m also hoping to post a “hilarious search terms that found my blog” entry.

Thank you for tuning in. Once all the research stuff is squared away, I’ll also post an entry thanking the people who helped me immensely with that. But for a while, this will be the last entry.

Questions? Comments?

Email me at laura@primatologist.me

Interested in helping chimpanzees? Please consider making a donation to Lwiro!!

Some More Thank Yous

2009-04-04T06:02:00.001+01:00

The response to our struggle and success has been overwhelming, but we need to reiterate that we could not have done it alone!

Thank you again to:

Cleve Hicks
Debby Cox
Radar Nishuli
Carmen Vidal
Ainare Idoiaga
Petrus Viengele
Leopold Kalala
Claudine André
Shirley McGreal/IPPL
Joey Lincoln/MAF
Jon Cadd/MAF
Polycarpe Kisangola
Terese Hart
Andy Plumptre
Don Webb
Elizabeth Cook, DVM
Timothy Mann, DVM
Janice Gleason Skow
Hans Wasmoeth
Sunny Kortz
Carol Gould

While our guys in Aketi are out of jail, they're still being harassed on a daily basis. We work every day, fielding phonecalls in at least 3 different languages and using SkypeOut credit faster than we can wait for the page to load to recharge it!

The struggle isn't yet over, and I still have a LOT of blog entries to write! But today we voyage to Entebbe via car! More adventure is still ahead!

Photos From the Pilot

2009-04-04T05:36:00.001+01:00

The Whole Story

2009-04-03T11:20:00.002+01:00

This hotel in Rwanda is even nicer than I remembered. I sit on the balcony, listening to the sound of the waves hitting the shore and Bach and it’s so serene that I feel like I could cry.

I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. As I told Don and Stu yesterday, I feel like a teenage girl again.

And I’ve been loathe to write this entry -- to try and make our adventures as compelling as possible, as I write I transplant myself back to the scene, remembering vividly what it felt like so that I can best convey the life of the scene.

But I don’t want to go back to the airfield in Aketi again. Imagining the scene fills me with the same fear of the day itself -- and as I feel my heart sink into the pit of my stomach, all I can remember is how close we nearly were to losing everything we had worked so hard to achieve -- and how near to us failure became for that hour on Monday morning.

I will try anyway, however, to recount it as best I can

***************************************************************************

Monday, by 9 am, had felt like a long day already. The sun was particularly hot, and both my temper and those of the workers were short as we’d all had little sleep, and they were on the cusp of losing work while I was on the knife’s edge between wild success and disastrous failure.

Though we had given the chimps valium earlier in the morning, it had worn off too by 9 am and they were restless, hungry, and wondering what in the world was going on. Thanks to the Valium, we’d been able to take the chimps across the airfield to the river before the sun came up without being caged, and they continued to be uncaged, romping through the underbrush at the sides of an extremely narrow path cutting through the dense undergrowth where we sat hidden. It was off of the main path, so the countless ladies with their empty wood collection baskets who passed by didn’t even notice us.

It was impossible to find shade, and everyone looked pensive. In addition to sweating, I felt an unusual tightness in my chest, my eyes focussed on the narrow path towards us.

At about 9:30am, my eyes caught sight of an official, but quickly realized it was just Papa B, our extortive “friend.” It was his job to authorize the plane to land, and he’d been the only person told the specifics of our plan. He rarely wore his uniform, so it was rather funny to see as he made his way through the underbrush, trying not to get dirty or rumpled even as the leaves and branches pulled at his neatly pressed shirt.

He was, of course, visiting to discuss the subject of payment -- he was willing to offer us a “discount” but he wanted to ensure that I would pay him before everyone came. Nothing says “I’m going to take this money under the table” than a persistent demand to have the money in secret, right?

He assured us, however, counting the last stack of our meager remaining money, that he would protect us in the hours ahead.

So we waited.

The wait was indeed painful -- I could barely believe there was a plane coming even as I’d booked and confirmed it, and a deep-seated fear nagged at me that the plane would never come. In the interim, we tested out the cages, and discovered problems immediately. The bigger cylindrical cage had its door sticks too far apart, and Bolungwa escaped after only 10 minutes of trying.

As it was already 9:30, we set to fixing that cage immediately.

Aketi didn’t take to being caged, and, frustrated, took it out on Mangé, who isn’t much of a fighter, or a lover. More of a rocker/floor-cleaner. We separated them and left Mangé in the cage and let Aketi roam free, keeping an eye on him as he was still showing signs of valium haze.

Kathé was another story -- she was the only chimp for whom we’d made a wooden planks cage, as she’s far bigger and stronger than the rest of the kids. We’d made many modifications already with the carpenter, and now all that remained was to put Kathé inside and nail the top shut.

Kathé, tranquilized but not tranquil, had other ideas. It took six of us to get her inside, and it took her six seconds to escape.

The side bars were too far apart, despite all of our modifications. We had to think FAST.

I sent guys out to cut small branches, and we worked feverishly to make additional lattices on the sides and prevent further escape.

Laughing at us, Kathé rolled in the grass next to the cage, calm and flopped.

Our second attempts to get her into the cage were easier, but she immediately set out to untie all of the vine-knots that were holding the lattices in place. It was now 10:15am, so I figured it was a good time to get out to the airfield.

Carrying the three cages and Aketi separately, who was sleepy and heavy with Valium, we made our way out to the airfield.

Local people cutting wood and what-not were immediately intrigued and followed us closely, with no mind to our personal space OR the chimpanzees’. It was all I could do to run at them screaming to get them to move back and away from the chimps, but with the help of all of our staff out at the airfield, we managed to get a bit of breathing room.

Out of the protective shelter of the trees, however, it was hot, and as the sun razed our flesh and our patience, I wondered if the plane was ever coming. We put Aketi back in with Mangé, and the heat lulled them into a temporary truce.

As I contemplated despair, Polycarpe looked at me, an excited gleam in his eyes -- “I hear a plane!” he said.

And sure enough, five minutes later, the small black speck was visible from the ground. The plane circled around, becoming louder and louder until finally, it touched down.

Adam ran to me, tears of joy streaming down his face, “It’s here, it’s here!”

I couldn’t believe it! But our work was not done yet.

We introduced ourselves to Joey and Jon, who were two very cool and laid back pilots indeed! They started refueling immediately, as we loaded our luggage into the plane and prepared to the load the chimps as well, still a hundred feet from the plane in their cages.

The bags loaded, I headed over toward the cages, and my heart dropped as I saw the very thing I’d been dreading -- Mr Moibi -- decked again in his blueberry shirt.

At first I fooled myself into thinking that perhaps he was just there to wish us a fare-thee-well, but as he pushed documents in front of my face, menacing me and commencing a loud angry tirade about the $8,000 tax bill, my stomach dropped and it was all I could do to keep myself from falling or puking.

He pulled from his pants pocket a crinkled, torn note -- an invitation, to the ATE’s office -- to discuss the matter of documents and insisted that I accompany him immediately.

My heart raced, and as I returned to the plane to pull the additional documents we photocopied and prepared ahead of time -- a just in case for exactly this scenario -- I felt the rush of fear, that desperate urge to just get on the plane and flee. But the pilots had ten minutes left to continue refueling. It wasn’t an option.

I returned to Mister Moibi and tried to explain clearly, quickly, politely, succinctly, that we were within the Congolese Law, had permission from Kinshasa (the big boys), and that the pilots had a very tight schedule to keep that couldn’t be delayed. All of this was true, but it did not stop him from coming very close to my face, his breath even hot after the morning of equatorial sunshine, and whispering, his eyes narrowed menacingly, “I will take these chimpanzees from you,” he hissed.

He announced to the increasingly large crowd of spectators that we were all going back across the river to the office, and he beckoned to one of his goons (not in a uniform or anything) to grab the chimps.

The goon took Aketi Kigoma by the leg from between the bars of the cage -- and inside the cage there was no way he could defend himself and he screamed, terrified, struggling to release this stranger’s grip.

Everyone was screaming -- the din in an outdoor space was incredible -- and as Aketi shrieked in fear, the other chimpanzees followed suit, shaking their cages, afraid.

We screamed at this man to let Aketi go -- not only was he scaring Aketi, but he was in danger of being bitten or worse!

He did not listen, however, and in a moment of father’s protectiveness, Adam rushed over to push the man away from the cage. The man, startled, stepped back, as Adam placed himself between the two.

We rushed to phone our emergency contacts in Kinshasa. They confirmed that we were within the law, and we relayed this to Mister Moibi, who insisted, louder and louder, that we were not IN Kinshasa.

Mister Moibi, undeterred, clutched the documents and left the field, and we continued loading the chimps and our things onto the plane.

Five minutes later, he returned with a man we knew quite well who worked for the ANR -- an agency I’ve mentioned before is much like the CIA of Congo. Trying to remain calm, though it felt impossible in the heat and suffocation of the crowd, we explained to this ANR man what our plans were, and showed him our documents from ICCN as well as our detention permit.

As I tried to explain rationally our situation, Mister Moibi screamed over me, trying to contradict everything I said. Finally, the ANR man asked him to please be quiet. I could not help but grin.

“Are you contesting the legitimacy of these documents?” he asked Mister Moibi.

“No,” he said, confused. “Yes,” he said. He proceeded to try and relay the history of our alleged tax responsibility.

“Hold on,” the ANR man said to him. “This document [the detention permit] has a stamp on it, and its signed. Even if it’s false, it’s not their fault. They’re within the law” He then turned to us, smiling and friendly, and thanked us for our time in Aketi. He shook our hands, and helped me get into the plane.

Mister Moibi looked crest-fallen. His ally had basically said, even if he was right, he was still wrong!

I knew, however, that it most likely wasn’t over. We hurried ourselves to finish readying the plane, and said tearful goodbyes to our staff. Random people came over and stood in front of us by the plane, as another man with a camera took photographs for money. It was certainly surreal.

We kept looking towards the entrance of the airfield, waiting, but we had so much preparation to do. We had a little extra time, since it took about 10 minutes to cross the river by pirogue, but we would still be happier and more likely to succeed the quicker we could move.

People stood by our windows, asking us for money with obscure hand gestures as we secured the final straps around the chimps’ cages. We closed all of the doors of the plane, as everyone outside continued to make a remarkably loud goodbye. But when the noise seemed to increase significantly, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to turn around and see Kathé, our big female, OUT of her cage and pressing her face against the plane window.

She’d escaped again, and really now, time was a serious issue. I barely remembered to take photographs -- we vaulted the seats, taking Kathé in our arms.

She’d slipped through two of the planks, despite our lattice of sticks and vine, and she seemed completely unable to go back in the way she’d come out. Jon, the pilot, cleverly grabbed some tools and we worked on un-nailing one of the planks to give us enough space to put Kathé back in. We’d had to open up the back of the plane again to let Djodjo and Antoine (two caregivers) in to help. As Kathé cried out in stress, the crowd mocked her, yelling back. It was awful to see.

My eyes were restless, bouncing back from Kathé to the entrance of the airfield and back again to Kathé.

We managed to get Kathé back inside, trying to fortify the lattice with extra straps, ropes and what-not from the plane, ever-conscious as the minutes ticked by.

We finally decided to put the cargo net over the cages to prevent any sort of escape, and once it was secured to the floor, we were ready to go.

The pilots were nearly ready to go, with only the two side doors open still for ventilation from the heat.

About to leave, an official we’d had mixed dealings with previously came over with a policeman.

“The Administrator is coming,” he said. “You must wait.”

At this point, however, the pilots were already behind schedule and we really needed to go.

“We’re with the law here,” I explained from my seat. “And we really can’t wait. The pilots need to be in Bukavu by 14:00.”

“I understand,” said the man, “but he’ll be here really soon!”

“Get out of the plane!!” the accompanying policeman said.

The pilot, Joey, intervened. “We really can’t,” he said, “we’ve got to go.” With that, he turned on the front propellers, momentarily distracting the two men standing below the driver’s side door, allowing us time to close it and lock it.

It was only as the propellers whirred faster and faster that people cleared off of the airfield and away from the plane. We moved slowly to the end of the runway, preparing to turn around to take off. My eyes were peeled, unblinking, at the entrance of the airfield. We wouldn’t be safe... the chimps wouldn’t be safe... until we were off the ground.

The runway was so much bumpier than it had looked as we accelerated towards the other end. But as we felt the wheels leave the ground, Adam and I embraced one another in tears of relief, stress, and fatigue.

The chimps were free. Nothing could have felt better.

The flight felt quick in comparison to the morning, though Aketi Kigoma probably would have disagreed. Most of the other chimps slept (and pooped in poor Jon’s plane), but he spent much of the last hour screaming. Though we tried to comfort him, it was little help. I knew how he felt!

Landing in Kavumu airport, ICCN was there to meet us and guard the chimpanzees from any additional problems.

It still seemed packed, as countless strangers introduced themselves to me, when all I really cared about was the chimps.

Ainare, the interim sanctuary manager of Lwiro, was also there to meet us and it was wonderful to finally meet her in person!

We needed to meet with the DGM (of course) to register our immigration so I sent Adam along with our passports while I handled things by the plane, and talked to Cleve, only to discover that Polycarpe and the rest of our workers in Aketi had been taken to prison.

Even less rational was an arrest warrant that had been issued for Adam, as the story inflated itself with lies and exaggerations regarding his protection of Aketi Kigoma AND the man who was grabbing him on the airfield.

It was a terrible development in a story we’d been hoping could be a finished success, but it was only one of a hundred things going on at the time.

I walked over to accompany Adam at the DGM’s office and was encountered with a new problem -- the visas we’d been issued in Buta in January were INVALID. Not only that, but we’d been sold $45 documents for $300. Thankfully, we had receipts, but the airport DGM was intent on making us pay for our “illegal residence” in Congo and wanted us to come with him ... with the police ... to Bukavu immediately.

Of course, Lwiro is only 45 minutes from the airport, but 2.5 hours from Bukavu, so our going there at 3pm in the afternoon was pretty impossible.

Ainare convinced him to hold onto our passports, and told him we’d be back later that night to discuss options. Because we’d had to untie the plane’s ropes and straps from Kathé’s cage, I’d had fear she would escape from her cage while in the back of the pickup truck. Ainare, a veterinarian, had therefore sedated her but it meant that we were under a quickly-evaporating window of time in which to drive the 45 minutes back to the sanctuary.

The DGM agreed, so off we were, on the never-ending quest to give me grey hairs. I sat in the bed of the pickup truck with the chimps, trying to keep from being knocked unconscious by my own breasts or jettisoned right out of the truck as we rocked and bounced over the muddy, rocky, Congolese roads.

The chimps seemed calmer, probably too tired and hungry to care further.

And then we ARRIVED. I will post photos of the arrival, and I’m sure the staff there has additional photos and video as we released the chimps into a holding cage in the new dormitory as it is being completed.

They met their new caregiver, Claude, and ate and ate and ate. East Congo has such a wonderful variety of food and Aketi Kigoma literally crawled INTO the bucket of food and hoarded the bounty for three hours before he’d leave!

We’ll write later about our further struggles with the DGM, and getting the guys out of prison in Aketi, and our trip out of Congo and everything else, but all that matters now is that the chimps are safe.

We continue to be tired and feel defeated, but this fact -- that, despite its high price in many ways -- the overall success of the Aketi Five will always buoy our spirits.

Thanks again for all of your support, and thank you to Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation and MAF for flying us out, and IPPL for helping us fund the evacuation.

More entries to come, stay tuned.

On a Lighter Note

2009-04-02T08:41:00.000+01:00

While I write about some of the serious drama and trauma of the past 3 days, I thought it’d be fun to share a link that Inf sent me:

I Don’t Want to Leave The Congo

Wow, what a week

2009-04-02T00:07:00.006+01:00

First off, I would like to say that we won!!!!!!! We first got the chimps to the Lwiro Sanctuary in Bukavu and we are out of Congo!!!!! We are staying in a fancy hotel in Rwanda right now. For those who don't know, Rwanda is great. There is no corruption, it is free for American Visas, it's clean, they have an excellent President and it's great. It's sad that when people in the U.S. think of Rwanda and they only know the genocide of 15 years ago. This country has made leaps and bounds since then and it's beautiful and filled with tourists. Gisenyi is great, you can drink the water out of the tap!

Okay enough about Rwanda, here is what happened. On Monday, we took the chimps out of Aketi. We woke up at 3AM, woke up the chimps at 4:30 to give them sedatives and took them across the river at 5AM to the airfield and hid in the bushes. We struggle to get the chimps in the cage and wait for the plane. The plane comes around 11 and there are a million people there. What we didn't want. As we wait for the plane to refuel and load the baggage and the chimps, the local 'adjutant' supposedly in charge of the environment is coming trying to stop us. He tried to hold the chimps and prevent us from leaving. The workers and I start loading the plane anyways. A man not wearing any uniform grabs one of the orphan chimps by the leg and tries to open the cage. The man does not know it but he is in serious danger of getting bitten. The orphan was Aketi Kigoma, the chimp I fostered. After the goon didn't listen and continued to grapple with the baby chimpanzee, I separated him from the orphan and blocked him from opening the cage, telling him NO! He stumbled back and looked scared. The 'adjutant' then left to get the police and more officials. After the plane was loaded, the big chimp Kathe, got out of her cage. The pilot was able to open the cage, the workers got her back in the cage and then the pilot strapped up her cage further and then cargo netted the cages so they couldn't escape. We are nervously waiting. Right before that, the 'adjutant' comes back with the ANR. He is like the CIA of Aketi. We showed him our documents and says that we are legit and we should go. The 'adjutant' goes back to get another official. The police try to stop us but the pilot was like no, we have to go, we have a schedule. The two pilots start up the plane and we take off. Laura and I leave and we ecstatic to know that we have rescued the chimps. During the flight the chimps slept most of the way. At the end they started to get rowdy in their cages, so I go back to settled them down.

We land in Bukavu and sanctuary people and the ICCN come to get the chimps. We then go to the immigration officials at the airport to show them our visas. They said they were invalid. We told them that we were told they were okay and we paid $300. The DGM said we were tricked by the DGM in Buta. He would hold our passports and take us to Bukavu to the immigration office the next day and find a solution. We also found out that our workers were thrown in jail and that there was a warrant for my arrest in Aketi. The warrant was for assaulting an official. I only physically intervened to separate a man (who was not wearing a uniform) from the baby chimpanzee that he was attacking. They twisted it around and said I beat up several police officers. It didn't matter to me because I was 1,200 miles away now and they couldn't touch me. In order to tell the other authorities, they would have to spend more money then they had. I am also out of the country now and I can't be touched.

The next day we go to the DGM's office in Bukavu with the airport official. We explained our story to them and most of them felt sorry for us. One of them wanted us to pay $160 for one month visas, even though we were going to be gone for one day. Laura is great actress and began to cry to gain sympathy. The head DGM said that if we were to pay, that would make Congo look bad. He said we could go and we didn't have to pay any money. He couldn't give us new visas but, he gave us his phone number and said if we need any help, to call him and a he would straighten out the situation. We then go to a good hotel in Bukavu and spent the night.

The next day today, we took a boat from Bukavu to Goma. We met up with Don, our friend from the UN and the US embassy and he helped us get out of the country from Goma and now we are relaxing in a nice hotel in Rwanda. We are safe, healthy and very happy. We now look forward to having a vacation in Rwanda and Uganda and going home.

Thank Yous

2009-04-01T17:04:00.000+01:00

I have yet to write an entry, but I promise it’s coming! We’re just reveling too much in being in Rwanda, safe and sound and across the border without problems --

And this hotel is SO nice! We just got room service.

But we wanted to say some thank yous to people who helped us liberate the chimps from Aketi:

Cleve Hicks
Debby Cox
Radar Nishuli
Carmen Vidal
Ainare Idoiaga
Petrus Viengele
Leopold Kalala
Claudine André
Joey Lincoln
Polycarpe Kisangola
Terese Hart
Andy Plumptre
Elizabeth Cook, DVM
Timothy Mann, DVM
Janice Gleason Skow
Hans Wasmoeth
Sunny Kortz
Carol Gould

Crossing the Border (and our fingers)

2009-04-01T07:48:00.000+01:00

After talking to Lauren, I feel like I should give additional information for the worry-ers.

Even though we got our passports back after being sold FAKE visas in Buta, we might still have problems in the country.

We’re on a speedboat across Lake Kivu this morning to Goma. Don will meet us at the boat docks -- he works with the US Embassy in addition to being a friend, so it’s the best of both worlds.

We’re crossing the border in Rwanda this afternoon, and hopefully our problems will be over. There will still be problems in Aketi even after we cross over, but we’ll be in a better position to help remedy them once we’re free of the country.

My phone should still work, and I think we’ll have internet at the Kivu Sun hotel in Gisenyi, Rwanda.

On Thursday or Friday, we’ll start the long trek through southwestern Uganda to Entebbe. And from there it’s cake!

More focussing on the positive

2009-04-01T07:45:00.001+01:00

We made the news!

April Fool's Day

2009-04-01T06:31:00.000+01:00

My calendar tells me today is April Fool’s Day. My mother and I typically like to make some sort of joke, usually silly or lame, but it’s still in good fun.

This year, however, in thinking of what might be funny, I can’t for the life of me imagine a situation that might happen to us here that I would want to tell my mother -- even as a joke!

“Hey mom, Adam’s in prison!” ... not funny.

“The chimps have been seized by the Congolese government!” ... not funny.

“There was a riot at the prison in Aketi!” ... SO not funny.

We’ll be in Rwanda by later today. Maybe things will feel funnier there!

Not Dead

2009-03-31T18:22:00.000+01:00

There have been terrible developments, and amazing successes -- it hardly feels like it could be possible in less than 48 hours.

I also never thought it was possible to cry over the taste of mushrooms on toast, but that too is within the realm of reality here!

We’re in Bukavu, and just way too tired and stressed to write up the whole incident, especially considering that we should really be devoting our online time to getting our workers in Aketi out of prison.

But updates will indeed come -- promise! For now, we’re safe and at least have gotten our passports back.

And, the chimpanzees are safely installed at Lwiro. We’re trying especially hard to focus on the positives right now.

Thanks for keeping track of us!

6:54am

2009-03-30T05:54:00.000+01:00

It feels almost anti-climactic, sitting here on the stoop at nearly 7 am. We’ve been active since 4:30 -- I’ve been up since 3.

I sit here waiting for one of the workers to bring back the bike that I am pretty sure he was trying to surreptitiously hijack during the commotion of preparation.

Ain’t happening. I’m ON the ball.

I made the dosed milk this morning, careful to pay attention even by flashlight to which cup was destined for which chimp.

As we entered the depot, the chimps were groggy, but happy to see us. Curled up together, it felt mean to disturb them!

But at nearly 5 am, it was really time to get the day started.

Our boatman hadn’t arrived yet, but we dosed the chimps one by one and played with them a little before they got sleepy. We checked too to make sure they didn’t respond poorly to the Valium.

Everything seeped copacetic, but the boatman was still not here, nor was one of the caregivers or our two other employees.

Finally, at nearly a quarter of 6, they showed up but we’d already sent the chimps along to make sure that they’d cross the river under cover of night. Or at least very very early morning.

Still small, it wasn’t necessary to cage them for the river crossing -- and it was much easier to carry them down to the beach not in cages.

We also sent along all of our luggage -- nothing is more suspicious than a bunch of whiteys heading down to the beach with luggage!

Now it’s finally light out -- Adam is at the airfield with the chimps, who are hopefully sedate(d)!!

I’ve just got my computer and purse left to take down to the airfield. Plus, we’ve got 3.5 hours left to wait for the plane! But, with luck, it’ll come early!

We’re nearly there! Nearly nearly nearly!

Larry, Curly, and Moe

2009-03-29T19:08:00.000+01:00

Thank god we’ve had luck on our side thus far, because I’m led to wonder where in the world the professionals we hired went.

Our driver, coming back to bring the chimpanzees with caregivers to the house one by one (or potentially two by two) on the motorcycle, showed up drunk. So, we made other arrangements, not eager to have a motorcycle crash with chimpanzees onboard.

The caregivers came instead by bicycle -- and by lucky coincidence, Kathé, our biggest chimpanzee, LOVES riding the bicycle and it tends to lull her into a supernatural calm.

How STUPID I was to have imagined that we could bring 5 chimpanzees to the house and have no one be the wiser.

Calling out, it was not our chimpanzees making the noise but our damned caregivers as they bumbled into the house, without flashlights, though thankfully with all five chimpanzees.

Kathé started pant-hooting, her voice echoing through our big empty, already-packed cement house.

Instead of going around the side of the house, they came through the center -- no problems, but lots of noise!

We put the chimpanzees then into the depot, but as we struggled with the ancient key on the ever ancient padlock, the calls of chimpanzees had alerted some neighbours, who came into the yard curiously to see what in the world was going on!

Argh!

I managed to gain order, expel everyone from the yard and get the chimpanzees quietly to sleep in the depot only by being a short-tempered bitch, but at least now the night is calm and quiet and we can plan for tomorrow morning.

We’d asked the guys to bring their mattresses and flashlights -- neither of which they brought, and proceeded to ask us for “spares” -- like we have four spare mattresses lying around!

“Give us cigarettes,” one of the caregivers demanded, rather rudely.

“We don’t have any,” I snapped at him.

“Give us money to go and get cigarettes,” he continued. When I snapped at him again to be quiet and go to bed, he looked terrified!

So we have five chimpanzees now sleeping in the depot, with one caregiver, and three employees sleeping on various couches in the living room, since they didn’t want to sleep without mattresses on the floor of our nice house.

Oh, and despite it being about 90º even IN the house, they asked us for BLANKETS for the night! Come ON! I might have to throw someone in the river tomorrow.

I can only hope that they brought the cups and plates for the chimps, so that we can prepare them some Sleepy Milk in the morning. At least then they wouldn’t have forgotten EVERYTHING! (save the chimps, of course)

Last Hurrah (Yay Corruption!)

2009-03-29T11:26:00.000+01:00

I suppose the moral of this story should be that, even if you “make friends” with certain local officials, and ply them with money and favors, that it really does nothing for you. Ha!

Though, thankfully, our “extortive” friend the official, Papa B, has stopped coming by the house every day, he’s found no end to tricksy maneuvers to pry money from our tight, non-profit fingers.

During our problems with Mr. Moibi, he claimed to be participating as our advocate, trying to protect us. But really, it seemed more like he was trying to get a cut of whatever taxes Mr. Moibi could garner.

It didn’t help either that Papa B moved his office right next to the café. Every time since when we’ve gone for a cold soda (a real treat we only give ourselves once in a while) -- he’s come out and insisted that he be included in our revelry. I did manage to convince him, however, that if we’re drinking soda, he is NOT drinking beer.

Unfortunately, it is he too who is responsible for our plane trip out. At a cost that he claims is EIGHTY DOLLARS. That’s for the PERMISSION to land a plane here. How exactly that figures, I have no idea.

He’s agreed to reduce it by half (still an exorbitant fee in my opinion), which just cuts down on the money we have left to live on all the more.

To add insult to injury, he sent two guys -- maybe 16 or 17 years old -- to the house today with a little handwritten note to Polycarpe. It basically said, “Hey, friend! I’m hungry! Send me 300FC! I’m here waiting for it.”

Polycarpe was as disgusted as we were -- and wrote him back on the note “I don’t have any money to give you, Thanks.”

I’m hoping our refusal to cow to his ridiculous (and continual) demands for cash won’t influence our ability to leave tomorrow. He’s said he was going to protect us from problems tomorrow, but I honestly don’t believe it for a MINUTE.

Ugh! Please let this be the last hurdle!

The Last Day (and the Last Supper)

2009-03-29T05:44:00.000+01:00

Preparing to bring the chimps over tonight is mind-boggling -- not because it’s especially complicated but because really, it’s the last step.

We had a little dinner party last night ... not the huge party we’d once planned. Instead, we just had the neighbour kids, our workers, and a few stragglers.

That Guy who hangs out in our yard, playing cards and smoking (we don’t even know his name) who is presumably friends with someone here plopped himself right down at the table to help himself to a serving. Many happy returns, That Guy!

It reminded us of Thanksgiving, minus the arrests and extortion, and it was clear to us just how much time had passed!

Instead of chimps at our feet, we had Happy the puppy -- who looked from the back like a pregnant goat as he scurried around, looking for food that had been dropped to squeeze into his already bulging stomach.

Adam and I both said a few words, and the air was one of happiness. After dinner, we put on a slideshow of photos from the last six months, and everyone laughed and commented. Of particular amusement for the crowd were the videos of Adam and I crossing the river through the water and mud up to our waists.

Earlier in the day, certain workers had tried to insist on getting money during the “vacation” -- the time between our departure and the next researcher’s arrival -- but even if I thought it was a good idea, we really don’t have the money to give them anyway!

I honestly feel more anxious than anything else right now. If there is one thing that this venture in Congo has taught me, it’s to expect anything and I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Adam says that even if we were shoe-wearing spiders, there simply aren’t any more shoes that can drop, but I’m still not sure.

All I know is that tomorrow at 9 am, I will be prepping the chimps for the voyage and heading over to the airfield! And that’s all that’s certain to me!

2 Days to Go

2009-03-28T05:18:00.000+01:00

Adam and I are going to walk through town today, taking photos of everything that we’ve noticed and appreciated throughout these past months. We want to make sure we get it all!

We also plan to go to the market and buy LOTS of pilipili for him! With luck, some green-thumbed friend can help us plant the seeds. Adam eats so much pilipili here, I can’t imagine how he’ll survive without it!

Our bags are basically packed, too -- Happy, our dog, has been trying to nest in one of them. He’ll be staying here, in the extremely capable hands of Polycarpe in the new house. We still have to bring furniture and things over there today... the chimps will be brought over *here* tomorrow night and spend the night in the depot in preparation for our early morning on Monday.

I almost can’t believe it’s happening -- I probably *won’t* believe it until I see the plane land! As hard as we’ve worked, some part of me still expected to be having to leave here on the back of a motorcycle, braced for three days of pain.

But here we are -- we’re making sure to write down all the relevant numbers of prominent officials we know, and to charge up our video camera and two regular cameras -- I can’t imagine it’ll be an experience I’ll get to repeat so I want to make sure it’s well-documented!

The Waiting Game

2009-03-27T15:04:00.000+01:00

It’s Friday at 4 pm, which means that we have only 2 full days left here in Aketi. We’ve worked hard to finish up the things that are important - some last few gifts for friends and photos in and around the town. I also finished up with some in-town interviews to add to my thesis. Overall, a good few days.

We also gave the leftovers from all my research (gloves, masks, etc) to the local hospital. They were extremely pleased!

In typical Congolese style, everything is breaking down. The generator just needed a $20 part, and though it killed me to pay $20 for something I’m only going to use for 2 more days, the idea of having no electricity for 2 days was worse!

I still feel this inner tension, because while things feel calm, on Monday, they may not be. No one yet knows our departure date, thankfully, but if we’re sitting out at the airfield for a few hours, I just know that there’ll be some sort of drama!

I just want the chimps to be okay, and once again, the wait for the exhale is leaving me a bit blue in the face.

There is also the perpetual problem of the countdown -- things always seem to take longer when you’re paying such close attention!

I’m thrilled by the idea of being in Entebbe again, and seeing my kids from Goma at Lwiro, and of taking the road trip from Goma to Beni with Stu. So much to look forward to!

Why does it all seem so far away!?

Four Days Left in Aketi!!!!!!

2009-03-26T15:26:00.000+01:00

As you can tell by the title, we are about to leave Aketi really soon. We will be flying out with the chimps with MAF. They are a missionary plane service that offered to fly Laura, the chimps and me to Bukavu. From there the chimps will be at the Lwiro Sanctuary. By the time you read this entry, we will have already have flown out of Aketi. I can't post this entry now for certain reasons.

This also might be the last entry I make for the blog in Aketi. I hope that this blog let people know about our experience here and the importance of chimps. Please let people know how endangered these magnificent beings are and how that buying chimps, even if it is meant to save the chimp, just keeps the cycle of poaching and hunting going.

I also want people to know the horrible conditions that many diamond miners in Africa are working in. How disease can spread not just through Congo and Africa, but the world. Also the lack of rights that many of these workers have. Many just work for food and have barely anything to their name. If you want to buy a diamond, please ask where it came from. Even though DR Congo and many nations in Africa are not “conflict” nations and do not have “conflict diamonds”, they still have working conditions that are inhumane. These workers need guaranteed salaries, labor unions and enforced labor laws to protect them.

Many of these miners go into the forest to hunt for food, which means bush meat and chimpanzees. This is how Ebola and a strand of HIV were started. I want people to be aware of what is going on here. If we have enough people to raise awareness, we just might be able to change things.

Airfield

2009-03-26T11:07:00.000+01:00

It feels so quiet here since the drama -- almost too quiet, but Adam and I slowly but surely finish our preparations for the “evacuation” of the chimps.

Life has been somewhat peaceful ... avocados are in season again and we made some guacamole yesterday. A welcome change from poondoo or beans!

It continues to be Africa™, though -- our cat, Chaussette, who was allowed to run around during the night (even outside, since she’d go out the window),was (we guess) bitten by a snake.

I looked for her all morning and finally found her, cold and rigid, under our windowsill. We buried her in the yard, one more thing on the “to do” list. She was a good cat, and sweet.

Death is just a part of life here. I guess I’m not even allowed to complain.

We visited the airfield this morning, finally finished being cut yesterday. It’s about 1km long and 16m wide, and surprisingly flat! It was encouraging to see, since the pilots coming out to get us were quite worried that a Jungle Airfield would be completely unsuitable.

Imagine that nightmare -- standing in the airfield with all of our luggage and the Aketi Five, only to have the plane be unable to land and turn around and leave!!

Cleve is anticipating Major Drama with the local officials, and we’ve continued to withhold the actual date of our departure from everyone here to prevent just that -- I think really, though, that after this last drama, we are both just tapped out.

I know certainly that I don’t have much energy left to worry about anything that might happen. Especially after having to collect the dead much-loved rigor mortis cat, I don’t have much energy to devote to Doom-Anticipation in general.

In the realm of excitement, however, is the reception of the eBooks and Cleve’s work out here -- Science magazine might put in a piece about our rescue of the chimps -- and I can’t say that I haven’t always dreamed of being in Science! (or Nature!)

And really, that’s it. This is another entry I’ll wait to post -- it’s now only four days until the grand success of our hopes for the Aketi Five!

E-Books!

2009-03-24T10:39:00.000+01:00

As of the press release of this week, the Foundation has posted Cleve's eBooks, including the history of our own Aketi Five right here!

Enjoy the link!

http://www.wasmoethwildlife.org/ebooks/

The Element of Surprise

2009-03-24T08:01:00.000+01:00

After having received another boon of support from Kinshasa, we are ready to go. On literal countdown mode, all that remains now is boarding the plane and getting the chimps far away from here.

For reasons of security, we aren’t listing our air carrier or our departure date -- it’s a sad reflection of the situation here that even with government support, and all of the legal documents, that our best weapon is still the element of surprise.

We’re feeling extremely excited by the expected success of the project, though. No one could have anticipated the delay of these chimpanzees’ original sanctuary, but it feels good to know that they will have a safe place to go after all.

After we arrive in Bukavu, we’ll post the entries about the real struggle we had here!

Right now, however, the safety of the chimps is paramount.

And please, if you are able, Lwiro, the destination of our Aketi Five, can always use donations --

http://lwiro.blogspot.com

Thank you again to everyone following our journey!

Back in Aketi

2009-03-21T08:13:00.000+01:00

So, the internet is quite as free and liberal, but getting to sleep in my old bed again, next to Adam, under our white mosquito net, with the kitty curled between my knees and the puppy on the floor next to the bed -- was heavenly.

Things continue to do well on the Crisis Front, which means that really, it’s time to pack and get ready to go.

I got an email too from a friend of mine back in the Goma days, who offered us a ride from Goma to Entebbe -- rockstar!

Now I only wish the cinema in Kampala was showing The Watchmen!

Rally the Troops!

2009-03-19T16:53:00.000+01:00

Who knows whether my French has improved, or whether my persuasive abilities over email are just that compelling, but the emails I wrote last night, begging for assistance from environmental officials high up in Kinshasa were already responded to when I finally got to the Catholic Mission Cybercafé this morning at 11am.

What’s more, they were positive, with further confirmation that our documents were legitimate and that we should not be required to pay any money in order to bring the chimpanzees to another location IN Congo.

I’ve sent along relevant phone numbers, and I hope by the beginning of next week, all of this hullabaloo will have been put to an end.

I also spoke this morning with our contact at MONUC, who verified that tales about the offer to fly the chimpanzees from Buta to Kisangani were completely false, and would never be permitted anyway.

I will not allow myself to breathe any sighs of relief yet, as the matter is not concluded, but I think that the right people are aware of the situation and know that vitesse (speed) is in order!

Boo-ta

2009-03-19T16:20:00.000+01:00

Being in Buta feels so isolating, though Mamas Gaudin and Cecile have done their best to make me feel like a daughter. Today, they brought me a pillow -- a real pillow in a pillowcase -- which is rarer than gold OR diamonds out here!

At first shiny and new, today on the internet had a bit of a sadness attached to it. And not because it was expensive, but because I realized how long it had been since I had really gotten to keep in touch with friends at home.

I had no idea what was going on in their lives, and even sadder, it was going to be several more weeks still until I had the bandwidth and/or the time to further reconnect. Sometimes it’s easy, when you’re disconnected, not to focus on the things you’ve left behind. You can imagine with little trouble that life at home is just on Tivo-pause, and that it will only unpause once you get home.

Regardless, it gave me a good tug towards feelings of homesickness.

I also heard a lot of people marveling to me at how “difficult” life was here; opinions formulated based on regular following of my blog.

Yes, it probably is difficult, but the funny part is that things I suppose would cause most people to balk have become sort of commonplace for me and Adam both. Horrorshows are just another item on the “To Do” list and if I don’t think about how hard it is to do, it just gets done.

Perhaps it’s a question of never looking forward, but looking down. No one ever got scared by looking at just the shadow of the dragon.

Realization that these things are difficult, though, and that not only will it continue to be an uphill climb for the next several weeks but that the bulk of what’s at stake - the lives of these chimpanzees and their future happiness and safety - lies with me alone here on the front line... it’s really isolating.

And not something I’d allowed myself to think about previously.

... Probably for good reason.

The printer at the Catholic Mission Cybercafé was broken, so I’ll need to return to the other cybercafé again tonight and print more things. Tomorrow I meet with more officials and then it’s back to Aketi. Thank goodness. If I have to spend another day in this cybercafé listening to the same two Hallelujah songs, I might just go insane.

Funny how the 5 hour motorcycle ride through the jungle isn’t the toughest thing I have to look forward to!

Updates

2009-03-19T11:29:00.000+01:00

I have to meet with some more officials who are on our side tomorrow morning, but it means I have to stay in Buta one more day. Buta is NOT my favorite city by any means, and I’d rather be at home in Aketi with Adam.

Plus, internet is EXPENSIVE! I paid nearly $15 yesterday for 2 hours of net goodness. Bleh.

Adam’s malaria, for the interested parties, seems to have faded into black, thankfully.

I still would rather be there than here, but I know I just have to plod forward and resolute!

Didn't Know It Could Be This Good

2009-03-18T13:02:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I left Aketi this morning intent on changing our lots. It’s easy to be bullied when you can only say I have authorization from the government to move these chimps!

But the transfer papers were FIFTEEN MEGABYTES. For those not in the know, that’s a little less than a sixth of the total bandwidth I have... for the MONTH.

Plus, there isn’t a single printer in Aketi. Not a single one.

Not particularly fond of long motorcycle rides, I was originally intending on sending Adam to Buta, about 150km away, to download and print out our documents and bring them back to Aketi.

But, he’s too sick. So here I went, traveling 5 hours on the back of a motorcycle through the mud to use the internet.

Arriving at Mama Gaudin’s house was heavenly - I couldn’t believe how long it had been since our arrival there in OCTOBER - until I saw her son, Jojo, who has grown LEAPS and BOUNDS!

She’d made up my room, and put fresh sheets on the bed and a festive green tablecloth on the table.

Had I only known yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day!

I’m now in the Catholic Mission’s Cybercafé, where I can actually look at photos, chat online. It closes at 4 though! Damn!

I’ll head over to the OTHER internet café afterwards -- and try to continue downloading this huge file.

I’m so overwhelmed by all this internet, I don’t even know what to say!

Under the SIFORCO Moon

2009-03-17T15:02:00.000+01:00

In typical fashion, the dramatic incidents of the past week finally involved other parties. I’m telling you, a little cable TV would go SUCH a long way here!

Well, what do you know, we received an invitation for a rendez-vous at the administrator’s office, with the presumption of finding a solution to our problems with Mr. Moibi.

What exactly could one call a compromise when one is being asked for $8,000?

We showed up early, me in my finest (only) dress, and were forced to stand outside of the office for twenty tense minutes as the officials assembled.

I wasn’t originally aware that Mr. Moibi himself was going to be present at the meeting, so imagine my surprise when he showed up, clutching his precious folio of tax justification, wearing an enormous, baby-blue shirt with pink detailing all over it.

It was, inappropriately, very difficult not to laugh, because really, he looked like a huge blueberry.

We entered the Assistant ATE’s office, where my eyes were first met with a huge SIFORCO calendar poster. SIFORCO, a powerful logging company, is infamous among conservationists in the area for its immoral behavior, backed by copious gifts to local officials.

It does, however, give one a good idea of what to expect of the official residing in that office!

(someone could probably buy every person here just by having a CaféPress account)

The officials were, however, known to us and very friendly as we all said our various cultural hellos.

But things seemed to be taking a downward turn as the Assistant ATE began reading from a sheet of paper, talking about how we capture chimps.

I had to interrupt. Not only do we not “capture” chimps, but it sort of goes against our very mission! Oh dear already.

It turned out that the choices of words this man was using were specific, as he was hoping for our agreement in their usage for the later application of taxes. For, in front of him, was a huge bound book with passages inside, highlighted in orange.

Eager to commence with the <s>extortion</s> meeting, this man lifted the book and read the cover slowly to Polycarpe and myself, who can both read French perfectly well.

What he failed to read, under the title Administration of Congolese Law, was the subtitle: Commercial Regulations.

Were we not an NGO, a non-profit, and ergo not subject to regulations governing commercial trade? When I pointed this out, however, the AATE ignored me. He certainly wasn’t going to waste all that orange highlighter!!

In official meetings, I often tend to let Polycarpe do the talking, as he is better versed in Congolese culture and is incredibly passionate and well-spoken in French. As the discussions became heated, however, it seemed an opportune time to intervene when one of the four officials present told Polycarpe that his reluctance to “adhere” to the Congolese laws being explained to him was akin to treason.

Treason... a word in French OR English, is still clearly audible and cuts through any room with a tense vibration. In Congo, the ensuing silence is deathly still.

Using my best Diplomatic Voice, I took the floor, taking advantage of the fact that, as a woman and a white, that no one would dare interrupt me. I explained that we were doing the work on Congo, protecting a species that was extremely endangered, and that the Kisangani Zoo was no place for chimpanzees, and most importantly that we had acted in, in our estimation, the fullest accordance with Congolese law.

I was prepared, with my folder of documents (minus the ones we’ve yet to print in Buta), and as I looked each of the men in the eye, describing the horrors of the chimpanzee pet trade and the massacre of a species, I felt a connection. The men in the room (minus Mr. Moibi, who I would never deign to look in the eye) agreed that our plans for Bukavu were the best for the chimpanzees and that Kisangani Zoo would not be a good place for them to go.

Score: 1 Conservationists!

However, like pigs sniffing for truffles, the whole idea of “exportation taxes” had riled them into a rough unity, and we were subjected to yet more readings from the Big Book Of Taxes That Shouldn’t Apply To Us.

Mister Moibi hadn’t had much of a say, either, and, once given the chance, began a tirade so forceful that his dark skin was nearly as blue as his blueberry chemise! Accusing me AND Cleve of hunting chimps, using our magical cameras to search for diamonds, and trafficking in wildlife, it was probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since I’ve gotten here. Which is really saying something.

If I’d been allowed to use the word “imbecile,” I would have, but as it was, he claimed to be “past injured” by my use of the word voleur -- “thief” -- when he came to our house three days in a row demanding the payment of taxes. By the law, insulting a member of the “state” is like insulting the country itself. I can only imagine the infractions against the news media in the US should such a law be passed!

ASSIMILATE!

He pulled out the infamous Tax List again, shaking it and apparently sure that the louder he was and the closer he furrowed his brows together, the more convincing he would be. If I’d been given a dollar for each time he said the word “documents” I could probably pay his damn taxes by now.

I truly think that Mr. Moibi believed the officials, in their Congolese Corrupt Collaboration, would not only believe his ridiculous claims but that they would then back all of his itemizations from his phony “List of Taxes.”

But upon looking at them, the AATE said, “Well, these are a bit exaggerated!”

Score: 2 Conservationists!

Of course, a bill for $8,000 would, in my mind, call for something stronger than “a bit exaggerated,” but we take whatever little we can get.

With truffles still in the air, the issue of our Detention Certificate was also brought up, because of its price difference with Mr. Moibi’s total -- $17 versus $5000.

Funnily, the AATE had been WITH the previous Minister of the Environment when we discussed and arranged the certificate, and had been WITH the Minister of the Environment when I allowed them within proximity of the sanctuary (not allowed to interact with the chimps, of course) -- the only two non-staff people in all of Congo allowed such a privilege. Yet his participation in the creation of our original document didn’t seem to add to its legitimacy in his mind (I think this fact should say something very strong indeed).

They even went so far, though, to phone the superior of Mr. Moibi to also discuss the document’s validity. The matter of what kind of country issues official documents only to later say, “Oh, this price may have been wrong, give it back to us so we can charge you 300x more” was not mentioned, though I wish it had been!

The issue of the detention permit is a big one because, if we ARE subject to “exportation taxes” -- they total a third of whatever we paid for detention. And I’ll tell you, the difference between $17 and $5000 is just as big to us out here as the difference between $5.66 and $1,666.00!!

Mr. Moibi was not done yet, however, and pulled out two LEGAL INFRACTION documents that he’d drawn up and prepared with carbon paper affixed, demanding that I sign them.

I might be young, but I certainly wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t sign random things just because someone tells me to. As I asked for time to read them through, Mr. Moibi loudly proclaimed that this was evidence of my refusal to adhere to Congolese laws.

Polycarpe, in a rare moment of weakness, whispered to me, Sign them!

I refused, though, despite the absolute ruckus of noise in the office as all five men present all spoke at the same time, each at an equally high decibel.

Upon reading these documents, I discovered that they were for judicial/police proceedings against me for the illegal detention of chimpanzees.

Had I signed them, I would have agreed that my detention certificate was bogus and that I’d broken the law.

Tempted to rip them in half, I instead explained why I was refusing to sign them, and brought them to the AATE’s desk, bringing too once more the Certificate of Legitimate Detention, and I pointed to the line in the infraction, directly contradicting the very legally issued document he’d witnessed.

The AATE was suddenly “confused” and summoned over Mr. Moibi, who, never deterred, used white-out on the top page only and passed the documents back to me to sign.

Who knows how stupid they think I am, because I don’t speak the most beautiful French or because I’m a woman, but I’m smart enough to know that White-Out is NOT a magical item, and does not possess the adequate sorcery to remove something from all copies of a document that has carbon copies.

Score: 3 Conservationists!

Again refusing to sign, and reaching the fourth hour of this extremely noisy and non-productive meeting, I conferred with the two higher-level officials in the room, mentioning that I would go to Buta, print out our transfer papers from the ICCN (a national Congolese agency and ostensibly the governing body of all protected species) and discuss the matter with those more in power to make decisions such as these.

The fact that it shouldn’t be an issue at ALL, since I’m completely within the law and not subject to commercial taxes was ALSO not discussed.

But I am certain that Mr. Moibi will not let up until I have contacted Joseph Kabila himself. And, when I go to Buta tomorrow, I might just try that!

Adam's Malaria

2009-03-17T06:32:00.000+01:00

This morning was the first time that Adam’s fever was under 100º in three days -- but his continued suffering is certainly proof that Not All Malaria Medicines Are Created Equal.

For completely silly reasons, when Adam got this second bout of malaria, we only had 2/3rds of a packet of Artemod-A, our chosen brand of hot quinine injection.

Unfortunately, for Part III (Revenge of the Malaria), the pharmacy was completely OUT of Artemod-A! So, we bought SUNAT-A. It had the same ingredients, and if taken in double-dosage, had the same amount of milligrams of everything as Artemod.

After the third day with a persistent fever, however, we realized perhaps that Sunat-A, for all its identical ingredients, did not have the efficacy of Artemod. (Clearly, the secret ingredient of Artemod is sorcery)

We SCOURED the town’s pharmacies for Artemod, but sadly only discovered Artemod-E -- the children’s version. When taken in double dosage, however, it too had the same ingredients as Artemod-A.

We bought it, and Adam took his first dose (in reality, the 5th administering of quinine in 4 days), and, unfortunately for Adam, it started to work its magic right away.

During the day yesterday, still with a fever of 102º, Adam was actually feeling “good.”

After the Artemod, however, he began to be sluggish, and woozy, and I barely got him to the bed before he rolled off the couch onto the floor in a quinine haze.

The night was again a bad one. I could barely sleep, having nightmares about the whole drama, and Adam was in the midst of crazy malaria dreams, telling me that he was going to “knock Minogoth on his chin with a purple star or a red gem” (he’s been playing a lot of Puzzlequest recently).

When he woke me to help him to the bathroom, he could barely stand. We rested at the chair - the halfway point, and as I felt the weight he rested on me increase dramatically as we reached the door to the house, I asked him if he felt like he was going to fall.

“No, no, I’m fine,” he said and we descended the stair toward the bathroom. One step later, however, and I could feel him falling away from me, and try as I might to keep him upright, he collapsed into the corner of the outside of the house - literally three feet from the toilet.

It was all the more upsetting as I tried to talk to him, and he kept blacking out (he says he was just going back to sleep). His body slick with sweat ...it was terribly scary.

He ended up crawling back to the room, his legs too weak to stand.

But when he woke up two hours later to use the restroom again, already he was markedly better and his fever had diminished considerably.

Now, his fever is under 100º, but we’ll continue the next 2 doses of Artemod just to be safe. He even ate some pineapple today, which is a good sign!

They say bad things always come in clusters, followed by good things in clusters.

I think we’re due for a cluster of good!!

Mr Moibi (The Drama Of It All)

2009-03-17T06:30:00.000+01:00

This entry will be another that will have to wait to be posted, but my heart is heavy (and stomach very upset) after another night of fitful sleep, and another meeting with Mr Moibi - the corrupt “environment” official who has made our efforts to save these chimps truly a fight against the devil.

When he first came to us, I had no idea who this guy really was, because he gave me his first name, and not his last. Had he given me his last name, I would have known right away that he was the very same villain who had tormented Cleve all last year.

If you didn’t speak French, you’d imagine this guy was friendly and jolly. With a big, wide smile and pudgy, Santa-esque features, you’d imagine the words coming out of his mouth had to do with lollipops and sunshine, maybe.

What a gross contradiction, then, to hear and understand the bile and lies that emit from that mouth.

His first quandary was PAPERWORK, the crutch of Congo, that he insisted we must fill out to be sent to Kisangani.

I let him know of our plans, for, being with the law and having permission already, I didn’t believe it would be a problem to disclose our intent to move the chimpanzees to Bukavu. How wrong I was!

I figured he’d come up with some sort of money scam, but imagine my surprise when he presented us with a request for over $3000!!

Conformément à l’Arrête Interministérial No066/CAB/MIN/FIN-BUD et No 067/CAB/AFF-ET/2003 du 27 Mars 2003 fixant les taux des Taxes et redevances en matière forêstiere et de Faume, j’ai l’honneur de transmettre ci-dessous le montant à payer au Service de l’Environnement pour la détention de vos Chimpanzes (espèces totalement protenger) et l’evacuation vers la Province du Sud-Kivu (Bukavu).

1.Certificat de legitime detention d’animaux: 1000$ par espèce

2.Autorisation d’élèage d’animaux $200

3.Certificat d’origine: 30 $ espèce

C’est à dire: $150

4.Certificat d’indentication d’ongd: $200

5.Frais de constitution du dossier l’identifcation des Specimen, de contrôle volière au d’animalène( = $500

6.La taxe sur la convention de réalisation d’un film, d’une étude ou d’une prospection dans un domaine de chasse ou Site determine est fixé $1000

7.Permis d’exportation des espèces Menacées est fixe 60$ x 5 = $300

8.Permis de Séjour dans domaine de chasse: $85 x 14 jours = $1.190

Agréez Madame la représentante, l’expression de mes considerations distinguées.

Even if you don’t speak French, I’m sure you can see these escalating numbers. How remarkable too that the Certificate of Legitimate Detention that we had obtained at the end of last year for $17 had gone up in price so considerably! Serious inflation indeed!

Thus began our war, against his corruption and to protect the rights of the chimpanzees that we had fought so valiantly to protect.

This letter, however, was really only an the crux of a plot to intimidate us into paying false taxes -- with the meat of the plot being to send the chimpanzees to the KISANGANI ZOO ... a dungeon that was ravaged during the war. Once a beautiful home to countless indigenous species, most of the animals there had been eaten. Animals residing there now are rarely fed, and look like war victims.

There are two chimpanzees there -- one adult male, alone, who is thin and smokes, and a female, kept in a sunless box, alone.

The “plan” according to this official (Mister Moibi) was to bring the chimps to Buta, to then be flown with MONUC to Kisagani for residence at the Zoo.

And if he could scare me into believing that this was true, perhaps I would pay him the $3000!

The theoretical versus the actual is always sticky here, because how exactly was he planning to even get the chimps to Buta, 125km away? With whose motorcycles? With what gas? It’s one thing to say, but quite another thing to do!

The very thought of the chimps here going to the Kisangani Zoo, though, was indeed terrifying! As I told Rachel the history on the phone today, she equated it with Red Lobster, a metaphor I found to be pretty funnily accurate! Pick what animal you wish to eat when you enter the establishment!

Because whatever animals they don’t feel like feeding they can always just feed to people, right? Nothing beats a zoo with slogan like “Come and See the Animals We Haven’t Eaten Yet.”

Anyway, I digress.

It’s been sort of a crisis center here - trying to relay what’s happening to relevant colleagues and to find local support that doesn’t need to be bought. It doesn’t help either that Mr Moibi seems to come by the house every day with renewed insistence that we pay the taxes he’s ascribed us, with further “assistance” from our “friend” Papa B, who insists on being the intermediary between us and Mr Moibi (though we’re not sure whose side he’s on or to what end).

We did finally find legitimate confirmation today that the taxes are false, provided to us by the former Minister of the Environment, who had previously helped us arrest the men responsible for Akuma’s mother’s murder. He wrote up a complete dossier for us on the actuality of the situation, which we will use to defend our position, though why it is necessary when we are technically within the Congolese law with the documents we already have is beyond me.

And according to him, all of the taxes issued to us are only applicable to commercial enterprises -- people who are SELLING chimps. Amazing that they have taxes for something that is technically illegal in the country!

We wait too for our contacts in the ICCN to come to our aid, and for a quick resolution to this blatant intimidation ploy for money.

I don’t believe that my nightmares about the chimps being seized from us will go away until we’re out of here in 13 days, but with luck, they might diminish once ICCN has phoned up this tyrant and gotten his surrender flag.

I wish that day would come already!!

To Tell Not

2009-03-17T06:09:00.000+01:00

Many blog entries have been written that I am sad to say will have to wait to be posted until after the chimpanzees are safely installed at Lwiro.

Needless to say, we are in the middle of a “war,” but the only casualties will be the chimpanzees if we cannot get it resolved.

Why we should have this problem at all when Congo is a single country (and as far as I know, no provinces have seceded), I’ll never know, but blog-readers should know that we are fighting the good fight -- as my friend Janice says, “occasionally fighting the world, the flesh and the devil to save [the chimps]!”

All we can do is continue forward, towards our goal. But I promise to post the resolution when it comes.

Censorship

2009-03-16T09:39:00.000+01:00

It’s always nice to have to write blog entries that you wonder if you’ll ever be able to post, because of fear.

I guess, though, that censorship itself roots in fear, but right now my main fear is that I will never ever get out of here, run out of money, and end up being completely helpless to stop the forces that constantly threaten to derail me from my purpose.

I’m afraid too that this crook will succeed in getting the chimpanzees brought to the Kisangani Zoo, which is a deathtrap. I’d stand in front of the caravan myself before letting these chimps anywhere near that place.

But to be so close to finality, to success, and to have SO MUCH CRAP go down, every day, no way to vent, poor Adam still sick, just trying to hold it all together and not go completely insane...

To add to that, certain otherwise-inclined parties who take interest in finding ways to take my blog out of context and use it against me, my colleagues or my employers... makes every entry I write in candor a potential minefield.

I’ve enjoyed being able to be frank and use wit to best convey life here -- the ups AND the downs - and I’m feeling constrained by the inability to recount things as they happen.

Thus, I may never post this entry, but being able to know it exists, to mark this day where I paced so much I might as well have created a furrow in the cement floor, makes me feel ... at least a little bit... better.

Sorcery! (Sorcerah?)

2009-03-16T05:47:00.000+01:00

Sadly, the boy across the street, Prince, who helps around the house and is one of Adam’s star pupils in the advanced karate class, fell off his bike, and didn’t go to the hospital, and has spent 3 nights crying in pain.

Although it’s pretty common to have kids helping out around here and not get paid, I figured if it’d mean that Prince would go to the hospital and get some real medical treatment, I’d give him some money for the work he’s done around the house for us.

Because he was also in too much pain to walk, we sent him to the hospital on the back of our moto -- poor kid, Adam ended up picking him up and gingerly placing him on the back, while silent tears streamed down his face.

It’s become therefore surprising that his family has taken him from the hospital, convinced that he’s crying not because he broke his arm and it’s not splinted or casted, but because the man whose house he hit with a stick has cast an evil spell upon him.

I’m told too that this man has “killed many people” and is very evil.

I’ve probably had my fill of rushing to judgment, and throwing stones from glass houses, but what baffles me extremely is that otherwise rational and clear-headed people can look me in the eye, completely convinced that Prince suffers because of sorcery.

And it’s not the kind of situation where you can reply to this person, “that’s crazy! There’s no such thing!” because there’s a kid, suffering, and the more important task is just getting him medical help so he can get better.

Malaria - No One's Friend

2009-03-15T06:19:00.000+01:00

What a terrible night, fitful and full of thoughts of how next to proceed with our troubles with this local official, trying his best to extort $3000US from us!

This morning brought excellent emails, our contacts at ICCN coming through in fighting style, but it’s still disappointing that the fate of wildlife in this territory is now in the hands of a man so indifferent to its suffering and destruction.

If one recalls my battles with malaria, Adam had it no better last night with this, his fourth case of malaria in six months.

He awoke in the night, and asked if I wanted to accompany him to the toilet. Which in a state of malaria seems like quite a distance.

I don’t even recall him asking, mostly asleep as I was, but I remember seeing his hazy shadow, illuminated by the flashlight, through the mosquito net.

I called out blurrily, “Wait, I’m coming,” but the next thing I remember was hearing Adam call from the living room that he felt dizzy.

I jumped out of bed, and found him stumbling, as though drunk, and slick with sweat, his skin fiery to the touch.

I held him close as he leaned against the wall, his eyes unfocussed. I started to usher him back to the room -- to the bed -- and I felt him go limp.

As strong as I may be, holding up Adam when he is deadweight is beyond me, and I cried out as he collapsed to the floor. I called his name and shook him, but he didn’t respond for what felt like minutes (but was really only about 10 seconds).

“Where am I?” he asked. I told him he was in the living room, and that we were going to get him back to bed.

Though I knew from experience what he must feel like, to watch him fall to the ground was just horrifying.

I didn’t let him go to the bathroom alone for the rest of the night, and as we walked together, one of his hands on each of my shoulders, I could feel the quantity of weight he rested on me and just kept assuring him that we were almost to the bathroom, and that we would make it together.

Thankfully he didn’t fall again during any more toilet excursions, and when we woke up this morning, his fever had finally broken from nearly 104º to a solid 101º.

I’m glad he’s on the mend, but it’ll certainly be nice when malaria is no longer an angry storm on the horizon!

In Its Clutches

2009-03-14T08:21:00.000+01:00

Not wanting to jinx it, reporting it here, but we (95%) have a flight now, and are on the countdown clock of preparation for flying the chimps to Lwiro.

I guess it just goes to show what friendship and persistence can do for you!

Congo hasn’t finished with us, of course. Yesterday the new new Minister of the Environment came by, intent on bullying us for money and further registration of the chimps.

I let him know that not only had we registered the chimps legitimately with the previous Minister, but we had already gotten permission for the transfer from ICCN, a national governing body of wildlife in Congo.

Though thankfully, my contacts at ICCN assure me that we’ve already got everything we need, and shame on this guy for trying to prevent conservation efforts in Congo.

I’m assuming it’s just a further attempt to finagle money from us, but it’s so frustrating when, to think, had this guy waited a month, it’d be too late to try and Document us to death!

Additionally, the malaria Adam had last week either didn’t fully subside or he’s gotten another case of malaria in just the next week after his third case.

I’m worried about him, because his fever doesn’t seem to be responding as quickly to the Artemod we’ve given him, and wouldn’t it just figure that he’d get sick right before it’s time to leave!

The overall feeling, too, is that it really is time to go.

...and this is a condom...

2009-03-12T12:37:00.002+01:00

We’ve developed a good rapport with some of the neighbour kids, and one of them who takes English classes and is always eager to practice comes in from time to time to speak with us.

Yesterday she came to talk to us about Women’s Day, but ended up revealing that really, equality between men and women was wrong, because it contradicted the Bible.

And, after a discussion about some of the odd things the Bible also promoted (and whether she also endorsed those), I had to reveal that not only did I believe the Bible was solely literature and not a dictum for how to live one’s life but that <gasp> I did not believe in God (about which she asked, surprisingly, if it was due to reading of Sartre).

I imagine the conversation would have ended more quickly had she not said that she pitied my soul and my ignorance and my eternity in hell, which incensed me to a heated conversation about the existence of God and about her blind reliance in everything she’d ever been told in Sunday school.

Things took a bit of a different turn, however, when she continued to proclaim that the proof of God’s existence was in my “provenance” on Earth.

Ever the biologist, I broached the subject of the real source of my life, only to discover that she had no idea about the reproductive system.

(How does she know about Sartre, and not about reproduction?)

More saddening, though, was her fear about the “irregularity” of her periods, because they didn’t come on the exact same day of every month.

I assured her that it was completely normal, but she seemed convinced of a fear of being pregnant. No one had ever explained to her the things we women in America take for granted.

When I queried her on whether she had ever had sex, she responded “no.”

No French I’ve ever undertaken has been quite so obscure or scientific as the explanations of the means of conception I tried to parse together, eventually resorting to diagrams of the female reproductive system.

But, when someone tells you that the fact that some women cannot produce breastmilk is evidence of God’s existence, you really just have to take control of matters!

(Though how, in retrospect, the word “breastmilk” in English was taught to them, I’ll never know)

Later, in privacy, she confided in me other questions, and was perplexed how people could not become pregnant if they were engaging in sexual activity.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when told she had never even HEARD of a condom, let alone any other method of birth control!

I remember in African Silences, Mathiessen’s complaints of Dian Fossey revolving around her insistence that a lot of problems in Africa could be solved by the introduction of condoms.

Harsh, maybe. But seriously, it’d be a start to instill a little education about the subject, at the very least!

Ready and Waiting

2009-03-12T11:51:00.000+01:00

Our daily visits to the sanctuary have been such a boon to our happiness of late, as we continue to work on the flight east.

The five chimps there -- Kathé, Django Mayanga, Bolungwa, Aketi Kigoma and Mangé -- are doing superbly, and it is such a joy to watch them play with each other, climb and feed in the trees, and well, act like chimps.

The caregivers are sad to be saying goodbye to the chimps as well, as they’ve grown so attached to them and so involved in the well-being of their wards, and lovingly attentive to that purpose.

It seems hard to imagine how long ago I started this blog, intent on documenting my adventures, yes, but also extremely committed to raising awareness to this region, where chimps are being slaughtered freely and no one outside of the region, let alone the country, seems to know, or care.

It’s thusly been so rewarding for me to see in our visitor logs the people we’ve reached, and to receive emails from those people who enjoy reading the blog and are now too seized with the want to help the chimpanzees here.

We may not be a huge movement, but little by little, I am so hopeful that we are making a difference.

And as I have the extreme honor of watching our sanctuary five - “The Aketi 5” - grow older, more confident, unconstrained by the terrible circumstances that brought them to our door ... that it is really all that matters.

Happy Birthday To My Dad

2009-03-11T08:11:00.000+01:00

Happy Birthday and lots of love today to my Dad in New York, who turns 71!

Forward Progress

2009-03-11T07:51:00.000+01:00

We’ve been quite stressed since coming back from the forest -- I had over 200 emails that were not junk mail and needed to be answered, and everything felt much like it had crept up on us while we were away, forest-living!

Additionally, the flight we’d secured for the end of March was suddenly up in the air, because the the air company needed an NGO to vouch for the flight. And, though four different NGOs offered, none of them had an obscure document issued in Kinshasa that, while not necessary to run an NGO in Congo, is necessary to be registered with this air charter service.

The two pre-registered NGOs they recommended we seek a favor from were unfortunately non-repsonsive, and here we were, left with five chimpanzees and no way to fly them out!

I think Adam began to panic (and I might have as well though I was slightly less obvious about it), because all of our plans had been made around being able to leave with the chimps at the end of March.

Were we to need to stay longer, it meant having to go back and get our visas renewed (easily a $300 venture and one week process, requiring 300km of travel via motorcycle).

Not only would the visas infringe on our carefully budgeted cash, but we’d need to pay another month of chimp expenses, salaries, and everything else involved in residing here.

We set out immediately on the internet, trying to find an alternative air service that would be able to land on our little Aketi airfield and wouldn’t cost us $4000 an hour.

$4000 an hour is a literal quote we got for a charter service out of Kinshasa, btw. Not even an exaggeration!

We received a phonecall last night from a guy in the UK, who said (very British-ly) that there were several people keen to fly us, and that he’d get back to us today (Wednesday).

So there’s hope, and a definite forward progress! The man building the bamboo cages for the chimps’ flight is mostly done, which is thankful since it took 3 months for the furniture man to finish the shelf and 2 night tables we paid for in December!

We still need to cut the airfield, and finish out the research and what-nots here, but our defeatism has definitely flown the coop!

I will mention, though, that if anyone reading is in Africa and has a private plane (or a friend with one), we would not object to further offers of assistance!

Fresh and Clean

2009-03-10T09:15:00.000+01:00

I’ll never know what about the rain here makes me feel so new and refreshed, but negativity seems washed away.

We walked back from the market early this morning, with a huge bundle of poondoo in my hands and Adam with a pineapple and some generator gas. The sky was black as night, and we scurried back to avoid the impending huge rainstorm.

Polycarpe often laughs that Lingala is a “poor” language (with a lot of words absent or just stolen from other languages), but I think it might just be that there isn’t a whole lot to talk about when it rains or doesn’t, or you’re having poondoo or beans for dinner.

But the street conversation is indeed hilarious.

Running back with my huge bushel of poondoo, here are some things I heard:

“Hey, you have poondoo!”

“Are you going to eat that poondoo?”

“Is that poondoo for eating?”

Really, I can’t imagine what else we’d do for it! But it’s sort of fun, still to be able to say “We are going to eat this poondoo tonight” in Lingala, even if I have to say it 40 times in a single trip back from the market!

We found a puppy before the rainstorm, and have taken him in and named him “Happy”

It’s nice to have something to focus on that isn’t work, sometimes!

Highlights From Women's Day

2009-03-09T09:32:00.000+01:00

We're in a serious bandwidth crunch, but we thought it might be nice
to include some shots from Women's Day Yesterday!

Women's Day Garb

2009-03-09T09:29:00.000+01:00

Adam and I, decked in our outfits for women's day

Not What We Expected At All! (Women's Day Festivities)

2009-03-09T07:31:00.000+01:00

Women’s Day, expected by us to be a parade and maybe a feast, was an absolute explosion, and I think, just what we needed.

Working hard yesterday morning, I found myself barely inclined to put on my hideous, quickly-constructed uniform we’d had made the day before for the event. As Invited Guests, however, Adam and I had been requested to show up at noon!

None of our clothes fit us anymore, so I ended up using a luggage strap as a belt, trying to salvage my appearance in this table-cloth dress, identical to the 2 others the tailor had made for the three ladies of our Foundation. I’ve never felt more Congolese!

I was so reluctant even to shell out the 15,000FC on fabric for these dresses -- it felt like another Congolese scam where I, as the employer, was obligated to shell out a whole bunch of money on something that is “traditional” but yet still somehow unnecessary.

After seeing the parade yesterday, though, I only wish we’d spent more!

Arriving in the center of town, we found it looking completely different, with a huge canopy constructed outside of the Administrator’s office. There were lines drawn on the ground in chalk, and ALL of the policemen were in their full regalia -- even though most of them had empty pistol holsters!

We were ushered into this tent-canopy, and seated directly in the middle, second row. The men in the third row, all in very fine suits, grinned widely at us and all reached for our hands in greeting.

Man, was I glad I’d put on earrings, lipstick and deodorant!

We sat, waiting, for a quite a while, as officials continued to enter. For each government official’s arrival, the police chief would march down the center of the street in time with the drums and home-made flutes of the “band” and greet the official, well, officially, and then usher him to his seat (which was right in front of us).

We did certainly feel bad for the chief, as he marched, stiff-legged and unnaturally, the fourth time -- even the band seemed already tired, though they would continue to play for HOURS!

Once finally all settled in, we all rose in unison, and the band commenced the Congolese National Anthem. As the voices of the crowd swelled, Adam grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and it was then that the logistical crap that had been haunting my thoughts sort of swooshed away and I was caught, overwhelmed, in the true magnificence and uniqueness of my surroundings.

I was SO glad we’d come (Adam was disappointed we’d lent the video camera to one of the workers, because he’d wanted to get it on film!), and we sat, excited to watch the parade.

I could only sit for several minutes before Olivier ran over to get me to tell me to line up for the parade -- we were to be marching third in line, and already Gracia and Beya were sporting their equally-hideous uniform dresses!

The only white person in the parade, I did feel a bit paraded as jaws dropped at my passing-by, but it was a complete thrill as I stood in front of the ATE (chief of the Aketi Territory) and gave my little national-pride hand gesture.

We didn’t actually “march” per se, but did this sort of shuffle-dance in time with the music, that involved varied amounts of butt-shaking.

I was glad, though, to return to the privacy (and shade) of the Elite Tent and to watch the rest of the parade go by.

Ladies were decked out in their finest matching dresses -- sometimes as many as 50 dresses in exactly the same fabric, as they displayed their professions in often-witty little plays in front of the tent.

The Wives Of Motorcycle Repairmen brought a motorcycle with them and mimed fixing it. The head woman got on and pretended to drive away, which is when we realized she had NO idea how to drive a motorcycle and nearly careened into the compressed crowd around the main thoroughfare.

Everyone cheered extra loud when the Ladies Who Import Primus (and other bottled beverages) came by, dressed in delightful Primus Fabric dresses! I am sure now that I cannot leave Congo without one of these dresses, and must go to the market to find the fabric as soon as possible!

Equally crowd-pleasing were the Female Makers of Raffia Wine (aka Kongolo) -- the cheap alternative to beer that intoxicates many a drunk at 9 am in any city in Congo as likely as it does at 9 pm.

Many church groups passed by too , decked in various kinds of Jesus Is Our Savior/Light/Lord/Etc Fabric and shaking their Bibles vigorously!

Each group of women left some sort of gift at the table in front of the territory officials -- including the beer and wine ladies -- though some of the gifts were terribly obscure!

The Women Tailors left a pile of zippers, and the Wives of Gas Sellers breezed by without so much as an ounce left at the table, much to the chagrin of the officials and with a lot of catcalls ensuing!

We’d thought perhaps the parade would feature all of the ladies of Aketi (the city), so as the hours passed on, and the sun blazed away, it felt more like every woman in Aketi Territory.

I relayed this to my mother as expecting the ladies of Manhattan, and getting the ladies of the entirety of New York State.

Countless school girls passed by us, coordinated in their dance-march steps and their blue and white school uniforms.

“I can’t believe I see so much movement and yet so little forward progress,” I said as the fifth group of school children passed by, ever-so-slowly.

“That’s Congo!” said Adam, and we had a good laugh at our cleverness.

I was glad, however, to be among the “Elite” in the tent -- the crowd accumulating on either side of the street was continually berated by the policemen and hit with wooden sticks for going over the line and into the street!

Curiously, (and perhaps Cleve could shed some light on this), the group of ladies from the Azande Tribal Quarter were booed and hissed at considerably during their part of the parade, and managed to find a way to move much more quickly down the street (though still in time with the music).

Unprepared, we’d brought no water, and as 4pm rolled around and the air thickened with humidity, we were desperate for the parade to be over.

We were glad to see, however, a group of women rallying against sexual violence. They gave no gifts, but did deliver a harsh speech over megaphone about the dangers of staying silent and of the need for societal change.

The parade did finally end, and we were asked to stay for the “meal” afterwards -- only for those invited they impressed upon us!

Very exclusive, when we made our way back from the house with our waters (Adam already looking a little green), the “meal” was, in fact, a plastic bag per Invited Guest filled with peanuts, some fried plantains, and a piece of chicken.

...in the same bag.

Any appetite I’d had was quickly extinguished upon finding the piece of chicken hidden among my peanuts, slimy with the palm oil from the plantains.

We thanked our hosts immensely for inviting us, and I explained in Lingala to the other guests that Adam was sick. He did look the part, thankfully, to ensure our quick exit.

At home, we relaxed and drank a LOT more water, though found ourselves with nothing to eat for the night since we’d given the staff the rest of the day off, presuming we’d have dinner at the feast!

We had some lollipops for dinner, and Polycarpe eventually sent someone out to get us some bread.

But all in all, a great, though exhausting, day!

Field Journal - Part Two (MEMBULU/MONGOMBO)

2009-03-07T15:47:00.000+01:00

Day Twelve
Day Thirteen
Day Fourteen
Day Fifteen 1 2 3
Day Seventeen 1 2

And, ladies and gentlemen, that’s it!

Enjoy!

Field Journal - Part One (DIFONGO)

2009-03-07T14:07:00.000+01:00

Day One
Day Three 1 2 3
Day Four 1 2 3
Day Five
Day Seven 1 2 3
Day Eight
Day Nine 1 2 3
Day Ten 1 2
Day Eleven 1 2

The photos will probably have to wait a while -- there are just so many! Maybe until we’re out of Congo (sorry!)

One Hell of a "Woman's Day"

2009-03-06T14:17:00.001+01:00

Our invitations just came after we gave $2 to the Woman’s Day party.

And... they’re addressed to:

ADAM

and

THE SPOUSE OF ADAM

...

...

...

Yea.

At the request of Cleve, a photo!

Grouchy

2009-03-06T10:45:00.000+01:00

Maybe the luster and shine of Aketi has dimmed again, but I am in serious need of a vacation.

I’ve only been back from the forest for 2 days, and not a single person who has greeted me has not afterwards asked for money -- a “hand for the road” as the phrase goes in Lingala.

But wasn’t it just me who was on the road? Shouldn’t it be me, holding out my hand?

Back in town, originally so pleased to be back, the same old rigamarole has been creeping up on me in not-so-pleasant ways.

A bunch of our employees came back to work yesterday at 2pm, clearly drunk. And then left before 4pm, without asking permission at all.

They know they’re not allowed to drink at work, but apparently 3 weeks in the forest is enough to forget? Everything?

While we were gone the wall at the side of the house fell down, but no one even bothered to fix it! I had to ask.

AND! There is a HUGE SPIDER living in the toilet! He only comes out at night, but is probably the size of a palm and loves to be IN the toilet bowl and under the toilet seat. It’s the real definition of a night terror!

It was all compounded when, this afternoon, I was interrupted from reviewing data in my room by one of our workers, telling me that there were two women here to see me.

When I asked him what they wanted, he had no idea, because he hadn’t asked at all.

So I emerged, interrupted, and discovered two women who were soliciting donations for the Women’s Day Feast. Women’s Day, happening tomorrow all over Congo, is a celebration of women and, I would assume, the accomplishments of women.

Happy to give $2 towards the feast, I was abruptly stopped by the primary woman who said, rudely,

“Where is your patron (boss)?”

“I am the boss,” I replied, somewhat hostilely. This question is one I’m asked a lot, and it does indeed rile the feminist in me.

“No,” the woman said, we don’t want to talk to you. We want to talk to your husband.“

Already annoyed, I basically told them that if they insisted on talking to my ”husband,“ who spoke no French, they could just leave without money.

... Right now.

And then, very undiplomatically, I stormed back into the house and flopped on the bed.

Some ”Celebration of Women“ !

Looking forward to going to Uganda

2009-03-06T09:10:00.000+01:00

Since we are done with our forest trip and having the bulk of our research finished, I am looking forward to leaving Congo and spending some time in Entebe(sp). The only thing is the difficulty of obtaining a private flight to come here and take us and the chimps to the Lwiro Sanctuary in Bukavu. I thought it would be much easier but we still don't have a flight date. It is also frustrating since there are people that I would expect to put the chimps first, and they are not. They are putting money first, which makes me sick, angry and sad.

On a better note, I went to the sanctuary today and saw the chimps and got to play with them. They are all healthy and doing well. They were also very happy to see me again, which makes me happy. Cathy is still as rambunctious as ever and still very good natured. Bolungua and Jango still compete with her for my attention when I am there. Jango still likes to cuddle and hug for a spell from time to time. Aketi still likes to go off and do his own exploring of the world and Mange still is a little neurotic but is doing more things with the other chimps, which is great. I plan on going to the sanctuary almost everyday so they can become more accustomed to me. That will make their flight to Bukavu a lot easier. I will right again soon.

Old Journal Entries

2009-03-04T07:40:00.000+01:00

I’ll be backdating all of the entries from the forest, which I’ll probably start transcribing tomorrow after I do some data entry today.

I’ll perhaps post some link posts that link to the forest trip section-by-section, but I’ll try not to flood you all!

Priorities

2009-03-04T07:17:00.000+01:00

Being back in Aketi feels surreal -- but also wonderful. I forewent an immediate hot bath to walk down to our café and have a cold beer with Adam. The forest really shrunk me, though. I could barely finish half the beer, and when Adam ordered 2 sodas afterwards, I could barely get through a third of the Coke (and wow, carbonation is EVIL!)

I have nearly an entire journal full of entries, and GPS points, and data from the trip, I have to pay salaries, and I’m not quite sure that I don’t have ischial callosities from all that motorcycle riding.

I’m not sure what to do first, but part of me just wants to have a “check out” day where I lie in bed and watch old episodes of Deadwood on my computer with Adam.

Djodjo, our head caregiver, came by yesterday, eyes glassy, his roughened, pockmarked face pinched in barely controlled sadness. I knew how he felt -- though Souza had been in better shape than Akuma ever was, the death of an infant - whether fostered or another species, is heartbreaking.

We discussed what had happened with Souza, and Djodjo had, in fact, done everything that I probably would have in similar situations. I can’t say that things would have been different had I been here, but I still feel guilty for having left.

Such is the difficulty of dual responsibility -- had I stayed, I would have sacrificed any thesis I could have written as a result. And, at the time, Souza seemed to be in good health and I never imagined that he would die.

But this lesson is a hard one - and chimpanzees away from their mothers do have precarious health. I just feel more resolved than ever to move the rest of the chimps east to Lwiro. Maybe I couldn’t save Souza, but there are still five chimpanzees here who need saving.

Oh, and the neighbours stole our cat.

In wonderful news, the US House passed a bill banning purchasing or selling non-human primates for the pet trade [thank you to John B for sending the link!)

Now we must wait for final passing in the Senate, etc, but if it is successful, no more chimpanzees as pets in the US!

If only this legislation didn’t cause a huge spike in the hits on my blog for “chimpanzees for sale as pets”...

Home Again Home Again (Jiggity Jig)

2009-03-03T10:59:00.000+01:00

I’m extremely exhausted but back from the forest, safe and sound (and definitely browner!)

Haven’t gotten to take a bath yet, have eaten too much peanut candy (which Adam lovingly plied me with immediately upon getting off the moto) and have 8,000 emails to read and deal with.

No worries! I’ve got electricity now!

Sad news though -- while we were gone, Souza came down with terrible diarrhea and, though he was given medication and a lot of TLC -- he died.

We’re all in shock, and I have confidence that Djodjo did everything he could. I’ll write more about it later, but it was definitely a sad thing to come home to!

Also, can’t find the cat! Will keep searching.

Field Journal - Day Seventeen

2009-03-02T15:42:00.000+01:00

Membulu Village
N03º00.804’
E023º58.534’

Last night in Membulu, left with nothing but my own thoughts and the stars.

The tent feels huge without Adam in it -- but all I can think about is Souza, and what in the hell went wrong.. Seba arrived today with more sample tubes and a note from Adam with some peanut candy (the sweetest gesture!), a boot-licking note from our extortive “friend” the official, and a note from Polycarpe, woefully relaying to me of Souza’s demise.

I know Kisanola also had a terrible diarrhea at the beginning of the sanctuary here and died, but Souza had seemed so health and well on his way to being saved -- one of the main reasons I finally chose to leave and impart him to the care of Djodjo’s capable hands.

I have no one to ask for answers... no one to talk to here at all, really...

I can only wait for the muddy return tomorrow.

There and Back Again

2009-03-02T09:20:00.000+01:00

I struggle to write this entry write now as I am in the middle of doing a million things at once. I am trying to get salaries done, charge everything for Laura so she can finish her research and return home tomorrow and keep Papa B out of my hair. At least I got to take a bath.

The forest trip was amazing and a lot. First thing is first. We all went to the town of Likati. It is another old Belgian town that is now remnants of what was there before. Laura and I had to go on two separate trips since we had one motorcycle and and one driver in Seba. That meant I had to spend the night without Laura, which made me quite sad and worried. The only thing that remains from the Belgian Empire is the Catholic Mission we stayed at. It is one of the comfortable places in Likati. We stayed there until we bought all the supplies we needed in the way of food and medicine. While I was there the first night I was there without Laura, there was a funeral going all night for a the Abbot that just died. That meant singing and dancing all night and waking me up through out the night.

When Laura came the next day, I was very happy. While Laura and I were at the mission, we were stared at by the children, just like Aketi! We also had a pygmy man as a our servant and were approached by man with a large..... thing hanging from his nose (I think it was a booger, I hope). We also had to deal with another drunk official and his close talking bitch boy. They were so drunk, you could smell them a mile away. They were being a pain in the ass and not wanting to sign our documents, so we went to his superior and he cleared everything up for us.

After that went to the town of Difongo. The chief there was very nice to us and signed our papers. We then tried to find the best ways to collect chimp poo and miner poo. Even though we got a lot of good elephant evidence, there wasn't much in the way of chimps and miners. We were also delayed since Mr. P got sick. After a week and only two chimp poo collections, we tried to mobilize and get the people of Difongo to help us. However, they were all too lazy to work.. So we packed up and went back to Likati. After that, we headed for Membulu.

In Membulu we got a lot more results. There we got all of the rest of the chimp samples we needed and hiked to a diamond mine and got all of the miner samples we needed. However, that was an adventure all on its own. We were suddenly faced with the challenge of doing this hike. Laura was afraid that if she didn't go with our team, they would get something wrong with the samples and one of the main reasons we would be here in Africa would be lost. The hike there was a challenge. We were not prepared and we were worried about crossing a dangerous bridge. It turned out that the bridge was not as bad as we originally thought but, we were both very tired and cranky at the end of the journey. When we got to the mine, it was dirties central. When I mean dirties, I mean dirties. They made me and my friends look productive citizens while we eat fast food and play D&D. They were filthy, sick and rough necks. I was glad Laura didn't go without me. It turned out that the miners weren't bad, but they were annoying with their give money, buy me cigarettes, buy me this, give me that attitude. We only spent two nights there and were able to get most of our samples from the miners. The hike back wasn't bad at all. Laura and I talked the whole way and it made the kilometers go by fast. Also, we ate before we left so we were not hungry this time and we were better prepared mentally.

Since we were running low on money and Laura has to finish up things, I have come home to send Seba back with money and supplies. That means I will have to spend tonight without my Happle but, she should be back tomorrow.