I am pretty excited about the trip. There is a lot of stuff we still get done but most of the prep is done. I got to visit my parents and my brother today. I threw the football with him all afternoon. I was so happy to spend time with him. Also it was nice for Laura and I to have dinner with my parents last night. I would like to thank all the people who came out to our parties, either in Maryland and New York. It really meant a lot to us for you to come. If we don't see you before we leave, we will miss you and see you when we get back. Anyways, we are in the final stretch with our tickets and preps. I can't wait for this trip!!!!!!!!!

Woo-hoo!!

We went to the Ethiopian Airlines office today to "verify" my credit card, and finally got our tickets issued!

We leave October 4th! Can't believe it's finally all in motion!

Remoteness

View Larger Map

We've had some funny dialogue with friends as of late about sending us mail while we're away. They're astonished that they're unable to, because they cannot fathom a place without mail!

So here is my attempt to chronicle the remoteness of Aketi.

Cleve said to me 2 weeks ago, "I'm so excited you're coming! I'll send a guy out to clear the airfield!"

Yes, they need to re-clear the airfield, because it's been SO long since a plane has come out.


View Larger Map

As you can see from the Google map, Aketi is near a river, a road, and not much else. The "roads" are really glorified trails, and, during the rainy season, become impossible to travel on, especially by motorbike.

Buta, the town to the right, is travel-able in about a day. Points not along the thin line of road? A lot longer.

Cleve has gone up to CAR (Central African Republic) on the motorbike, along thin, pseudo-paths that wind through thick jungle and across swampy bogs. But it isn't easy!

Sure the Post Office pledges, "Come rain, come snow..." but nowhere in their motto is "Come bog, come jungle"!

And yes, it means too that there is no visiting this go-round!

Hope this clarifies :)

Cleve and Mangé

As I mentioned previously, the Aketi Two has recently become the AKETI FOUR!

One of the dangers of starting a sanctuary or taking in chimpanzees is that, if you put an inadvertent placard outside your door, you will be swimming in orphaned chimpanzees in no time.

Cleve has already been offered 23 chimpanzees for sale in the last six months alone.

And, for those not in the know, Never, Ever, Ever pay for an orphaned chimpanzee. It sets a very, very dangerous precedent.

Baby chimpanzees should never been perceived to have a value, or it will encourage people further to slaughter their families and pull them from their jungle homes.

Mangé just arrived at Aketi -- as you can see, he is incredibly small. Cleve was not sure he would make it, but thus far, he is doing fine.

Wow! A Productive Day!

It’s the last day in Maryland for Adam and I before we go to New York City to say goodbye to our family and friends. We come back through PA and NJ to say goodbye to Adam’s family on our way back down on Saturday, and then have Sunday only before I go back to Johns Hopkins for 12 more days.

And our plane tickets are for October 4th!

The takeaway message here: there isn’t much time left before we have to go.

Thankfully, being in the JHU study and Adam leaving his job last month has actually left us with the time to go through the multitude of crap we’ve accumulated separately and together, throw 90% of it away, but 5% of it into storage bins to deposit in friends’ basements, and 5% of it into suitcases and ready to go to Congo.

It’s going to take a little bit of extra time, but we decided instead of throwing a bunch of stuff away that we’d donate it to Furniture and Goodwill banks -- Adam has hordes of old VHS tapes and 3 winter coats he’ll never wear again -- not to mention books that he’s outgrown, and we thought it’d be the better thing to do.



We officially know every piece of clothing that is coming to Congo with us. We made a list:

Socks
Shirts
Undies
Bras/tanktops
Pants
Warmth
Miscellaneous
Sleep


and tallied everything that went into the suitcase. According to airline regulations, we’re each allowed 2 32kg bags (~70 lbs/each bag) to check under the plane, and 2 smaller-sized carry-on bags.

ALL of our clothing is in ONE bag! For Two People! I’m really impressed with us.

More importantly, this leaves us with 3 other bags for our sundries. I’m also leaving extensive amounts of empty space in ONE of our bags, because it will allow me to carry my (fecal) samples back to the US and not worry about running out of space.

It’s a lesson I’ve only ever learned the hard way: If you overpack your bags GOING to a destination, where do you put all the crap you accrue while you’re there in the luggage for the ride home? :)

The Expense of it All - Preparation Continues

Suddenly, our schedule is counting down days and weeks instead of months. How time flies!

And now that Adam and I are both not working, and just relying on study money and savings and “miscellaneous“ (parental donation fund), collecting our various Congo necessities.

It’s quite different for me this time, which I think I’ve mentioned before, because I’ve lived in various countries in Africa before, but never anywhere quite so remote.

In Entebbe, we could go up the road to ”The Indiscriminate Pharmacy“ as we called it, and get any sort of drugs we needed. Aketi is a village, not a town or a city. Buta, the closest town, is far enough away that I’d rather make my visits there less frequent.

There is also no guarantee that many of our standard ”necessities“ are available in Buta.

Ergo, we must bring everything with us. Pharmaceuticals? Chargers? Extra batteries/bulbs/hodgepodge? Yup, Yup, and Argh. Yup.


I’ve not bought stock in Ziploc, but I have separated all of our various needs into blanket health categories, like:

COLD AND FLU SKIN/SUN CARE ALLERGIES FOOT PAIN

in attempts to provide us with our own little Western-quality pharmacy-in-a-suitcase.

But it all adds up.



Dear Cthulhu/<Insert Deity here>, why must you make me shell out cash now for drugs I might need when I have diarrhea 7 months from now?

Sometimes, life is cruel.




I’m also going to have to wean myself from the internet. Because while we’re in Aketi, we will be using a BGAN primarily for internet. The good news is that our NGO is
providing us with the actual hardware -- the potentially bad news is that we might be paying for some, or ALL of our monthly BGAN service charges.

The thing I am learning all-too-quickly is that everything having to do with the BGAN costs a helluva lot. It is, literally, a hefty price to pay for being connected with the outside world.

Do we pay $130/month and get only 20MB/month or do we spring for the ”big“ bandwidth and pay $500/month for 100MB/month?!

We’re selling Adam’s car, which will give us a bit of a bubble, but we’ve already paid $300 for a tent, and we’ve still got to sign up for International SOS ($300/person), get hiking shoes, and a sleeping bag!

I haven’t even had any children, and I’m already feeling like I’m hemorrhaging money!



(Time to call Bill Gates, maybe?)

New Chimpanzee

Introducing now the AKETI FOUR!

Django Mayanga was recently confiscated and brought to Aketi. He is apparently from Bili, and is currently being nursed back to health.