Searching for Bonobo in Congo

We often build bridges: Our bridges are made from mahogany and termite nests.

In the Southern buffer zone of the Lomami National Park we put in ten bridges on the road to ChombeKilima, and another on the Balanga road and yet another on the Watambolo road.

The Provincial Environment Minister took a motorbike 120 km to see the bridges. No 4-wheel vehicles can negotiate these roads, only bicycles and motorbikes, but they are still the primary “thoroughfares” and still need bridges.

When Maurice said that there was some road and bridge work in the Northern Buffer Zone we figured this would be possible and within budget.  I had recently been over the road to Elengalale camp where Maurice is based.  It had some bad parts.

But I thought the three bridges along that stretch weren’t too bad. 

Bridge repair is a frequent request from villages.  Without bridges farm produce does not get to market or family members to hospital.  We, too, use these roads; all of them have our patrol posts at their dead ends. 

So, when Maurice told us the road work was finished, but there was more bridge repair needed and that he was working with the Mbole elders to assure it happened efficiently, we gave our approval. 

Who is Maurice:  He is one of our own most faithful “elders.”  He has been with the TL2 project from the beginning and before that, worked with John Hart to inventory elephants in the Salonga National Park.  While doing outreach among the Mituku he was tortured by the bandit Portugais who is now the instigator of an ongoing insurrection; while he was TL2 team leader at Obenge in 2012 he was threatened by the rogue, prison-escapee, Thoms; when he started working in the north at Elengalale he was met by a hostile population.  Over a period of several months he won over the villages and they built a patrol post with him. 

Maurice’s first bridge budget was reasonable. 
But the budgets kept coming, the next month and the next month.

We had not noticed the picture of the Ilipa bridge in the photos of proposed road repair.  The Ilipa bridge is a major bridge, much bigger than anything we have done before.  It is on the road before the bifurcation to Elengalale.   By the time we realized what was underway it was too late to halt the work.  Maurice had mobilized a sector and two chiefdoms.  Practically every village south of Opala was participating.

The Ilipa bridge is the major bridge between Opala and Elengalale.  We crossed it in dugouts the first few times I visited.   At that time even the log crossing was down.   

When the logs were in,  the Ilipa crossing had improved to this.

But why was fixing the Ilipa bridge suddenly urgent? Apparently a number of villages had put pressure on Maurice after a motorbike fell in the River; it was carrying home the corpse of a beloved elder in his casket.

However, in a place where all work is done with shovels, machetes and axes, along with the heft and dexterity of the human body, this was a huge project. 

We visited and saw the enthusiasm. Belgian foreign aid gave empty sacks, a wheel barrow, and some shovels.   The territorial administrator cheered Maurice on.  It was too late to say no. 

Maurice was confident, “Don’t under-estimate what human labor can do.”   This was the continent that built the pyramids, after all.    But that was slave labor, here we would have to count on the chiefs – and Maurice — to keep up the enthusiasm.  Thank goodness, among the Mbole people, the chiefs have power.

In  june 2018 the work began:   the trees were selected to become the girders  that would support the largest bridge.   The first planks were sawn and lianas collected to build up abutments

But Wele, the species used for the main girders, is not frequent and the appropriate tall, straight trees (four for the first bridge) were all between five and ten km away.

Different trees were used for the surface planks, and the abutment framing-wall.

In July the work on the abutments began.
1700 sandbags were filled and put in place.

But it was in October and November that the drums began to talk seriously.   Men were called from distant villages to the Ilipa Bridges.  Time to pull the sleepers out of the forest.  Manpower was needed.

All four sleeper logs for the first bridge were between 5 and 10 km away and took five to seven days to get from forest to destination.

We bought goats, village women provided greens. We bought manioc, village women provided the pounding into flour and cooking. Everyone ate.

One by one the sleepers were pulled into placed over the course of  October and November.

For the second bridge – the materials are ready.  As the rains peter out, Maurice and the chiefs will mobilize manpower again.

Is this Maurice’s folly?  Or a “do-it-ourselves” miracle by Maurice and the chiefs?  In any case the conservation outreach aspect has been huge.