Wildlife in the DRC

Yep, that's about as wild as it gets here in the DRC. There are a lot of goats and chickens, some pigs, dogs, birds and a monkey. The pig I had to stop for right before I entered the mine gate, the monkey lives in base camp and likes to terrorize the dogs, and the goat was in the road on the way to Lubumbashi. The Congolese people mainly own goats and chickens; most are afraid of dogs so there are few wandering around. Mainly the dogs I have seen belong to the ex-patriots here in base camp. In my orientation I learned that there used to be rhinos, some kind of zebra, gorillas, and several other wild animals in the DRC however after years of civil wars and pouching all the animals were driven away and/or killed. This basically means that, unfortunetly, while in Africa I will most likely not see any of the big game. I do hope to see a snake though (from my truck). The Black Mamba and Green Mamba are both native to this area and very poisonous, hence why I would like to see one from the comfort of my truck.

New Camera Surprise

On Wednesday I received a package from home, a new camera. Thanks to my mom for buying the camera and Veronica for arranging its' transportation. When I turned the camera on to play and see how it worked I was pleasantly surprised to find some pictures already taken. Over Memorial Day weekend all of my family was in Thatcher hanging out and I was over in Africa - sad. My mom bought me the camera that weekend, so she took some pictures of the fam. It was so much fun looking at them. Here are a couple of my favorites.
My 3 nieces are pretty cute! From the pictures it looked like they had a lot of fun and some of my favorites - smoothies and corn on the cob.

Highlights from Lubumbashi

Just a few random memories and pictures (bigger as requested by Beth) from the trip to Lubumbashi:

Toll booths - we passed through three. At two the way was guarded with a frayed rope, not too much of a deterrent for a car that really wanted to get through I'm thinking. Passing through many small villages looking much like this.

The kindergarten (that's about how old I think they were) kids crossing the street. A crosswalk lady of sorts stopped traffic as a huge group of kids crossed the street...in a full out, mad dash. It was so funny. I took a video of it to show my mom as she used to have to cross the street 20 times a day with her kindergarten class. Unfortunately I cannot get the video off my camera so I can't share the joy with everyone. I did capture a picture of the very cute kids, they seem to be walking but don't be misled.

People along the road - walking, biking, sitting, pumping water, selling things, dancing. It was pretty diverse and entertaining. At one village one person was selling fish from a stick/rope while his friend sold rats..yes that's right..hanging from a rope. I did a double take and still didn't know if I had seen it correctly. Crazy. Traffic control - on a few of the intersections in downtown there was a stand where an officer could stand and direct traffic. It involved a lot of arm waving and yet traffic was still as crazy as ever (look closely in the middle of this picture to see the stand and the guy).
These vans's were the taxi's. They could fit up 15 or so people. Each taxi had the driver and then the wing man - the guy who hung out a side window looking for people who needed rides, opening and closing the door, collecting money, etc.

Even with the unexpected overnight stay, the trip to Lubumbashi was really great. I feel like it gave me a look and taste of the Congolese culture that I may not have gotten otherwise.

Lubumbashi Part 2 - the overnighter

When driving to Lubumbashi, there are policies that have to be followed. When we got to the edge of the concession, there was a security officer that we had to check out with. He radioed the Lubumbashi security with our truck number, etc. to let them know we were coming. When we got to Lubumbashi we had to report straight to the security office to check in. I felt pretty safe with this system in place. While the fighting in the DRC is in the north - very far away from where I am - I knew that people would be aware if something were to happen to us on the road. After checking in with security we headed downtown to do our shopping. We went to 6 shops to get purchase orders for the items we were going to buy and then to lunch at the Vagabond Hotel. This was the best part of lunch, the best part of Lubumbashi for that matter...
...this will possibly be the only ice cream I have until July 1 or 2. I plan on buying ice cream at the Jo'Berg and/or London airports on my way home. After lunch we went to the accountant to get cash for the purchase orders - it was a lot of cash. We had asked each shop to gather our items together so we could just come back, pay, and collect the items quickly. Wrong. We got a nice taste of Congolese culture, no one is in any hurry (except us). At each shop we paid and then painstakingly got our items collected. Finally at 5:00 with all the goods in hand it was back to the accounant to return our change and then to security to checkout. When we got to the security office they notified us that no one can leave for Fungarume after 2:00, we were 3 hours late. Great, what to do now? After some phone calls and lots of laughs we had rooms at the Vagabond. The entire situation was hilarious; an unexpected overnighter. We all pretty much had only the clothes on our back. I actually had a backpack, but I was using it as a purse. There was not a single thing in it that would help me on an overnight trip, expect maybe gum that I could chew to ward off bad breath. Try staying at a hotel room with nothing sometime, it is quite an experience. The hotel room consisted of two twin beds pushed together, a mosquito net, some bottled water, and a bar of soap (and towels, a TV - you know the usual stuff). At least I could sleep without getting mosquito bites, stay hydrated and wash my hands.

Pictures: the hotel, me on Tuesday morning in my room looking the same as I had on Monday (even the bobbi pins in my hair hadn't moved) and an inventory of my backpack.

On Tuesday morning we got clearance from security to leave Lubumbashi and made it back to Fungarume just in time for a lunch of bone-in-fish. My favorite!?!

Lubumbashi

When I flew here the route was Phoenix - London - Johannesburg - Lubumbashi - Tenke. Durning the 6 hour wait in Lubumbashi I went into town with a few other Freeport employees for lunch. All I could remember of the town was dirt roads. I think my mind was in shock from the newness and strangeness of what I was seeing because we didn't even drive on a dirt road that day. On Monday as we drove into Lubumbashi I was surprised by the semi-moderness of the town, it didn't look how I remembered it. Most of the main streets are paved but have dirt shoulders and all of the side roads are dirt. The town has many modern things, as shown in these pictures, but also a lot that is not as modern. This picture shows a view while driving into town. There are a lot of people walking along the side as well as people selling things. There are also tons of money booths where someone will sit by a crate with a stack of Congolese Franks that can be exchanged for dollars. The exchange rate is somewhere around 800 Congolese Franks to 1 dollar.

There were stop lights. Sometimes only the green light worked so I guess everyone just knows that if none of the lights are lit up it means stop.

In this picture I was trying to capture the traffic, it was horrible. New York City traffic seems very organized compared to Lubumbashi. One time we were at an intersection where there were no stop signs or traffic lights. The cars were just pulling out and going at random, what a mess. Someone should introduce them to the four way stop. The most crazy thing about the traffic is that hardly any of the cars have dents or dings; I'm not sure how they manage to not get into accidents.

This is a gas station. In the heart of the city there were actual gas stations as we know them, but there were also these lovely stands all over the place. I'm thinking each jug is about 1 part gas 3 parts water.
There is a portion of Lubumbashi that I refer to as the "gated community". Here all of the houses are surrounded by walls and it is a pretty nice area. There are some employees of the mine whose families live in Lubumbashi and they live in this area. The company offices and the Vagabond (a hotel that only TFM employees can stay at) are also in this area. On our trip we got to know the Vagabond quite well, but that will be a story for the next post.

Ode to Spaghetti

I'm not going to lie to you, spaghetti is the best meal! It is my favorite by far. I would like to say that I have never met a spaghetti that I haven't liked, however there have now been 2.
1) Sophmore year in college - some of you may remember this. It was break-the-fast at the end of a Fast Sunday and the ward incharge of dinner made spaghetti. One pot of spaghetti sauce got burned and instead of cutting their loses they decided to mix all the pots together. End result - all of the spaghetti sauce was ruined. It was so awful, even college students who had just been fasting could not eat it.
2) Base Camp mess hall in Tenke. Tonight's dinner was soup or spaghetti. While I love soup I couldn't pass up the spaghetti. My first bite I was expecting nothing but spaghetti bliss, but was surprised with way over cooked and horrible tasting noodles. I tried to pick through as much as I could, a little noddles with a lot of sauce, but I could only manage about 1/3 of the serving.

Luckily these two experiences won't deter me from my favorite meal. In my 28 years of spaghetti experience, 2 bad meals is not too bad of odds.

International Highway

On Monday I went with Raymond (second in charge at the lab) and Sekoul (matainence guy at the lab) to Lubumbashi to do some shopping for the lab. Lubumbashi is the second largest city in the DRC and is about 185 km away from Fungarume. We took the international highway, which is a fairly well maintained road for the DRC. I took a whole bunch of pictures on the trip from the front seat of the truck; hence the windshield glare at times. This first half of the highway looked like this:

A portion of the middle like this: And the end portion like this:
The second half was a pretty good road minus the HUGE potholes every once in a while. There were almost always people walking or biking along the side of the highway and we passed through a good 25 villages. Sekoul was good at letting them know we were coming by honking; one time he honked through an entire village - and he was being serious. This highway gets quite a bit of use as it is the route for the acid, copper and other carrier trucks coming to the mine. Perhaps in time the entire road will be paved. Right now the first 85 km or so out of Fungarume is all dirt and gets very dusty, especially now during the dry season. When we were stuck behind a car/truck or being passed by a large truck this is all we saw...or didn't see:There were times when the dust was much thicker than this. It was like driving through a blizzard except the roads weren't slick.

The trip to Lubumbashi was full of adventure. More to come...