Cash Money, Hoes

There’s nothing like carrying a fat stack of cash around. No, but really, one of the tough things about going somewhere remote is that it’s difficult to get money, so you try to bring as much as you can to begin with.

You have to remember too that no one in Congo will take bills that were printed before 2001 in some places, 2004 in others. No rips, no tears, no stains. I remember vividly having a small-headed $10 bill in Goma that I attempted to spend for 6 months before giving up. It was one of my great joys to buy things with that $10 when I got back to the States!

We’re in the bank, it’s Saturday, and now we need to withdraw $5000, in cash, in bills no older than 2004.

...You can imagine how long this took. We ended up having to take mostly 20s too, which was sort of annoying. Nothing says “Rob Me” like a fatty bulge in your wallet.

But it was done! We has money. Hidden.

The Last Day

Thanks go to Jesse for driving us to Dulles and giving us his attention and peace and quiet on our final day.

I was really extremely proud of us. Because of all the extremely taxing and annoying work we did ahead of time, when Saturday rolled around, we were pretty much done. Nothing to buy, nothing to pack, nothing to fetch. We went to the post office, made some calls, and bought money-pouches for our fat stacks of cash.

Jesse also has an extremely big and lovely jacuzzi bathtub (under a skylight) so I took my last hot bath in a while. It was wasteful and luxurious and I loved it. Even when I was totally overheated, I didn’t want to get out.

Adam took a shower, and I took a nap. Everything was set and we didn’t have to rush or worry. It was fantastic.

We all ate together at Panera (as good a last American meal as any). A great way to start a journey.

We could barely stay awake on the drive, despite the nap. I hope that means we’ll be able to sleep on the plane!

The Arrival of a Miracle

Remember this day? Aww Yea...

How sad and frustrated I was when I couldn’t get my little hands on the research materials I needed? Witness the above PHOTO and see the very glory of a delivered Two Vial Parasite Collection System!!

How did I do it? No, not the Black Market of Bootleg Scientists. But I called Fisher Scientific again and gave them Adam’s old UMD address. They assumed that I was a UMD grad student, and offered to “put it on the UMD account” and charge my credit card instead of charging UMD.

And then they arrived. I’ve never been so relieved -- I did a dancing-around dance and squealed with excitement and felt SO relieved.

Of course, I also called the company that was supposed to send me my Whatman FTA cards -- only to discover that they were completely incompetent -- though I’d ordered them two weeks beforehand, they’d yet to even SHIP.

After freaking out a bit, they reconsidered and told me that if I wanted them to arrive on Friday, I’d have to pay for it. But if I was okay with them arriving on Saturday (the day of my departure) that they’d foot the bill.

What kind of a choice is this? A bad one, but I opted for the latter. They promised me a tracking number ASAP, and I gave up the fight.

When, on Friday, I was completely unable to reach them and get said tracking number, I figured they’d never come and I kicked myself for not overnighting them.

Lo and behold, come Saturday morning as we’re fixing to leave for Jesse’s house, the UPS man pulls up!! It does leave me the difficult task of finding where to put said FTA cards in my already-completely-packed suitcase.

An easy price to pay!

Out With the Old (aka The Herald of Craigslist Free-Loaders)

Done, finished, and done, there’s nothing that makes you feel more like you’re moving away for a long time than having no furniture left in the room.

But we put Adam’s 20 year old furniture on Craigslist Free -- and the peeps, they did come and take it away. We convinced the woman taking the bed to wait and take it on Saturday morning so that we’d have a bed to sleep in on our last night -- she came at 9 am and it was so tough, trying not to loll in the bed when you knew it’d be the last time!

It was funny to see the room so empty, too. And then there was just going through the last remnants of our life in Maryland and figuring out what went into the one last remaining storage bin, and bringing it over to Jesse’s.

Nick and Kevin (the new tenant of our room) were champs about the stuff we left -- there wasn’t much, but it was nice not having to worry about it all at the last minute.

We got our very last vaccinations -- I didn’t get to fight with Dr. Nick about Lariam (LINK TO VACCINATIONS) -- arms were hurting all day. We stopped at Outdoor World to buy a double sleeping bag, only to have to walk out with 2 rectangular singles that we can “zip together to make a double.”

Adam sold his car to his dad at the end, because he felt like he was being taken for a ride by Fitzgerald Auto -- who gave him a lowball offer for his 2007 Corolla. And everything sort of came together!

Out with the old, in with the new. Everything important is now with us, in a series of 8 bags. Seems incredible to believe.

Embassy Registration

Adam and I just registered with the US Embassy in Kinshasa to ensure that our presence would be known. Before allowing me to confirm my registration, I had to scroll through a novel of warnings, cautions, and general paranoia.

It makes me wonder what the US Embassy said when I lived in North Kivu!!

---

The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens against travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa). Conditions within certain regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remain dangerous. Official personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa are restricted from travel to the North Kivu area unless the travel is for official business and has been authorized by the Embassy.

Fighting between armed rebels, Congolese military forces, and U.N. peacekeeping troops continues in the provinces of North and South Kivu, eastern Orientale, northern Katanga, and sporadically in Bas Congo. U.S. citizens are warned particularly against travel in eastern Congo as fighting there is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Armed groups as well as active duty and demobilized Congolese troops in parts of the country, including eastern Congo, are known to pillage, carjack, and steal vehicles, kill extra-judicially, rape, kidnap, and carry out military or paramilitary operations. Government soldiers, as well as rebel fighters expected to be demobilized as a result of ongoing peace processes, remain a security concern. Travelers are frequently detained and questioned by poorly disciplined security forces at numerous roadblocks and border crossings throughout the country.

Travelers to the DRC frequently experience difficulties at the airport and other ports of entry, such as temporary detention, passport confiscation, and demands by immigration and security personnel for unofficial “special fees.” Visas are not available at ports of entry. All resident foreigners, including Americans, are required to register at the office of the Direction General de Migration (DGM) in the commune of their place of residence. Border closures of 24-48 hour durations can occur without much advance notice.

Enforcement of aviation safety standards in the DRC is uneven, with frequent incidents and crashes. The U.S. Embassy has prohibited official travel by U.S. government employees and contractors on all DRC-owned and operated commercial airlines due to safety and maintenance concerns. International flights on foreign-owned and –operated carriers are not affected by this notice.

American citizens should avoid all public demonstrations and areas where crowds are gathered, exercise caution, and closely watch and listen for local and international news from reliable sources. Radio Okapi broadcasts in French on 103.5 FM at 0700, 0800, 1200, and 1800 as well as “flash” updates throughout the day. English-language news can be found on BBC at 92.7 FM. In times of emergency, the Belgian Embassy operates a French-language radio broadcast system at FM 98.8. Changes in security conditions may occasionally restrict the travel of U.S. Mission personnel.

3 Days Left

It is OFFICIALLY October!! Oh my! It means, as October 1st, that we officially have only THREE days left.

Adam and I are so ready, mentally, to go. The stress of feeling like you’re constantly running in place -- getting things done but not actually going forward or more literally, going anywhere, is exhausting! We’re down to the final wire.

And we’ve got tons of boxes! Not for storage (storage is already mostly done) but of things from AMAZON.COM -- home of Everything™. It is also currently the home of Free Express Shipping since a friend who ordered Amazon Prime by accident shared it with me by blessing me with FakeWifedom. As his fake wife, I get two day shipping -- Free! Frrrreeee!

We’ve gotten our GPS, bus-powered speakers, compass, books in French for officials, and my dad just got us the Flip Video mino.

It feels a bit like Christmas -- my wallet definitely feels like it’s Christmas.

My mom got us an extra laptop -- tiny and linux’ed but completely perfect and did I mention tiny? You can check that out here.



Adam was astonished by how small the ship-to box was! It does look admittedly a bit silly in his arms.

Things left to do:

Cancel gym membership
Vaccinations
Give Away Furniture on Craigslist Free (Salvation Army takes too long to pick up)
See if we can afford International SOS.
Open MORE PACKAGES!

Okay, once again after midnight, working on things for the trip and getting silly. Definitely time to sleep.

One thing I will NOT miss, though, that's arrived with October -- THE COLD!! BRRRR!

Vaccinations - Part Deux

Thankfully, my “Little Yellow Book” is about as thick as they come... when you travel extensively and get tons of little shots, they fill up this nefarious-looking little yellow paper book that you must show to the appropriate authorities whenever you cross borders.

But when you’re working with chimps and other primates/animals that can catch diseases from you easily and vice versa, it’s important not only to keep yourself safe but keep them safe too!

Anyway, Adam is not as well-versed with vaccinations and travel drugs as I am, so I printed out a handy dandy checklist for Adam to bring to his travel clinic -- staffed by a doctor who, according to Adam, looks a lot like Dr Nick (from the Simpsons):




Dr. Nick looks at Adam’s checklist, and proceeds to tell him, using his Doctorly-Persuasive-Tone, that he doesn’t need all these vaccinations and that many of these vaccinations Adam got as a child are “lifetime vaccinations.”

Now, one of the things we teach people who go on chimp walks at Ngamba Island -- no vaccinations are really “lifetime.” Whooping Cough is supposed to be a lifetime vaccine, but it runs out in your late teens. I know this because I got whooping cough in Uganda. All 8 weeks of hacking, spouting, coughing, choking, gagging, throwing up Whoop-Loveliness. Tell me again about lifetime vaccines, Dr. Nick. I’m just glad I didn’t DIE (which everyone in my wagon on the Oregon Trail did whenever they got The Whoop).


I probably wouldn’t be so irate if Dr. Nick didn’t then start selling Adam on a “great malaria drug” --

“Oh,” he says, “you only have to take it once a week! It’s super! Buy it!! Take it!! It’s delliiiiccciooouuss.”

[Editor’s Note: fervor may be slightly exaggerated]

You know what drug he’s talking about?

LARIUM -- aka Mefloquinine. I don’t need to tell you about Larium. Check here. And here. And here.

And use this as your takeaway message:

Sometimes, even after the Larium making you insane has left your system, you STAY CRAZY.

Side effects: Permanent Insanity

No thanks!

We do need to go in this week and get Adam the rest of his shots... and me some more Meningitis. Especially after Etaito's death, it's not one I'm going to leave out...