Category Archives: Indigenous peoples

History and Maimai west of the Lomami

Children 16 and under are half the population of Balanga West; but elders, though rare, define the community. (Here Leon with Balanga West telephone-admirers) A Balanga genealogy sounds like a litany from Old Testament Genesis or First Chronicles: The first ancestor of the village of Kandolo was Likulufe. Likulufe begat a first son Kandolo who […]

Lomami’s Wild West

From the earliest colonial era through the present, Balanga West has always been too far away to matter. A classroom as it now is in Balanga West. Balanga West is the one hole in the map of our own inventories of 2007-2009. Not because we thought the Balanga West forest was unimportant, it was just […]

Lomami National Park: a New Protected Area in D.R. Congo

On July 19th 2016, the Lomami National Park took its place as Congo’s 8th national park, the first in more than forty years. The Parc National de la Lomami (PNL) markers are set along the southern limit with local chiefs. This gold nugget surfaced from the travail of many, long collaborations. The real debate started […]

How to Move a Village ?

Obenge, seemed a peaceful village… … though impoverished and utterly remote with no school and no health care. In 2007 the TL2/Lukuru project made its first landing at Obenge and soon it became our first base camp along the Lomami. About Obenge: it first appeared on maps in the early 1920s. It was not yet on this […]