Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Belgian Floors
By the Seat of Your Pants
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
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
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Ice Cream in the Afternoon
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
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
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Gird Your Loins
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
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
Friday, February 25, 2011
Preparations are Underway!
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:
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 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.
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!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Accolades and Internet "Fame"
 |
| taken by Cleve during our ceremony |
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! |
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)