Portents for the New Year from up the Lomami and throughout TL2
Category: Threats, bonobo, people | Date: Dec 27 2007 | By: admin
« Vraiment l’inquiétude est très grande »
That disquieting message was written by Crispin just before he left Obenge two weeks ago
Obenge “high street” on a busy day. Obenge is the biggest village on the mid-Lomami which makes it a bushmeat capital for central Congo.
John and I are in snowy upstate New York where we wait for the New Year to come round the globe. We are uneasy. Ashley just sent us a message from England written five clock hours closer to the New Year. He is uneasy. And we are in regular touch with Crispin who has now arrived in Kisangani. He, too, is uneasy. He is a couple hours closer to the New Year in steamy Kisangani. More importantly he is closer to the military. Will they help us ?
A few weeks ago. Major Ranger, the main elephant and bonobo poacher in Obenge, is between Ashley in the middle and Crispin on the far right
What is the source of this “inquiétude” , of this disquiet ?
- the fast-disappearing elephant..who carries its own doom – ivory – in its mouth
- the bonobo whose small range is already criss-crossed by poachers and whose “safe” islands are ever fewer, ever smaller.
The threats are immediate.
HERE ARE SOME BAD SIGNS
Crispin wrote: the day after Ashley left Obenge, Major Ranger killed two bonobo “They killed them just as night fell and they were on their nests. They left the corpses in the forest overnight.”
Up in the tree on the left. The bonobo nest the next morning.
This time I will not show the laid out corpses…but only a hand so like our own and a foot so much more sure in the trees than our own.
Lambert, who is still in Obenge, wrote : Colonel Thoms wife is bringing a load of munitions up the Lomami to Major Ranger. Major Ranger gathered the youth of Obenge and fired thirteen shots in the air. Lambert’s fear is the New Year. It is a time of major celebration in Congo. Money is needed for celebration. Ivory is money.
Most hunters, like these, in the Lomami forest are killing forest antilope and monkeys. It is different to hunt for bonobo, the Congo’s own great ape, or the forest elephant. It is not only illegal to kill these but also malicious.
BUT – HERE ARE SOME GOOD SIGNS
Crispin has been in touch with the military in Kisangani. They say that they will mount an “operation” to Opala and on to Obenge.
A successful operation could stop major destruction before it is too late for the forest elephant of the Lomami and the bonobo of Obenge.
We can facilitate this military mission. Their deployment is often delayed for lack of resources. We facilitated the last mission that got Colonel Thoms out of the forest with just 300 USD. Can you help us facilitate this one.
Your Mother is Calling from the Lomami
Category: Places, people | Date: Dec 19 2007 | By: admin
Do you hear her?
Pierre-Jacques Kissing, do you hear her?
It was mid morning when John Hart met Pierre-Jacque’s Mom. This is how John described it:
“Good day sir. We are expecting you to spend the night with us.”
The French greeting with impeccable intonation and accent seems incredible to our team as we step from the forest into the small village clearing of Batiakayandja.
We have been on the trail since 7 AM, including over an hour to navigate a flooded river.
Egret watching at the river crossing
Batiakayandja is just one more yellowish smudge on our satellite image: A tiny settlement lost in the forest. Another stop to ask questions about wildlife in the area, the history of the people, and hopefully to find chicken or dried fish to buy. Then we plan to continue for at least another four hours today…
Paka buys a pineapple in a Lengola village. The cable leads to the GPS antenna taped beneath his hat.
So this is a surprise, and most of all, this elderly man who speaks French from a colonial era, long gone, all but forgotten.
Leon Mandaki introduces himself as a former schoolmaster.
“We have heard about your expedition,” he tells us, “please spend the night with us.”
“Do you have news from Mr Kissing in Brussels?”
Chairs appear for us to sit on and, what must be the entire population of the village crowds around. Leon leads forward an older woman. “This is Sophie Ikwauku Leon tells me. She is the wife of Mr. Pierre Kissing who owned the plantation, Ngawa Luki.”
Leon, in white striped shirt, introduces Sophie, in pink head scarf, to John.
Mama Sophie half curtsies. Her hands are gnarled from years of garden labor, but she stands straight, her bright eyes and smile that of a great beauty. In Swahili, she eagerly tells of life over 3 decades ago with Pierre Kissing and her son, Pierre-Jacques, born in 1952.
Sophie Ikwauku, still a beauty.
The father took his son when he fled from Simba rebels during Congo’s first rebellion in 1964. Pierre, the father, died shortly after, but Sophie kept contact with Pierre-Jacques until Congo’s second rebellion.
“He always sent me money through the Belgian fathers at the mission in Kisangani”, Mama Sophie says. “But when the catholic priests fled (during the rebellion of the mid to late 90s) my son had no way to reach me. Pierre-Jacques must think I am dead.”
Sophie hands me a stained photo of her son at his marriage in Belgium in 1971 and her recent voter registration card, which Leon points out has her name misspelled.
Staring out from the stained photo is a handsome Belgo-congolese man with his demure Wallon bride. “That is my husband’s Belgian wife”, Sophie points to a woman smiling proudly from the background. “Our husband did not live to see his son marry.”
A 35 year old photograph and a voter registration from the new Congo
“Can you find Pierre Jacques and tell him I am still alive?”
Pierre-Jacques lives in Brussels. She does not know where, or his employment. There are no other links she can muster.
“I’ll try to see what I can find out,” I say lamely wondering if I will have time to check the Belgian phone directories during our stop-over in Zaventem airport.
“I understand” said Sophie, smiling confidently.
—————————————————————————————
Just yesterday morning in our brief stop-over in Belgium we checked the directory in the transfer lounge. There were a few similar last names: several “Kiss” and one “Kissane”, but no “Kissing”. That was only Brussels. Did Leon give spelling right? Has Pierre-Jacques moved to another town?
Pierre-Jacques, if you are out there, your mom would love to hear from you.
Anyone else with access to Belgian directories and the right SIM card, please, if you have a lead check it out and/or let us know.
The teams moved on from Batiakayandja, but pitched camp very late that night.
A True Story from the Lomami
Category: Places, people | Date: Dec 06 2007 | By: admin
But I just don’t get it.
Names are all important here. This young man was named Muyimbisa at some point of his infancy by his family. And he was called Willy as he was growing up, but now is mostly called ‘Conader’ because he is a demobilized maimai. CONADDER was a World Bank program “Commission Nationale de Désarmement, Démobilisation et Réinsertion. Nice acronym name — right?
Conader Willy is mourning.
The pensive fellow in blue t-shirt and blue cap is Conader Willy.
He is living in Obenge on the Lomami River but grew up in the more populated (slightly) Bimbi region on the Lualaba.
A year and a couple months ago, August 2006, he was off in the forest in one of the many tiny hunting camps around Obenge. He was already ‘Conader’ and had moved to killing animals for a living rather than terrorizing people – an improvement– Right?
A hunting camp between the Lomami and the Tshuapa Rivers
It was early morning and Conader had gone off to collect fuel wood leaving his wife, Tamasha, of whom he has only good things to say, alone with their two year old son in camp. A brigand, a maimai by the name of Bertha Bongenya Albert, (that is the name), swooped into camp with his bandit militia. Certainly Conader would have been killed if he had been there. Was it the settling of some old grudge?? Instead Bertha and his band made off with Tamasha and the son, Kabasele.
Bertha took them to Ngombe, an even smaller village than Obenge on the Lomami.
The village of Ngombe during the rainy season.
Three months later, the son Kabasele was dead.
I don’t get it. Is there some hidden justice ? or just no justice.
And Conader’s wife, Tamasha, is still the third wife of the now demobilized Bertha.
I want Shakespearian justice.
Instead Conader Willy is mourning his son. He has not remarried.
He is now working for us, rather than killing animals for a living – an improvement–Right?
Conader Willy is helping on the Obenge garden plots. They are growing well.
Land of the Balengola between the Lomami and the Lualaba
Category: Places, people, wildlife | Date: Dec 01 2007 | By: admin
John says the accent is on the “go” in Balengola.
Here are some of his other notes:
“Finally sorting some of the mysteries of this northeastern corner of the forgotten landscape! And picking up new ones too!
For one, I found out that those pinkish polygons on the Google map west of Ubundu are NOT artisanal mining operations like we feared; they are grassy riverside prairies. They are seriously flooded now, like a lot of this region during the rainy season, but according to informants, they burn during the dry season. Natural grassy openings are frequent through this forest along the Ruiki River.
Rainy season means flooded crossings for bicycle-riding merchants or ba-toleka
The Lengola forest covers most of the TL2 landscape south of Kisangani and west, southwest of Ubundu, from nearly the Lomami to the Lualaba. A vast region which, before independence 50 years ago, was one of the country’s major centers for production of rice, coffee and rubber.
An abandoned rice-hulling plant in an empty forest clearing
We traveled west from Ubundu along forest foot paths that were once major roads emerging incongruously on looming complexes of abandoned brick building (rizeries and coffee plantations) standing in old forest clearings. Even the Belgian King Baudouin came along this road in 1957. Now it’s forgotten land. The villagers that remain eke out a meager living selling local rice and dried fish (the flooded forests are the preferred habitat of clarid catfish) to bicycle riding merchants from Kisangani.
Motorcycle and bicycle are the only vehicles down the overgrown roads
We have had wonderful hospitality from Ernest Klaibundji, the spry 60 year old Chief of Walengola-Wabira at Bagwasi, who put us up in his house and spent much of the day before yesterday helping us fill out our map of his 40,000 km2 chefferie. His stories of the remarkable economic rise and collapse are poignant. Now he has offered to guide us himself personally into his forest.
Dino explains our survey work, then Ernest explains the reality of today’s Balengola
We have opted for two circuits on each side of the middle Ruiki River .
Dino and Ernest left yesterday for Munionge where Ernest will take supplies in two pirogues and paddle three days up the Ruiki to Batitobeka village. I will join Dino tomorrow at Batibakungu village.
Crossing the Ruiki River with our motorcycle in the dugout
According to Ernest, both okapi and the “giant” chimpanzee, (as opposed to the bonobo) occur. We will see. So far, we have not been overwhelmed with evidence of wildlife.”
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