Safe and sound in DRC. Our experience crossing the river was actually pretty good. We found a protocol man (a local guy who helps white people get stuff done) on the brazza side who helped us get all the paperwork done and hire a boat.
Once in Kinshasa things got a little weird. We went through this big long tunnel with all the immigration traffic coming from brazza through the port. We had to stop about half way down the tunnel to do some passport stuff and I stayed in the tunnel to guard our luggage. Suddenly there were literally hundreds of disabled people coming through the tunnel carrying big sacs of rice. Some were blind, retarded, missing limbs, dragging themselves along the ground by their hands with limp legs behind. Some were literally dragged along by others cause they couldn’t walk themselves. It turns out that the disabled can’t be taxed for imports so they are hired as porters for imported goods. It was a really sad sight to see, and to be honest a little scary. Some were moaning and groaning and so many were just physically destroyed…missing parts of their body with deformed faces... probably from the recent civil war.
Anyways, now we are safe at lola ya bonobo and everything is really incredible here. Bonobos are SO different than chimpanzees. Besides the big social differences we are here to study, the are really small, have long fur, and dark faces.
The bonobo/human divide is marked by a long a winding river which makes a nice boundary for the sanctuary.
1 comment:
always interesting stuff coming from your trip
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