First Explorer up the Lomami : 1885-86
Category: Equipment, Places, people | Date: Sep 26 2007 | By: admin
Today, an absolutely essential tool for exploration up the Lomami, or anywhere, is the GPS unit (Global Positioning System). One of the GPS units used by Ashley’s teams is pictured below marking my decimal degrees here in Kinshasa. John, my husband and good friend, just told me (Skype) that with those two strings of numbers you see at the top of the unit, you (or anyone) could set your own GPS unit and compass so that you could navigate amazingly close to me here on Poids Lourd Ave, next to the docks on the Congo River. Karibu!
This unit was as essential as the thuraya on Ashley’s first trip up the Lomami. Here it marks “home” by the docks of the Congo
I, myself, am just learning how to use one of these units, but already I cannot imagine how anyone could move around unknown forest or unknown waters without one.
So it is pretty amazing what the geographer-missionary Rev. George Grenfell was able to do back in the 19th century with compass, sextant, theodolite and immense patience and determination. His map of 1886, copied below, traces his discovery of many of the Congo’s major tributaries including the Kasai, the Ubangi and the Lomami.
Grenfell was very accurate in portraying the areas he actually explored, including the lower Lomami. (source: 1886. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, vol8, #10, pp 627-634)
The source of the Lomami remained uncertain, however, as there was no record beyond 1 degree, 33 minutes south latitude which was as far as he went because, as he wrote, “the course of the Lomami was very torturous, and its current very strong.” As a result, the upper part of the Lomami, known from the southern savannas was mistakenly thought to be a completely different river system that dumped into the Sankuru River.
Grenfell was a contemporary of H.M. Stanley who was the first explorer to follow the Congo River’s immense bend around to its outlet on the Atlantic. The discoveries of Grenfell and Stanley completely revised the map of central Africa, known only by outline 75 years earlier when people were plying the seas but not venturing into the interior. Map below from 1794.
Early maps of Africa had great detail for the coast line and a totally imaginary interior. (source: 1794. Schneider und Weigal - AMNH)
Ashley (taking a short vacation after three months on the Lomami) and John (who joins the Lomami teams at the end of October) are both so GPS-oriented that they must imagine their movements through the day in little fractions of decimal degree progression. I can just see Ashley jerking his way towards the underground in London (but soon here again and heading back upriver) and I can imagine John’s motorcycle jumping a bit between 10ths of decimal degrees past the money changers on the main drag of Beni (where he is finishing reports before packing his knapsack for the Lomami). But then the world hasn’t really changed at all, just how we understand it has changed.
Bernard locating himself with GPS unit up the Lomami. Chryso taking notes.
Back in 1886 Grenfell was particularly eager to meet the local villagers up the Lomami River as he learned that they were defending themselves valiantly and with some success against the Arab slave traders and Ivory hunters who had opened trade routes from Zanzibar. Unfortunately for Grenfell, the locals had heightened their defenses and were not about to ask whether this new stranger was any different from the others they had encountered:
“…they assailed us with flights of poisoned arrows”, he wrote, “but as we were well protected by arrow-proof wire netting we went our way…”
But Grenfell’s wire head dress did not keep out the mosquito vectors of malaria and Grenfell died of “blackwater fever”, still in Africa, in July 1906.
Ten years after Grenfell’s original explorations, the Lomami was accurately mapped as flowing parallel to the Congo River through the forest all the way from its origins out on the savanna. (source: 1895. Steileras Hand Atlas. AMNH)
Down-time after 15 Days in the Rain Forest, 3 Days Without Water
Category: Equipment, people | Date: Jul 17 2007 | By: admin
You can’t hear them, but the forest insects are singing Happy Birthday
This is a picture of my birthday party. On the banks of the Lomami, we all raised our plastic mugs to toast me, but hey, it’s me that’s proud of them. Two teams were more than two weeks in the forest with no guide except GPS waypoints. So they deserved what was in that empty bottle on the ground!
After the first 11 days two porters came out with rotten feet. They had been with Bernard’s team, on the east bank forest toward the Lualaba River. The team was slogging through swamp day after day. The porters basically sat with their bare feet in the air for two days and are now a lot better.
Bernard came back with his full team after 15 days, but Maurice’s team was gone a day longer. They were to the west, towards the Tshuapa River, and apparently were three days without water! This is rain forest!..,but moist forest and running water are different. There are lianas that we can cut and drink from – but NOT the same as a mug of water. And no water to cook rice or make bugali!
We have to try to improve the interpretation of our satellite images, used to set the routes through the forest. Some people in the USA and Canada are helping us with that right now.
The picture below is of the porters warming up to the party music. A good use of AA batteries and ipod mini-speakers – right?
They hear Papa Wemba not forest insects !
Maurice’s team took the picture below, mighty pleased to have water.
It’s early afternoon but let’s camp here
Where’s the dream pirogue?
Category: Equipment | Date: May 31 2007 | By: admin
Quick definition. Pirogue: Dugout canoe. Large, possibly +30 metres long. Made from one single trunk of a forest tree. Can take up to one month to hollow it out with hand tools. Need a very large tree to make one. Very labour intensive like most things out here in DR Congo.
This is turning out to be the key obstacle for the project at the moment.
The Mbandaka team has been here in Kisangani for over 2 weeks now and it is the principal job of Jonathan to find the right pirogues. He has searched high and low for good ones. Very frustrating and tiring in the burning heat of the day.
Then you get situations like has happened over the past couple of days. Jonathan finally found one. It was huge and in very good condition and he contacted the proprietor about buying it. They arranged to meet and discuss the price.
Well the first 2 times they were to meet the proprietor cancelled at the last minute after the guys had left to go and speak to him. 2 days gone by. Finally tonight (Tuesday, 29/5/2007) they met up with him.
The proprietor started off on a big spiel about how he had talked to his family and friends about the pirogue and that there was an important family reunion coming up, and so on and so on. So finally they got onto the price. He didn’t want money but a brand new outboard motor 25v Yamaha. We have just bought one of those and it cost $3,500 not including transporting it to Kisangani from Kinshasa. Add another $200 for that at least.
He did not want money even if we matched that crazy price.
My budget IS $2,000 for TWO pirogues– one big one and one tag-along little one (for emergencies).
So the search goes on.
Ashley Vosper
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