into the heart

pride

i have to post this photo that makes me soooo happy.  it's of my sister, friends and i after nyc pride parade.  rainbows galore!

friday

this week went by quickly... i think.  i can't remember.  so maybe not?
god, my brain is fried.

i've been spending a lot of quality time with microsoft excel lately.  when people find out i work in gorilla conservation they always look at me with envy.  i've even had people who haven't seen me in a while ask, "so, how are the gorillas?"  as if i see them every day and know them personally.

and yes, sure, there are 3 babies living in the back yard of my office... but there is an enormous corogated metal wall around them such that i have to peak through a nail hole to MAYBE see them.  in the entire time i've worked in congo i've seen wild gorillas exactly once, by fluke.  in rwanda.

i'm not complaining (ok maybe a little bit) but the life of conservationist, at least a program manager, is not all hiking boots and camp stoves.  in the past week i've reworked a work plan matrix report three times, reviewed dozens of budgets, reclassed hundreds of expenses trying to match up with reports done before the money was actually recieved (ya, that happens), created about 25 pivot tables, and held a couple long meetings about those tables, reclasses and budgets.

and guess what i'm doing next week?  you guessed it!  work plans, budgets and pivots, oh my!
but hey... at least its friday.  so what if i have a work plan meeting tomorrow?  i can still pretend like it's the weekend.

bonjour goma!

that's right.  i'm back in goma and trying to get back on the blogwaggon.  let's see if i can blog at least once a week from now on, shall we?
had an amazing month vacation.  yes, a month.
that's how you roll when you're working in a place like goma i think... you have to have that much or you might go insane.  really.  it's called going tropo and it's what happens to people who don't get out of places like this for far too long.  in fact, i'm one of the few people i know who doesn't have mandatory, out of the country, paid R&R every 6 or 8 weeks!
honestly, i wasn't sure how i'd feel coming back.  i actually cried with joy when i hit the runway at jfk in early june.  i was so excited i was bouncing around the luggage conveyor belt.  i was picked up by one friend and brought to my sister's.  i downed a starbucks ice venti chai within the first hour.  i was giddy.
but then i went through a week and a half or so of panic and dread at the thought of returning.  it was all i could think about and it didn't feel good.
but things slowly turned around.  i had a couple more weeks to relax and enjoy being with friends and family.  all those blessings i blabbed on about in a post 6 months ago.  but i tried not to overdo it.  i think the worst thing you can do on a vacation, especially one that is primarily for relaxation and mental refreshment, and not, say, sightseeing, is to force yourself to do too much.  see everyone, go everywhere, do everything... i made a point to not do stuff if i didn't feel like it and not try to see every single person i know in massachusetts, dc and nyc.  it worked marvelously.
i did see a lot of great friends and spent over two weeks gardening, cooking, talking and just watching tv with my parents in massachusetts.  i even saw a bear in the yard!  i spent the last week shopping and eating and laughing with my sister and friends in new york.  perfect.
by the time i left the states on july 3rd i was relaxed and ready.  not exactly happy to come back, but not particuarly sad to either.  i think maybe that's the best i could expect this time around, after the emotional rollercoaster of my 4th and 5th month here.
so anyway... here i am.
back in the office.
in the dark (power's out but somehow, magically, the internet is still working).  the rat who show's up like clockwork in my office every day at 5pm is making his rounds, though in the dark i can't actually see him.  which is both good and bad.
my dog is fatter and happier, my new roommate is fun and my first week back was busy but pretty much drama free.
overall i give the last 5 weeks a big fat A.

ciao goma

sitting in the brussels airport, waiting for a flight to jfk.  taking advantage of the fastest internet i think i can fathom and watching daily show online. 
i heart jon stewart. * sigh *

it's been a long, strange, complicated, emotional 5 months.  part of the reason i stopped blogging was just that i couldn't seem to get my thoughts in order... i will go into more detail at some future point but now i'm just looking ahead to a month of vacation.

for now...

nyiragongo in the evening

muddy face bella with her new toy dhl-ed just in time from aunti li

house from above

View Larger Map

you should see two blue-roofed houses right next to eachother.  on the right, closer to the main road, is mine!  it's got a weird x pattern in the yard, made with lava rocks for no apparent reason.
right across the main road is the office.
if you zoom out you can see i'm really close to the border with rwanda, a town called gisenyi.  along the lake is a strip of beach, part private and part at the kivu sun hotel where we occasionally go for brunch and mental health.
zoom out further and you can see the large roundabouts in the center of town where the supermarket is.  and the airport north of their, with the runway half covered in lava.
a couple more clicks and there's the volcano, which, they say, could erupt some time this month.  awesome.

more bella

napping in the grass the day she came back

muddy dog!

you can see her sad ears here... fly bitten and scabby.  but healing well.

oh bella.

The Story of Bella

This story is for Sam, who I imagine will enjoy it quite a bit.

In Congo, people, for the most part, are not fond of dogs.  They fear them and therefore they dislike them.  Unlike in most developing countries, you don't see many strays around.  The few you do see only come out at night, because if they run into people during the day, it's big trouble for them.

But I love dogs.  And because dogs are so feared, they make for good security!  Thieves and other ne'r-do-wells don't want to jump over the fence to find themselves face to face with a furry snarling canine.  So weeks ago I decided to get one.  At first the plan was to get a puppy from a friend, but that plan fell through. 

And then came Bella.

Bella once belonged to a British woman who lived here in Goma.  Nobody quite knows why or what happened, but when that woman left town, Bella stayed here.  Bella was given - sort of - to a guy who worked for another conservation organization.  But he couldn't really take care of her, so he kept her at the office.  There, people came and went, and Bella was mostly left tied to an old truck in the yard.  For several months she was tied there, given food by one or two of the guards, and left to be confused about what was happening to her.  She stopped trusting people and started snarling and growling whenever people came near (except, of course, the two nice guards, Alain and Mungambe, who fed her).

One day my friend arrived in Goma to work for the organization.  He saw Bella and felt bad for her.  He told the guards to start letting her off her rope at night, at least.  She was very shy and confused, but happy to be free at least for a few hours a day.  When my friend found out I was looking for a dog, he told me about Bella.  He warned me that she was aggressive and while he thought she could be rehabilitated, he wasn't sure.  I went to visit her one day and sure enough she was all teeth and snarling and mean barks.  I kept my distance.

But I felt bad for her too.  She looked young... only a couple years old.  And she was very nice with the guards who fed her so I knew she wanted to be around people again.

I decided to visit every day or so, when she was off the rope in the evenings.  She started to come over to me for a short pet.  Her ears were down, her tail between her legs.. she was saying "I want you to like me, and I want to like you... but I just don't know how this works anymore!"  I didn't try to pet her too much.  I just let her come to me and then run away when she wanted to.

One day it was time to bring Bella home.  I lured Bella out from under the truck with sardines.  She loved the sardines but she still wasn't sure about me!  Alain took her rope off the truck but kept her on the leash.  She barked and snarled at everyone who walked by, but I sat with her, feeding her sardines very carefully.  Then Alain and I walked her together all the way to my house.  She hadn't been for a walk in months and months; she was thrilled to be out!  She pulled at the leash and walked so fast we had to try to hold her back or keep up!  Finally we got her to her new home.

She didn't know quite what to do and I was afraid she might try to bite the guards at my house because she didn't know them, so I kept her on the leash.  She was very nervous.  I gave her some water, took her for a walk around my big garden and then sat with her while she ate some food.  (In Congo we don't have "dog food" in cans so you have to cook for your dog!  They eat a stew of meat, rice and vegetables!)   She soon was feeling relaxed and Alain went home.  I stayed with Bella most of the day, talking to her, taking her for walks around the yard, and eventually took her off her leash.  She ran around like the happiest dog on Earth!

That night I had to go out to a dinner party.  I didn't want to leave her but I wouldn't be gone long.  She seemed very happy when I said goodbye and drove out of the gate.  A few hours later, though, when the gate was opened to let my car in, Bella ran out!

I jumped out the car and went running down the street.  She was so fast!  She just ran straight up the road.  We don't have streetlights here so it's pitch dark.  After only a few minutes I couldn't even see her anymore.  I drove around in the car for a hour, and went all the way back to the office to tell Alain what had happened.  I felt so sad.

The next day Alain went looking for her and I hoped she would show up.  She didn't.  That night I drove around a bit more, but didn't see her anywhere.  When she didn't show up the day after that, I started to lose hope.  She had been mistreated by people and was very confused about where she should go or what she should do.  Wouldn't you be if you were tied to a truck for 3 months?

Saturday morning, though, I was just waking up when I heard the sound of a dog whining.  It couldn't be!  Could it?  I peaked out my curtains and there was Bella, tied to a tree right outside my window!  Alain and Mugambe where there too, laughing when I ran outside in my pajamas!  Bella recognized me immediately and was wagging her tail like crazy.  I pet her and thanked the guys.  "Merci beaucoup!  Thank you so much!"  They tried to explain how they found her... but I don't speak French!  All I cared about for the moment was that she was back and in one piece.

Only later did I find out that Alain and Mugambe were out looking for her when the saw a crowd around a dog near the road.  Some soldiers and children were throwing rocks at Bella!  She'd been hit by a couple but was ok, just scared and more confused than ever.  The guys convinced the crowd to leave her alone and brought her home to safety.

In the end, Bella is safe and sound.  She spend 3 whole days running around Goma like a wild dog!  But now she's back.  She's already learned how to sit and shake.  She needs a bath and is still nervous around strangers, but she's getting much better.  And the best thing of all is that she doesn't try to run out the gate when it opens!

Good dog, Bella!

Tiniest Obama Supporter

Another great photo I had to post by Dean.
This little baby girl was confiscated last month along with four others up in Butembo.  They are each a different species but they all showed up at once.  Having been destined to become a tiny meal or a mistreated pet, she's now living safely at our Butembo office.  The thing is, it's really not the best place for her or the others.  But that "best place" doesn't exist here in Congo.  The chimp sanctuaries are overflowing, the orphan gorilla center isn't even built yet, and monkeys are way down on the primate totem pole when it comes to public interest.  There's just no place for them to go, so hundreds are confiscated and end up stashed somewhere with people doing the best they can to take care of them. 
It's a sad state of affairs.... but this little girl, she's at least "Got Hope!"

i'm alive!

yes, it's true!  it's been a looooong month of nothing on this blog, but i'm still here.  promise. 

a lot has happened, or at least a lot seemed to be happening all the time and i couldn't find the right combination of free time and working internet to post anything.  but a few highlights...

first, my foot is much better.  thanks to everyone who keeps asking!  the cast came off several weeks ago and now it's painless and i even forget it was ever broken.  i'm still taking it easy... no running or yoga or hiking.  but it's really a whole new world to have both feet in working order!

a few weeks ago i went to kigali to get a follow-up xray (fine) and i did some shopping.  i bought a coffee maker and... wait for it... an ice cream maker!  you just can't find ice cream here so i'm gonna make my own!

as for coffee, there's actually a coffee shop in kigali!  yes, a coffee shop may not seem like much to all of you in the land of starbucks and rao's, murky and caribou.  but given that even a proper coffee (as in, not instant) is hard to come by here, my iced latte was heaven. 
the odd thing is, they actually grow coffee in rwanda and congo... just few here drink it.  nestle's clearly done what they do best: take something made local and put it out of business by flooding the market with a "modern" yet inferior alternative made in some giant factory elsewhere.  for all the coffee farms and dairies in eastern congo, they sell a heck of a lot of nescafe and nido (powdered milk), let me tell ya.

anyway, on the way to kigali, we stopped at a construction stop in the road to let some other cars pass down the one lane (so organized!) and i snapped this.

love the silly karate moves on the hill!

with the cast off, i've been doing a bit of swimming on the weekends.  finally i can hop in the fresh cool waters of lake kivu and luckily we've had a bunch of perfectly warm swimming days.  sunny and high 80's low 90's.  sitting by the lake, drinking a beer and chatting with friends, i often marvel at how much like paradise this supposed hell hole can feel!  now i just need to find a house with its own lake access...

in other good news, i'm tied for first in our ncaa pool.  it's only 6 of us here in goma, and given that i don't have a tv or cable i haven't seen a single game!  but with msu, uconn and unc all in my final four picks, i'm doing pretty well.  and fyi, espn.com loads pretty quickly (only 5 minutes!) when you turn off the images.  go state!!

speaking of basketball, i've been watching dario's games when i can.  he plays in a local league at the one court in town... besides the one at his house!  he even runs a morning (5am) basketball program for local kids in his spare time.  apparently the congolese are really into basketball.  who knew? 

the court is across the street from one of the universities (you can see it, along with the volcano, in the background of these photos), next to the one tennis court in town, and flanked on the other two sides by shanties.  it's cracked and faded but the hoops have nets and no one seems to care that if you fall off the edge of the cement you'll break your leg on lava. 

a couple kids keep score on an old school board as the refs yell it out, the crowd cheers and jeers in french and swahili, and little tykes with balls made of old plastic bags tied up with rope come out to practice their shots during every time-out.  crazy, chaotic and a really fun way to spend a saturday afternoon.

on the down side, for the past two weeks i have had power less than 50% of the time.  it was out from last tuesday until last night (monday).  i've resisted getting a generator out of principle but they are so common here that i'm rethinking my stance.  without one when the lights flicker off, it means an indefinite amounts of time with no fridge, no stove and - worst of all for me - no hot water!  cold showers on chilly rainy mornings are just not fun. 

plus, nearly that entire time, i had this monstrosity parked outside my house! 

please note the missing back wheels.  there were 4 of of these trucks lined up on the street apparently because they hadn't paid taxes.  uh, ok.  it was nearly impossible to get out my gate!  even better, every morning somebody would park in the one tiny spot i could actually squeeze out of so my guard would have to run around the street to the various offices nearby asking whose car it was so they could come move it!  then one day they all just disappeared.  oh goma.

finally, just a tip: i may have news of the canine variety very soon.  yeah!

dichotomy

good news!
the yus conservation area in papua new guinea was finally declared!  it's the first of its kind in png and 12 years in the making.  i had the privilege to support the project team at woodland park zoo on the project while at gcf/ci.  sadly, i never got the chance to visit! 

i'm struck by the similarities, though, between that project and the one we're working on here in drc.  both involve communities deciding where and how to do conservation, and then seeking the government's official and legal declaration of their community reserves.  it's a cutting edge model but could be the best chance we have for long-term conservation of tree 'roos and gorillas and all kinds of other species around the world.
my HUGE congratulations and respect go out to lisa dabek and her team, and all the community members of the yus area.
more on this great news from the woodland park zoo and conservation international (with photos).bad news.
remember, after one gets indicted for crimes against humanity, a clever way to improve your public image is to rid your country all the people who are helping the people you are accused of waging a brutal campaign of violence against. - excerpt from The Big Book of Etiquette for Dictators