Just to put things in perspective

Although we often use this forum to express the strange and difficult, and sometimes wonderful, details of our lives here, we are occasionally reminded of the bigger picture, and why we're here, and what the price is.
On that note, Toni Lyn's colleague who helps manage a national park in DRC sent this photo and message as a response to her flippant "Hope all is well":
"All is not well here; a lot of Sudanese elephant poachers have showed up and they are quite brazen.  It's a struggle to control this park and this is a protected area with few people on its boundaries."

Note the piece of trunk in the center of the picture

When I asked him if I could post this, he responded "Sure you can use the picture.  We finished our aerial survey of big mammals (survey also notes camps, poachers and other things) a few weeks ago but not before we were shot at.  We fly at 350 feet above ground.  Fiston behind me saw some people crouched; I circled back and as we came over we heard the shots despite having headsets and a loud engine.  They did not hit us.  On the way back I went to 1400 feet , out of range of a AK47, and they shot at us again.  LRA or Sudanes, don't know."

June 7 Update: Lord’s Resistance Army attack threatens headquarters at Garamba National Park, north-eastern DRC

http://www.africanconservation.org/201206072628/conservation-news-section/lords-resistance-army-attack-threatens-headquarters-at-garamba-national-park-north-eastern-drc#.T9bwsoYjzYs.email 

Just to put things in perspective...

America - Oh Yeah!

Well, we’re back, and it’s definitely bittersweet. We’re doing a lot of reflecting back on our time with our friends and family, and the incredible efficiency and cornucopia that is the United States.  However, instead of going on and on about what is better about the US, we want to tell you what’s good about the Congo.  There are a lot of people working really hard here despite incredibly strong odds against them.  We have an incredible apartment/townhouse.  Matt really likes his job and has the flexibility in his schedule to do the kinds of things that, well, he wasn’t able to do much in the past.  Toni Lyn is truly “saving the rainforest”, or at least that’s part of her job description, and that’s something she’s been talking about doing since she was in 7^th grade.  Foreigners here appreciate each other in a very real and close way, knowing what they’re sharing and experiencing together.  Now that we are back, we’re looking for a puppy, reuniting with friends, planning vacations to Republic of (the other) Congo in the near-term and Kenya/Tanzania with family in the long-term, and enjoying the loads of candy, Cliff bars, movies, video games, car parts, and assorted presents that we bought ourselves during a stay in the US.

Our trip to the U.S.A was such a fast swirling chain of events that we need to write about it before it is erased from all memory. As with most of our stories lately, this one started in Kinshasa. The Kinshasa airport is only 27 kilometers (~17 miles) from our apartment but to make sure we had enough time to make our 9:00 PM flight we left our apartment at 4:30 PM. After being stopped by the police for eating potato chips in the car (not that eating chips in the car is illegal, but not sharing them apparently is), we arrived at the airport at almost 6:00 PM. Two and a half hours and four bag inspections, all done by hand, later we cleared security. Now, you might ask yourself, why 4 bag inspections? I know we did. But when, during the third bag check, we witnessed a sketchy foreigner hand a bag to a Congolese man, who then passed through security without being checked because he apparently works at the airport, and even when several of us who actually had to wait in line told the authorities and they began to open the bag (of cash, diamonds, heat-seeking missiles?) causing the foreigner and his Congolese friend to quickly swooped in, grab the bag  and passed through security with the bag unchecked (we never saw his bag or him again, thankfully), we decided we were very grateful for the 4th and final Air France check (done by presumably more reliable people by flashlight, by hand, just next to the plane). We boarded the plane at 9:00 and were airborne at 10:30. We thought it all went very smoothly.

(Insert imagination's picture of airport here, since we are not allowed to take pictures.)

During a 7-hour layover in Paris we took the train downtown with two friends who were also traveling to Paris (and joined us in the failed attempt to stop the security situation) and stopped in a cafe within sight of Notre Dame Cathedral for a cup of coffee and a croissant and to try out our newly attained french. 

 

Afterwards the two of us took a quick though rainy walk around downtown Paris, including through the incredible interior of Notre Dame and past the Louvre and within sight of the Eiffel Tower, before heading back to the airport.

 

Hours later, as the carousel spun in baggage claim at Detroit Metro Airport, a sinking feeling settled in. No Luggage. Four duffel bags with all of our clothes and gifts were nowhere to be seen. We started to get nervous, recalling the confusing conversation when checking bags in Kinshasa where it took 5 minutes to understand and then convince the Air France woman that Detroit Metro was an airport, not a subway that we would take to an airport ("metro" is the name for subway in french).  The carousel attendant was only discouraging when she looked at our hand-written baggage claim receipts (printed in Kinshasa) and stated the obvious: "These are hand-written". This was followed by an incredibly rude customs guy who couldn't understand who we were, alone or to each other, and why we should be living in such a strange place. However, a little investigative work from a more helpful attendant revealed that the bags were still in Paris and would arrive the following day - phew! We would however have to make due with the clothes we had on our backs, even for Toni Lyn's nephew's First Communion the next day. Luckily, here in America, it is possible to clean and dry your clothes in an hour!!

To zoom ahead, Toni Lyn had a whirlwind tour to the 4 corners (well, nearly) of the US (Detroit-area, Bay-area, Omaha, and Washington DC), and is still glowing from the warm and kind attention, while Matt was able to have a slightly more sane but still chock-ful trip in MI and Omaha.  We checked out our friends' engagement rings, rubbed baby bellies, celebrated birthdays, a First Communion, mourned and laughed and just generally caught up. 

Thanks especially to Amie & Krin, Corey & Patrick, Paul & Jenny, Jacob & Kara, Luke & Jackie, and Pete & Becky for putting us up, but there were also countless (really, we tried, and lost count) friends and family that made time for break-of-dawn dog walks, early morning coffee, tofu scramble breakfast, dim sum brunch, Indian lunch, Farmer’s Market grazing, afternoon tea-tasting, Cuban appetizers, Burmese dinner, Buddy’s pizza, Mexican feasts, cocktails, late night cocktails, late night lavash (not all eaten on the same day, but nearly so – we ate a LOT), and on and on.  Esme both made a picnic lunch and threw Toni Lyn a party, and Teresa and Toni Lyn’s dad got the whole family together for a bonfire that ended in a 2 am singalong (not to mention keeping us full of Mike & Ikes and homemade rice krispie treats and Sierra Nevada and and).  Matt’s sisters came up with a whole itinerary for his trip and took time off work to make it happen.  Cousin Eric helped to gather 16 people for a raucous Tigers event. It rained for 40 hours and 40 minutes and the game was ultimately called a rain-out. We had fun hanging out with the dedicated friends and family that stayed out late on a Monday night. 

Paul drove an hour, and Doug and Jessica drove several, just to hang out with us.  Cousin Becca took 2 hours out of her day-time job/night-time law school life (and during finals week!) to pick Toni Lyn up from the airport (and found a fabulous vegan-friendly Ethiopian restaurant to boot).  Jacob & Kara threw a Cinco de Mayo party. We obviously could go on and on, the glow is getting stronger as we think back about all the wonderful people we have in our life.  We had so much fun we even forgot to take pictures. We can’t wait to see you all in December, if not sooner.

PS – A special shout out to Kathy, Zach, J. Black and others for being such fabulous followers of (and even commenting on!) the blog.

Four Wheels of Freedom

We would like to introduce you all to the newest member of the TL&M family - Ravvy. We finally bought a car. It has all 4 wheels, an engine and room for at least two people. We are so very proud.

Welcome Ravvy!

With our new found freedom we decided to get out and see Kinshasa these past few weeks. We met some friends for an afternoon of lawn games at a nature reserve at the edge of town. Matt was on the winning bocce ball team and Toni Lyn single-handedly beat Team England in the lawn bowling championship while a crowd of Congolese children cheered from across the pond (to be paid in pastries for their participation in the event when it ended).

The Champ

Matt took a turn haring the hash last weekend. This means he volunteered to do some reconnaissance work to find and lay out the running route. The route has to be laid out the morning of the run so it also means that the hares have to run a 7 - 10 kilometer route twice. "Luckily" there were three other people to help. They picked a place about 20 minutes outside of Kinshasa along the Congo River called Mbudi Nature. The run was called "A day at the beach - well . . . maybe . . ."  The first 2 kilometers consisted of boulder hopping along the banks of the swift and powerful Congo River. If you are thinking "That sounds a little dangerous" you would not be mistaken. But when the vote is 3 to 1 there is not much you can do. I guess that's the difference between people who have taken a wilderness first-aid course and people who haven't. It was wet, sandy, slippery and slow moving as 30 people of varying levels of fitness and coordination picked their way over the enormous boulders. In the end nobody got hurt and most people had a good time, but I don't think Matt is going to volunteer for hare duty for a long, long time.

The Hares

Paying the price in beer

You have No Idea how dirty this cup is.

But Down it goes!

The hat means he was voted "Hash Hero"

Instead Matt volunteered for something equally dangerous - substitute teaching Kindergarten for 2 weeks.  If you are looking for a test of will give it a try. Day One he was a deer in the headlights. At the end of Day Two his head was at the point of exploding. By the end of the week he was nearly broken but he survived.  Between Monday and Friday all of the 16 kids cried for some reason or another (most of the reasons are still unknown). One day it rained before lunch recess and the puddles on the playground were big enough to swim in. So, guess what the kids did. Yep, they swam in them. So the rest of the day all the kids walked around barefoot to let their shoes dry and had to change their clothes.  

To celebrate the end of a hard week of work for both of us we decided to throw our first house party since we arrived in Kinshasa. We first decided to invite 11 people for a game night because we had only 11 chairs, but got too excited so instead invited 19 people and 19 people showed up. We played UNO with the first arrivals, "Contact" and Boys vs. Girls Charades with the big group and Bohnanza with the night owls. Someone even threw up at the end of the night. Success!

Saturday we went to the market in Kinshasa, which we'll have to describe in further detail in another blog post cuz it's worth it. Sunday we got up early so Matt could run in the Kinshasa 20k. We drove to the Stadium of Martyrs (where Ali fought Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle") for the start of the race.

Let's get ready to rumble!

There were about 5000 people registered for the race and about 100 of them looked like they have done any kind of distance running before. People were doing warm up sprints and dancing around for about an hour before the race finally started. Matt saw guys preparing to run in loafers, socks, barefoot, converse All-Stars...you name it. One of the contestants was even running barefoot in his briefs (yes, his underwear).

Ready to run

The race was supposed to start at 8:00am. At about 8:45, when the sun was starting to turn last night's rain into steam, they finally took off.  And the crowd really took off. With $2500 on the line for the winner in a country where the average wage is a dollar a day, guess it's to be expected. But this wasn't your ordinary 1/2 marathon.

The Starting Line: It looks like a riot but it is really just a garbage fire we have to run past

Once the runners passed the "start line" there was no crowd or traffic control. As they ran through the streets and sandy sidewalks they were dodging buses, cars, carts, and crowds of people. Then they had to watch out for the sink-holes, broken glass, jagged steel in broken concrete while inhaling black smoke spewing from talepipes and trashfires. As the sun climbed and the runners hit the half-way point, people started to drop - at that pace in that heat it was only a matter of time. Matt saw four people passed out and carried away by paramedics (he even stopped to check the pulse on one that looked particularly bad).

The race for 631st place (Matt is the one with the backpack)

Finally, the contestants were directed to a sandy lot about a mile away from where they were told the race would finish (Meanwhile Toni Lyn was driving all over town looking for them and managed to get pulled over (for legally changing lanes) and had her driver's license temporarily confiscated before finally paying off the police). People were fighting over prizes, passing out in the sand, unable to walk, crying with pain and confusion because they had lost motor control of their legs and couldn't walk. It was amazing in a lot of ways, but not something to stick around for. Fortunately, Toni Lyn eventually got away from the police and found Matt.  Overall, it was the most physically challenging race that Matt has ever run and probably his most memorable.

A rare opportunity for a photo in public (pre-race)

Well, now we are ready to come back to the U.S. for a couple of weeks to recharge the batteries. We are looking forward to indulging in, well, everything.  

Meet Baby Tony

Aime (our driver/friend) and his wife had a baby a few weeks ago. He is a healthy baby boy and they named him Tony. Aime named his son after Toni Lyn. How awesome is that? That is possibly one of the best compliments a person can give someone. A Morelli name crosses back over the Atlantic Ocean!

Otherwise, we are getting ready for our trip home in less than 2 weeks - Yay!  It has been hectic but we can't believe it is almost here.

Life Skills

For the last couple of weeks Matt was a substitute teacher at TASOK where he is also continuing to work on engineering projects on campus. He filled in for the Librarian/Life Skills teacher. If you asked, I don't really know exactly how to describe what "Life Skills" are but I have a few examples of some life skills we have picked up or improved on here in Kinshasa. 

Resourcefulness: A+
Let's say your boss is in town and you decide to have a work-related dinner party with some of your colleagues. You invite 4 people because you and your significant other have 6 plates, 6 bowls, 6 etc., because you live in a place where everything is very expensive and sooner or later you're going to have to pack it all into a suitcase or give it away. The table is set and the guests begin to arrive and one of them has decided to bring a guest with no notice. O.K. What do you do? Tell them you can't accommodate another? No. You grab a plastic patio chair and pull it up to the table. Then one of you slips out of the party while the other one distracts the group with The Grand Tour. You run over to your neighbor's and borrow an entire place setting (which luckily probably matches since you live in a place where there are only 2 choices for, well, everything) and try to slip back in without being too obvious.

Attention to detail: A- (with an A for effort)
There is a skill to buying a used car. Like most skills you can sharpen it over time. You learn to see the signs that a car has been converted from a right-hand drive to a left-hand drive (for whatever reason) by noticing that the blinker switch and the windshield wipers are reversed, the button on the floor-mounted automatic transmission gear shifter is on the passenger side (if you're lucky and it's not a stick) and the main window control is on the passenger side door. You also begin to notice debris (sticks, a pile of leaves, a sweater, shoes, towels, etc.) magically located under the cars to hide the drips of transmission fluid, power steering fluid, engine oil, etc. Your ability to spot a lemon has improved. Unfortunately, this does not feel like time well spent.

Creativity: 100%!
When a 5-year-old has a birthday party it goes without saying that there should be a pinata. This is especially true if the party is "space themed". So when there is no party store around selling pinatas what do you do? You build one. How the heck do you do that? You gather all the empty cardboard boxes, tape, party hats, and wire hangers you have and you make it happen, trying to walk the fine line between break-open-after-just-one-hit and quick-run-and-get-the-scissors-they're-going-into-the-3rd-round. The next day the birthday boy was asked by his parents what his favorite part of his birthday was. I'll let you guess what his response was.

Patience and Flexibility: B+
Nothing ever happens the easy way because here there isn't one.  Don't be mad when your power is shut off because your landlord didn't pay your utility bill (included in the 7 months up front rent he received) because he went on vacation. Don't get upset when the rental car company replaces the current defective car with an even more defective one, and then does it again, and then does it again, and then does it again. (Seriously, we are on our 4th car now - when you turn the car off the doors open automatically - among other things). It won't change by swearing at it. Or them, it turns out. They probably won't understand you anyway since you don't know how to swear in french, and they don't know how to listen in english.

Zongo Falls, Soccer Balls, and Wake-Up Calls

We finally left the Kinshasa city limits over President's Day weekend. It took us nearly 5 months, but we did it. Some friends we've made here invited us to come along with a huge group of Americans to Zongo Falls.

  

At one point we both slipped on the same rock and smashed our toes bloody just before having our picture taken in front of the falls. (Picture not shown.)

  

The next day we wandered into someone's cassava farm trying to find a hidden falls with a swimming hole.

  

We took this picture when we thought we had finally found it after wandering in the jungle getting sunburned for an hour. When we just about gave up a villager found us and showed us the way.

 

The actual waterfall. 

Tip: If they suggest you pay $2 for a guide, just do it. 

We went to the hash a couple of weeks ago. It was Toni Lyn's first hash. We ran through suburban Kinshasa. It actually seemed more dangerous than running through the bush. It is harder to keep your sense of direction and broken glass, jagged rusty metal objects, garbage bridges, and rancid pools are only some of the obstacles. It was a good day for a run though and everyone was glad to finally see Toni Lyn there.

Last weekend we played soccer with Aime and his family again. Toni Lyn got a lot of giggles and strange looks from dozens of men and boys who had clearly never seen a female play soccer before. Women are usually too busy carrying babies around, fetching water, doing laundry and cooking dinner (sometimes all at once).  She was pretty proud of how she played, despite being 5 years out of practice and the weight of 51% of the world on her shoulders.  The field was dirt, the goal posts were rocks, and most of the players were barefoot.  Good stuff.

We got our DRC driver's licenses this week. It is nice to have the freedom to go out at night. We were finally able to tell our friends yes when they asked us to come hang out with them that night. Usually, we would need 2 days notice to do anything at night so we could arrange it with our driver. So, last night (Saturday) we went to TASOK (the American school where Matt works) for drinks and games. We got home pretty late and were looking forward to sleeping in. At 8:00 AM a bomb went off. Seriously. After the second blast Matt said "That sounded like thunder, do you think it is?" He peaked out the window to see the crystal clear blue sky. "The sky is blue, its not thunder." Then he fell asleep again. A few minutes later, BOOM!!! "That one sounded like a cannon, it rattled the windows . . . weird." Then he fell asleep again. Meanwhile Toni Lyn, also half asleep, was thinking "Thunder? Canon? I think were being shelled" and then also fell back asleep. Doesn't say much about our survival instincts. A half hour later we finally got up and saw an email from the U.S. Embassy saying that one of the munitions depots across the river in Brazzaville caught fire and the ordinance started exploding.  As far as we can tell it was an accident. (No need to worry!) However, the 6 miles distance didn't prevent our friends' and colleagues' windows from shattering, doors being thrown off track, roofs caving in, etc. When Matt went for a run tonight he found that Kinshasa was pretty much back to normal, though he did see a DRC army tank on the running track down by the river where all the embassy buildings and higher-ups live. It looked like something out of WWII. The driver was definitely out of practice, he tore up one of the embassy lawns with the metal tracks doing a 180 degree turn.

View from Kinshasa of Brazzaville of the armory explosion

>240 dead, cause electrical short.

For more see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17336810
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17271667

Back to Work

It has been a good week for Matt. Two weeks ago he went to the Hash and met some teachers from The American School Of Kinshasa (TASOK). One of them mentioned a maintenance management position that may be available at the school. Email addresses and phone numbers were exchanged and a few days later he was walking to a job interview. While getting ready he paid attention to what he was wearing, shaved, wore the right socks and all that stuff you do when you are a little nervous.  It turns out "TASOK doesn't need a maintenance manager. The position has already been filled. However, Matt, you are over-qualified for that position anyway. How would you like to be the consulting engineer on our renovation project?"

TASOK's prototype classroom building

Another angle

He ended up getting hired to manage the engineering and construction of a prototype classroom building. This prototype is going to be used as a template for the renovation of the rest of the 2 dozen or so buildings on campus.  It is not a huge project (~200 square meters) but it is going to incorporate natural ventilation, photovoltaics, rain water collection and storage, local materials and other good things.  He couldn't have found a better project to match his skill set and now he gets to put his brand new Professional Engineer's license to use (he found out he passed his test at the end of December). He also has the opportunity to survey the campus to find other opportunities that will help TASOK move toward their goal of a "GREEN" campus. If you would like to check out some more information about TASOK click here.

This week Matt also celebrated his 33rd birthday. On February 7th his endlessly wonderful partner woke him up with breakfast in bed then took him to lunch at a really good Indian restaurant downtown.  She surprised him by taking the afternoon off to hang out and go car shopping with him (hey were going to go see the "Snakes of the Congo" exhibit but couldn't find it). After looking at a lot of lemons they may have found something worth a bid.  Around 5 the two stopped in for a drink at "Maison du Vin" (House of Wine). Yep, did some wine tasting. In Kinshasa. The wine was terrible. Quelle surprise. The weather was cooling off, though, and for the first time in our 4 months in the DRC, we got complimentary (anything) appetizers. Finally, it was time to go to the reservation Toni Lyn said she made at an Italian place called Limoncello, where we had been trying to eat for months, including a failed attempt on New Year's Eve when they ended up being closed. Well, this time they were closed too. Ugh. Matt, who was pretty buzzed up at this point said "Let's just go home and order a pizza". He is a simple guy sometimes. Toni Lyn responded, We're not going home but since you suggested pizza, how about Extreme Pizzeria just down the street that we've been meaning to try? O.K.

When we got there two of our friends just happened to be walking into the restaurant at the same time. Matt invited them to join us for dinner.  We all sat down at a table for 4. A waiter came up to the table and asked if we would like to move to our reserved table. Matt said (confused) "No, we are fine here". Then Toni Lyn and Matt's neighbor showed up and it finally clicked (again, Matt is a simple guy sometimes). Toni Lyn had a sly smile on her face. Gradually, about a dozen people filtered into the restaurant and we had to move to the reserved table for Matt's Surprise Birthday Dinner!

B-day boy and party planner

They sang Happy Birthday in French.

After a great dinner (no pizza, Extreme Pizza doesn't serve pizza!?) complete with a homemade (fresh) lemon cake with our new friends, the night owls decided to go for a night capper.  TL and Matt got a ride with some friends so their driver (Aime) could go home. Before Aime left, he pulled out a piece of high quality drawing paper that had been folded in half.  Matt glanced at it and saw a likeness of himself (A's hat and sunglasses) and Toni Lyn sketched on the front page. Then he unfolded it and saw a fully illustrated hand-sketched comic book of himself and Toni Lyn in the Congo.  A week ago, Matt and Toni Lyn went to the Bonobo sanctuary and invited Aime to come along.  He accepted the offer, had a blast and must have taken it to heart because he hired an artist to make a comic book about about the trip. Gifts don't come much better than that. I guess it's the little things.

Front and back cover of the comic.

The story. How cool is that?

Playtime

Bonobo Beach - see Bonobos on the right bank

In other news, Toni Lyn finally went to her first Hash. We ran an 8K through the shanty town neighborhoods about a mile from our house. We stopped at the first chapel in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), crossed streams of fluid resembling water but with additives on bridges made of car hoods, corrugated steel, loose wooden planks and various other battered heavy objects whose retirement still provides a service.

Built in 1891. I think that's a new roof. The back opens to the river.

Toni Lyn in the center talking with our friend Andy.