It’s the same routine every morning when Mama T is far off in Kinshasa. These first hours of the morning determine the course of the day.
I wake before dawn with the crowing of neighborhood cocks. Our cacophonous guinea fowls follow. I check the time on my cell phone on the little table at the head of the bed. Flash the head lamp around the mosquito net. It is always a plus if there are no bloated, blue-bellied bugs hanging on the inside of the net.
Sometimes I doze again. Sometimes I pick up the reading that spends the night where I dropped it by my ear. I have learned how to perch my cell phone (which has a small light) on my forehead so I can read. The light is just enough, a dim circle on the text.
By day break, I smell the acrid charcoal smoke from the cooking hearth drifting in through the window screens. Small groups of parrots call as they head off from night roosts along the banks of the Congo River a few hundred meters away. People still speak of the past abundant, big flocks before the international parrot commerce.
Mama Jose’s vivacious greeting to the night-guards as she arrives at our gate tells me it’s time to get up.
Brush teeth, shave, bathe. Always the same moves. Sometimes I call for warm water in the bucket, sometimes I want it cool. Always a slight recoil as I step into our bathroom: the deplorable state of facilities left in this Colonial era building. It must have been a little annex for the servants or an aging mother. Even then, indoor bathrooms were cultural baggage from another world. The facilities age, the plumbing doesn’t work, the septic… I miss our outdoor bathhouse at Epulu overlooking the forest along the river; the outhouse at Red Pond with its view of our northern New York woodlot. Here, the water table is too high and our parcelle too small. No lingering in these unsavory facilities. A few push-ups and sit-ups on the mat. Floss the teeth, and I am out on the porch.
Morning coffee on our porch in Kindu.
Next it is coffee. Mama Jose knows that she has to have the hot water in the thermos first thing. Sometimes she makes the coffee for me (must have picked that up from Mama T). I move a chair out to our tiny veranda, take one of the issues of Science brought from Kinshasa, my binoculars, and alternately read and watch the day’s first action over my morning coffee. My focus of attention is our small yard and garden and the view of the canopies of the mango trees beyond our gate.
I know my timing is right when I see the arrival of a certain large solitary carpenter bee. She always arrives from the same direction, checks out the blooms of several potted Commelinaceae on our porch, pauses a second or two over each open bloom. Then she is off, always along the same course around the corner of the house, to her next stop. Text book case of pollinator trap-lining I recall with delight.
I watch the progress on the construction of the bob-tailed weaver nests in the small tree near the door. Just how social or solitary is this species, endemic to the borders of the Middle Congo River? It is not a well published species, but it is abundant in Kindu as in Kisangani. There are so few ornithologists in these parts to report on it.
Every morning there is some surprise that shows up: a migrant spotted flycatcher from Europe nonchalantly hawks insects, seemingly heedless of the long and dangerous migration mandatory in just a month or so. A flock of spine-tailed swifts swoops low across our enclosure on their first morning flight, bringing with them the reassurance that the big forest is still out there, beyond our gate and up the river.
The morning ends at the breakfast table with Christian, Mpaka, sometimes Leon. We plan the day’s activities over bread, avocados and hard-boiled eggs. Mama Jose comes in to clear our plates. As we push our chairs back from table the rest of the day begins.
A good morning is essential, because a day in Kindu is what follows…
A few years back, the American Aid Organization, USAID, provided support for an enterprising NGO to open an internet access point in Kindu, the first ever for this provincial capital. Its name, Horizon, reflects its forward-looking aspirations. It is still one of only two public connections to the World Wide Web in the entire province. When we are in Kindu we make daily pilgrimages to Horizon to check email.
John on line at Kindu’s “Horizon”.
The internet connection is never great—slow and broken. What with Kindu’s chronic lack of electric power, the cyber café is usually only open part time with a small gasoline powered generator. Often the generator runs down to empty. Then lights, connection, computers, all go out at once. And we close up for the day.
The VIP table where we can usually squeeze in.
None of this has kept the residents of Maniema Province from acquiring a taste for the internet. Every day more and more crowd into Horizon, and more and more are coming with lap tops. A “VIP” table has been set aside for those with their own machines. You just connect to one of the lines, program in the IP address and the World Wide Web is yours…Or so it is in theory.
The packed tables certainly are a deterrent to the viewing of certain “sensitive” sites. A furtive glance at some of my neighbors’ screens reveal that scam emails from Bill Gates, sham lotteries and others are an important part of daily communication. The reach of SPAM is truly phenomenal. Since bank accounts, much less credit cards, are rare, no harm done.
You are the One and Only BIG Winner.
The real challenge is to find my way through all of the wires and electric cords. The abiding fear is that someone pulling away from the table will drag the whole lot, including my computer, crashing to the floor.
From John, after two weeks of Kindu on diplomatic mission.
Added benefit, wherever there is a generator running, there is a wire leading to the roadside Recharge Center where little brother is making a daily wage keeping Kindu’s cell phone batteries charged.
Georg was a street dog. Our chauffeur picked him up at a road side pet market, one of those places with about 40 parrots stuffed in a cage and forlorn monkeys chained to a tree. Georg was probably about 6 months old. Not full grown and quick to learn.
Four years later Georg is wise, tolerant, and loyal. But being a dog in Kinshasa –even a loved dog – is a dog’s life.
Papa François, the gardener, warned us to keep him inside the gate. This was the middle of last year. There had been an outbreak of rabies somewhere in Kinshasa and all stray dogs were being shot down by the police. Soon after that Georg had his first explosive botfly infestation.
Georg feigned equanimity as John and Michel diligently extracted maggots from skin warbles. Some days they emptied more than 10 and some days more than 20.
Were all the botflies of all the exterminated stray dogs of Kinshasa focusing in on poor Georg? I do not even know the life cycle. Does a fly land on Georg and lay an egg? Or does Georg role around in the grass and pick up little instar larvae eager to jump? As there are about 150 species of warble flies in the world and they have different life cycles, we would have to make a real study to learn the life of a Georg fly. Poor Georg, he just had a second infestation.
This is the maggot in question — no particularly outstanding features.
One thing we know: Georg does not like flies — any flies. He chases after them as though they were thieves. We also know the worst infestations are during the dry season. Now after a series of major rains Georg is free of botflies again. His skin is smooth. Life in Kinshasa is good – even if it is a dog’s life.
Post-treatment bath was not a bad thing on a very hot day.
Wally with daughters, Kristel and Nathalie, in the 1980s.
Wally was friend, landlord, and fellow annotator of life as seen from the center of the world, i.e. Kinshasa. His shop got the news of his death last Tuesday; strange, how quickly a place can feel empty and abandoned with everyone still standing around.
That changed on Saturday when friends and workers gathered here, at the shop, to say good-bye.
Gouv, always the organizer, arranged for the music, the chairs, beer and eats.
Gouv also gave the words of welcome on Saturday.
The orators came forward. After Gouv, Baruti, a Kinshasa artist, one of many who frequented Wally’s shops and whose art hangs on his walls, explained what Wally was in the life of his friends and the city. Then François, at least ten years as one of the guards and gardeners, offered the necessary rambling prayer.
Baruti speaks.
François prays.
The mood started somber as late afternoon turned to evening.
But Wally would have approved of the generous libations,something for everyone.
And he would have approved of the denouement: dancing and music, of course. It went on all night and welcomed the dawn.
Below are a couple memories from Wally’s Kinshasa neighbors:
Reflections on my friend, Wally
I remember vividly the first day I met Wally back in 1981. I was just finishing up my service as a Peace Corps volunteer and needed some money. Word had it amongst the PCVs that there was this mysterious guy living in the Inga Shaba Residence who cashed US checks at the black market rate which was six times the official rate. Back then, in Mobutu’s Zaire this was an illegal activity so I was advised to be very discreet when I went to see him. With some trepidation, I presented myself at the Residence entrance and a sentry led me to Wally’s room. In s very cordial and business-like manner he took my check, and making sure that I understood the process, carefully counted out the local currency equivalent and the transaction was completed. I am sure that there are probably hundreds of other ex- Peace Corps volunteers who share this same memory. The difference with me was that this first encounter would mark what would later prove to be the beginning of a long and enduring friendship. Before I go on with my dealings with Wally, I would like to just share a couple stories that kind of give an indication of who the Wally we knew and loved was. These stories are pretty tame. The really good stuff I wouldn’t dare put in writing.
Wally was very independent and on occasion was inclined to use extremely unconventional means to solve a problem. He was also an extremely meticulous manager and he had a habit of making daily to-do lists. I remember one time glancing at one of his lists and one item caught my eye. It said “ask Toby about poison for the chicken”. Needless to say, I was puzzled by this notation and when I asked him about it, he told me that there was a rooster residing at the nearby Peace Corps guest house whose crowing was waking him up every morning at 3:00 o’clock. This was making him extremely unhappy and he had decided to do something about it. In classic Wally style, he went down and railed at the house caretaker about the noisy bird on several occasions, but with no results. Having failed at negotiations, he had then decided that he was going to take matters into his own hands. He had a plan, hence the poison. Fortunately, the plan never reached fruition because he ran into the Peace Corps Director soon thereafter at the AERWA bar also known as the American Club They got to talking and Wally told him about this issue. The next day they both went over to the Guest house and the rooster’s elimination was ordered, thereby avoiding the poison option.
As most of his friends grew to learn, Wally was his own man and when he didn’t agree with something, he could become quite confrontational and was known to lose his temper from time to time. Many of us, for the most part unwittingly, were subject to one of these angry outbursts at one time or another. One of my favorite Wally stories happened in a Kinshasa restaurant about twenty years ago. I was not present, but a mutual friend told me about it, and Wally later confirmed it. The two of them were dining at Chez Nicolas where the specialty was pizza prepared by the owner in a brick oven adjacent to the dining area. Nicola was also a legendary Kinshasa character, known for having a bit of a short fuse. Wally had ordered a pizza, repeating several times slowly and methodically to the waiter that he did not want any green peppers on it. Well lo and behold; when the pizza was served it came with green peppers. Wally was not very happy about this and was in the process of giving the waiter a piece of his mind when Nicola himself came over to join in the fray. After exchanging a few choice words, Wally just stood up, pizza in hand, and in a short, quick, motion dropped it on the floor at Nicola’ feet. He then turned around and calmly exited the premises. Chez Nicolas was one of Kinshasa’s most popular restaurants at the time and there must have been 30-50 stunned diners witnessing this altercation. I recently learned of an interesting epilogue to this event when a couple of weeks ago, I was relating the story to Kristel and all of a sudden her face lit up. She then told me that for years she had never understood why every time she asked her dad if they could go to Nicolas for a pizza, Wally would suggest some other place. An old mystery had been solved.
Being a friend of Wally’s I also had my run-ins with him from time-to-time. This went with the territory, but we always reconciled our differences after a couple of days or so. Two very important words in Wally’s vocabulary were confrontation and reconciliation. Arguments happened, but his door was always open to make amends and it was over and completely forgotten.
Back to my personal history with Wally; after finishing up with Peace Corps, I stuck around in Zaire and tried to make a living for myself without much luck. Then in 1984, when Wally’s partner at Logistics and Supplies Company scheduled a trip to Europe, he asked me to fill in for him during his one month absence. Being between jobs, I jumped at this opportunity to make a little money. When we found out that his partner wouldn’t be coming back to Kinshasa for some time Wally asked me to stay on the job for another six months to help him close down the company. During this period, we shared the same office which gave me a unique opportunity to get to know Wally and benefit from his good will. He was a natural trainer, patient and supportive, and he taught me how to use a computer and schooled me on accounting procedures. When the six month period was up, we had closed the books on the Logistics and Supplies Company and my job was finished. I think that Wally felt a bit guilty about leaving me unemployed, so he managed to use his contacts to find me a short term opportunity working for German Technical Assistance conducting a fisheries study in the hinterlands of the Bandundu province. When this contract was finished, he found another employment opportunity for me, a consultancy with Peace Corps. He started a new company, called Capitale Associates and made me a minor shareholder. This made it possible for me to obtain a residents visa. Later, he asked me to take over his business for a year and a half while he went home to remodel a house. Back in 1990, he introduced me to the vice-president of the company that currently employs me and has employed me for the last twelve years.
During the last 26 years, I guess that I got to know Wally about as well as anyone in the DRC and throughout this period, he has had a profound positive influence on my life. He was a true self-starter, energetic, creative and always looking for new ideas and activities. He was a friend, mentor, role model, and advisor, and someone whom I could trust and confide to. He always seemed to be looking out for my best interests.
Wally was a creature of habit and generally, at around 5:00 PM, he would glance at the clock, proceed to lock up the office, and invite anyone present to go over to the American club for some liquid refreshment. I can still hear him saying “hey buddy, let’s go grab a beer”. I was a regular participant, and I wasn’t alone; in the old days there were usually a bunch of us guys who would conveniently show up at Wally’s late in the afternoon.
At the club, Wally was pretty much an institution. All sorts of people went there just to see him…..Lebanese, Pakistanis, Europeans, Congolese, Chinese, businessmen, pilots, CIA agents, Embassy officials, and people coming back after prolonged absences. They all knew Wally and wanted to get his take on the latest happenings in town. I was fortunate to be a spectator of and later a participant in these encounters. During the dark period between 1992 and 1997 when Mobutu and Zaire were being shunned by the international community, Wally and I were amongst the very few Americans still residing in country, and many times we were the only clients at the club. With no one else to hang out with, we got so accustomed to each other’s company that we used up all of our drinking stories. Countless times one of us would start up on a favorite anecdote and the other would say “I’ve already heard that one, but go ahead; I don’t mind hearing it again”. To this day, when something funny, out of the ordinary or outrageous happens to me, my first reaction is “I must call up Wally and tell him about this”.
While he could be cantankerous on occasion, Wally was also a very caring, compassionate person, and he was a great father. His office was located behind his residence and while at work, he frequently received visits from one or the other of his two young daughters. On these occasions he would immediately put aside anything he was doing to give his daughter his full attention. Among other things, Kristel would show up with questions on her homework and Nathalie was especially prone to bursting into the office, jumping up into her Dad’s lap, and wrapping her arms around his neck. He made a point of always being there for a hug and a few comforting words. I remember one time Wally told me that a visitor, after seeing him interact with his daughters had said he had decided to rethink his own lifelong decision to not have children. Wally told me that this made him feel pretty good.
While I miss Wally’s presence, I am comforted when I take into account that his suffering is over. Getting to know Kristel during her recent visit to Kinshasa reassured me that Wally’s spirit is embodied in the minds and character of his two daughters and this helps to take the edge off my grief. It isn’t easy though. Kinshasa will never be the same without my old friend. May he rest in peace. TOBY
Remembering Wally.
We first visited Wally’s “atelier” about 25 years ago. I remember it as bare and empty; a sort of forgotten back lot along the ports, but Wally obviously thought it was great. And it is! Wally took the storehouses and built apartments, he planted avocadoes and bougainvillea. He hung orchids in every corner that needed a little softening. Now we all live there, Dag, Minaz and us. We are there with the team Wally built up of handymen that can fix about anything: they will build a cabinet, frame a picture, or turn a container into a house. It is just Wally who is missing. No one delivers the three day old paper anymore, with half-smile and humor as dry as the newsprint itself. No one to stop by with the little pot of beans he cooked himself or to divide up the ripe avocadoes so we all get exactly our share. No one watching the evening news then up at 6 o’clock to get the day off right. Somedays just don’t get off right anymore. We miss you Wally. Terese
Wally’s perspective…
I think it may have been our rural Midwestern backgrounds that set the stage for the friendship between me and Wally. But it was a shared sense of humor about life in Kinshasa that led to a special understanding of each other over the years.
Every day in Kinshasa brought its little tribulations, hassles, problems that could have been avoided if only things were better organized. There was nothing we could do about most of them. They were as unavoidable, and unchangeable as the dusty crowd milling along the cratered road with its interminable traffic jams just outside our gate. But we could always joke about it all, most often relaxing over a beer at the end of the day.
Both Wally and I liked Congolese contemporary art, and especially the painting. One day we were commiserating about the difficulties encountered on the detours and back roads we took to avoid better traveled cross roads where there were traffic cops notorious for their petty shake downs. Wally made the off hand comment that “ a slice of the old gray matter gets taken off every day”.
“At this rate it won’t be long and there will be nothing left,” He laughed.
The image became a standing joke between us. Every small problem we reported to each other was announced as “another cut”. Every absurdity endured, we told each other, “It’s going fast”.
One evening, over a cold beer as the lovely golden light slanted into the parcel, Wally suggested we go see his friend the Congolese artist, Cheri Samba. Cheri Samba’s paintings developed themes of Kinshasa’s daily life. He certainly had an appreciation of the absurd that attracted Wally and me.
“ Let’s see if he can pick up on that theme of the daily cut”, Wally laughed.
Cheri Samba loved the idea, and one day, almost a year after we met him at his workshop in one of Kinshasa’s neighborhoods, he called Wally to come and get his “tableau”. Wally called me over that evening to come and see it. It was magnificent and totally hilarious. A series of vignettes, images of Kinshasa’s daily life, with a self portrait of the artist in each witness to it all, a caricature of resignation to the forces beyond his control. In each self portrait his brain was sitting beside him, attached to his head by an umbilical-like cord, and a slice neatly cut off. There was the traffic cop, stopping the car for some imagined “major infraction”. There was the street scene with an overloaded hand-pushed wheel barrow creating a major traffic jam. There was the petty bureaucrat presenting a list of hitherto unknown and unpaid taxes.
As I think back now about that painting, and how it came to be, it brings together for me a special side of Wally, his unswerving capacity to take Kinshasa as it came, and to make some thing of it.
I will miss Wally dearly. Kinshasa will continue to lurch on to its destiny unknown…But there will be for me an empty place that won’t easily be filled, a sharing of experience and an understanding of life in this African capital that will never be replaced. John
The Congo is second home since 1974 when I came as Peace Corps teacher to what was then Zaire. It was here that John and I decided to marry, and it was here that two of our three daughters were born. We finished our educations – John with a doctorate in wildlife ecology and mine in plant ecology – then back to Congo and full-time working with Congolese for conservation of their last wildlife-rich forests.
teresehart AT gmail DOT com
Terese is…
...otherwise known as mamaT and still in Kinshasa preparing the bonobo round table and the Abraham ceremony.
...John is in Kindu and has been there more than four weeks. He has dispersed the team leaders through Maniema. Dino is already in Orientale. John will stay behind in Kindu a few more days helping to set up the teams for participatory delimitation of the provincial protected area. YEAH.
...We now have a tab for maps. Our first map is of posts and places from which we have reported. It's great, thanks, Nick.
Soon afterwards US Fish and Wildlife Service joined Arcus and Abraham to allow us to stay in the field for nearly two years.
Other groups/people brought more capacity and sub-projects: Iowa Great Ape Trust (communication), Canadian Ape Alliance (training), Edith McBean (primate study areas).
We began year three with new and generous support from: the Arcus Foundation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wallace Global Fund, Abraham Foundation,
Edith McBean.
Part way into year three we were assured two more years of funding from DFID. This will give our bushmeat monitoring, hunting controls, and village to village campaign a tremendous boost.
A Happy New Year of 2010 as a new foundation, Woodtiger Fund, has pledged two years of support. We are now certain that in 2010 we will be able to move our campaign north into the Balanga chefferie and the Tutu valley.
How can you help? We accept private donations, no matter how small (or big) through a registered charity. Just as important: spread the message, link to us, talk about us, contact us! But donations DO matter, whatever amount they might be, they help and they encourage!
About Our Project
The three river basins of the Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba Rivers (TL2), Congo’s forest enigma, ascend through its geographic heart. We have answered our first question "Is Congo's own great ape, the bonobo, found in TL2?" Yes it is? And so is Congo's endemic rainforest giraffe, the okapi and the rare Congo peacock. But, now the challenge is to bring real protection to the forests before the bonobo and all other large animals are hunted out.
We make a great team:
John Hart, my husband, who has led exploration and inventory missions around Congo for the last 25 years, along with
Five expert team leaders, Dino Tshwa, Bernard Ikembelo, Maurice Emetshu, Crispin Kibambe, and Christian Urom.
All of us working closely with some 30-40 other staff, from dugout captain, to community project leader and from cooks to porters, all essential.
We’ve been in the field – Congo’s TL2 – since May 2007.
