(Here's a story from the trip that Toni Lyn took for work in June.)
I make people laugh appreciatively by speaking two words of the local language (Lingala). I laugh too because it’s two fewer words of French for me to have to speak. A pet monkey attends the meeting as well.
In my introductory speeches to the villages, I show off the new words of Lingala I’ve picked up in the last few days. It’s not even clear that people can tell I’m speaking Lingala but I try to say very inspiring things. Sounds pretty inane to me. Probably my translator can’t understand me anyway so for all I know he’s just making it up.
Day 8:
Day 1:
4 am pick up, 8 am flight to
Mbandaka, a rural city in northern central DRC, in-between time (after the sun
rises) I catch up on The Week magazines (thanks Amie!). Last time I was in
Mbandaka I got horrible food poisoning. I pass on the airline food.
Load on to a boat with 3
government ministers (Mr. Their Excellences) to speed down the Congo River back
south and then up north again on the Ubangi River, a large tributary of the
great Congo River, to the
Nonprofit-Conservation-Group-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless research station just
outside the newly established national park there. Exhilarating.
The trip on the river is over 4 hours and we arrive after dark. Navigating an unfamiliar river in the
new-moon dark…glad I’m not driving.
Spent the night in one of the few rooms in the research station building (rest of the group out on the lawn in tents, except the Mr. Their Excellences who also get rooms).
Spent the night in one of the few rooms in the research station building (rest of the group out on the lawn in tents, except the Mr. Their Excellences who also get rooms).
Day 2:
Had the first of many many outdoor meetings where community members tell Conservation-Group-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless how they haven’t gotten as much as they think they deserve, and Conservation-Group-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless (CGTSHN) asks them whether they’ve actually used what they’ve been given already (e.g., community asks for a school, CGTSHN buys a brick press, community members don’t get around to making bricks to build their school).
Had the first of many many outdoor meetings where community members tell Conservation-Group-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless how they haven’t gotten as much as they think they deserve, and Conservation-Group-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless (CGTSHN) asks them whether they’ve actually used what they’ve been given already (e.g., community asks for a school, CGTSHN buys a brick press, community members don’t get around to making bricks to build their school).
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| Community Meeting - Note the women sit outside of the main circle (except for me - that's my empty chair) |
I make people laugh appreciatively by speaking two words of the local language (Lingala). I laugh too because it’s two fewer words of French for me to have to speak. A pet monkey attends the meeting as well.
Head back to Mbandaka but stop in
villages along the river for similar meetings. One village has mosquito nets
sewn together and hanging to dry and I am introduced to the great irony of the One Family One Net
policy – mosquito nets make better fishing nets than they do health care tools
apparently. Unfortunately, they make for
totally unsustainable fishing – more on that later.
Stay in Mbandaka at a huge newly-renovated, old early 20th century hotel that has been (somewhat) refurbished. My room has running water, which is a pleasant surprise. The water runs out of the back of the toilet onto the floor, which isn’t.
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| Mosquito nets sewn together to make fishing nets |
Stay in Mbandaka at a huge newly-renovated, old early 20th century hotel that has been (somewhat) refurbished. My room has running water, which is a pleasant surprise. The water runs out of the back of the toilet onto the floor, which isn’t.
Eat dinner at The Pirogue, one of
the two restaurants in town, with CGTSHN colleagues, who are taking me around on
this trip. Watch the EURO soccer tournament, drink too much whiskey and end up
chasing the cats around.
Incredibly noisy rainstorm
throughout the night. So much for the dry season.
Day 3: Lac Tumba
Rainstorm prevented my US
government colleagues from joining the trip so it’s just little old me and the
entourage. I wasn’t even supposed to be on this trip, I was originally just a
tag along; now I represent the donors that are supposed to listen (and talk to)
all of the villagers and government officials.
Makes for an awkward trip, lots of added pressure, no friendly Americans
to keep me company, etc.
Pack back into the speed boat with the now familiar crew of CGTSHNrs and Mr. Their Excellences. Back down the Congo River and this time continue south to Lac Tumba. Stop at villages along the way to ask about what they need and tell them to stop using mosquito nets to fish, which is catching fish that are too small for anyone but the protein-starved people of Kinshasa and is decimating the resource base of a people who essentially only eat, and have only ever eaten, fish. Apparently there is not even any malaria in the area because the lake is too acidic.
Pack back into the speed boat with the now familiar crew of CGTSHNrs and Mr. Their Excellences. Back down the Congo River and this time continue south to Lac Tumba. Stop at villages along the way to ask about what they need and tell them to stop using mosquito nets to fish, which is catching fish that are too small for anyone but the protein-starved people of Kinshasa and is decimating the resource base of a people who essentially only eat, and have only ever eaten, fish. Apparently there is not even any malaria in the area because the lake is too acidic.
In my introductory speeches to the villages, I show off the new words of Lingala I’ve picked up in the last few days. It’s not even clear that people can tell I’m speaking Lingala but I try to say very inspiring things. Sounds pretty inane to me. Probably my translator can’t understand me anyway so for all I know he’s just making it up.
Stop at a Nature Reserve that by
some miracle, or more likely incredible dedication, has preserved trees,
monkeys, and a scientific laboratory throughout all the political chaos of the
last decades. It feels a bit like we’re
the first people to check in in forty years.
I make myself a promise to somehow somewhere find them support to
renovate and continue.
Stay over at a research station on Lac Tumba. Go for a swim despite warnings of crocodiles and it’s one of the best swimming experiences I’ve had in a long time (i.e., warm!). Play a Congolese card game whose rules seem to change every 5 minutes, though I seem to be the only one that doesn’t understand them. Drink too much whiskey and go to sleep a sore loser. This research station has only 3 bedrooms, so the Mr. Their Excellences sleep inside and I sleep in a one-person tent on the lawn like everyone else. The next morning I discover I slept with not one but two thumb-sized spiders in my suddenly coffin-sized tent.
Stay over at a research station on Lac Tumba. Go for a swim despite warnings of crocodiles and it’s one of the best swimming experiences I’ve had in a long time (i.e., warm!). Play a Congolese card game whose rules seem to change every 5 minutes, though I seem to be the only one that doesn’t understand them. Drink too much whiskey and go to sleep a sore loser. This research station has only 3 bedrooms, so the Mr. Their Excellences sleep inside and I sleep in a one-person tent on the lawn like everyone else. The next morning I discover I slept with not one but two thumb-sized spiders in my suddenly coffin-sized tent.
Day 4: Mosquito Nets
Meet with the community that
lives near the research station. Give
them the speech about the mosquito nets. They agree whole-heartedly.
As we’re wrapping up, a pirogue
(dug-out tree canoe that the locals use as fishing boat) pulls up to the beach
absolutely loaded with mosquito-net-turned-fishing-nets. Mr. Their Excellences decide it’s time to set
an example and order their guards to pull the nets from the pirogue. Then they
set them on fire. Feels like a scene from a movie when the officials come in
throw the poachers on their faces and confiscate their catch.
In this case, their catch isn’t gorilla hands or shark fins or elephant tusks but hundreds and hundreds of very small fish. It brings ambivalent feelings – the government officials are actually enforching the law, but they’re doing it at the expense of poor villagers. Who in turn are ruining their resource base and the resource base for all of the villages in the area. I’m told that only a few people can afford all those mosquito nets and they sell their catch to Kinshasa so very few benefit (and many suffer) through these practices. And yet when another pirogue appears on the horizon, presumably also full of mosquito-net-turned-fishing-nets, villagers frantically wave them away (out of sight of the government officials) until they turn back and disappear around a bend.
In this case, their catch isn’t gorilla hands or shark fins or elephant tusks but hundreds and hundreds of very small fish. It brings ambivalent feelings – the government officials are actually enforching the law, but they’re doing it at the expense of poor villagers. Who in turn are ruining their resource base and the resource base for all of the villages in the area. I’m told that only a few people can afford all those mosquito nets and they sell their catch to Kinshasa so very few benefit (and many suffer) through these practices. And yet when another pirogue appears on the horizon, presumably also full of mosquito-net-turned-fishing-nets, villagers frantically wave them away (out of sight of the government officials) until they turn back and disappear around a bend.
Stay at the old-new hotel in
Mbandaka again. Ask for a different room where the toilet doesn’t flush onto
the floor. Gave me a room without
running water. Should have been more
specific…
Have dinner at the only other
restaurant in town, have too little to drink this time and go home bored.
Day 5: Dinner, eventually
Dinner with the usual NCGTSRNrs.
Wait from 7:45 til 10:30 to get my pizza that I didn’t want in the first place.
Power goes out for 45 minutes in the middle.
I originally asked for vegetables and potatoes but they told me they
didn’t have any. When the food comes,
they bring my lackluster pizza and they bring my colleague a plate of beef,
potatoes, and assorted very-tasting looking vegetables. I am sad, though my colleague’s offer of
bites of potato makes it a bit better.
Later try to give a slice of the uneaten pizza to the two hungry-looking
guards at the hotel. Except shoot, there
are three. The first guard solves the
dilemma by telling me that pizza is fine for people like me but he wants me to
give him some of the local cassava dish. I take the slice back and give it to the third guard. When I look at the second one, he quickly
holds the pizza slice away from me.
Day 6:
Fly to Mabelo, a research station
south of the lake, where you can visit bonobos, the great ape species that is
only found in the DRC.
Day 7:
Wake at 2:30 (yes, 2:30 am) to
have coffee (well, the others do) and go see the bonobos. It’s my first experience seeing great apes in
the wild. Incredible.
Home Sweet Home
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