Le Bozoba

11-5-2008

First a picture of the toilet paper since I couldn’t get it to you before.

Some of you have asked if Shantel (The Orphanage Nurse) has any formal training. I would have to say no, not like what we’re used to. She did work as a “nurse assistant” here in the DRC, but even if she were a full fledged nurse, I don’t believe that it would be up to the needed standards. We need to lobby ADRA or some other Mission Doctor org for regular visits to the orphanage and perhaps some training for Shantel.

Also, we’ve been asked several times who is writing the blog. Well, it is Paul, from a third person perspective, with group input on what we'd like to talk about. On the days where there are some grammatical errors or misspellings, those are the days that I (first person) have a small blip of a connection and have to hurry in fear of not being able to upload - English was never my strong suit anyway.

Today we went on a Sah-Fah-Ree (Safari) with Father Emery.

We visited a DRC reserve where they have Bonobos. Bonobos are only found in the DRC and are one of the 3 great apes that live here. They are only found in the DRC because they are terrible swimmers, and the land they occupy is naturally surrounded by water. They are such terrible swimmers that they use a stick, when walking through water, to determine the depth and to make sure that it is safe.

Bonobos look a lot like chimpanzes, but are a separate species with a very unique social environment. The women are the dominant ones. Not only are they the dominant apes, they are also the protectors as well. When there is a hazard to the group the males will flee into the trees while the women arm themselves with Batons (clubs) to protect the family. They are also highly intelligent as each has a name and responds to verbal communication – we had trouble as they only know French. Our guide mentioned that they have even used fire to cook their food!



They are also a very “intimate” group without lifelong partners. In fact, one could say that they are a bit over-sexual as they are intimate with anyone, and everyone, in the group regardless of sex or age. Father Gabriel tried to play down our guide’s words during the interpretation, but we knew exactly what the guy was saying.

The male Bonobos do not like human males at all. They were extremely loving and affectionate to the girls in our group, but would grab handfuls of dirt and grass and throw them at the boys. Doug and Christian actually got a face full of dirt and later Doug had a rock thrown at him.

It was a real privilege to see the Bonobo as they are endangered. Since the females don’t have many offspring (average 3) during their lifetime, they may not be with us very much longer. People are eating them!

We had a beautiful lunch on a mountainous lake in the middle of nowhere and took a ride on circa 1970s paddle boats. It was a glorious day as we needed the break away from the pollution. While there, the kids decided they would try and climb some bamboo, and Paul jokingly called them Le Bozobos (combining Bozo and Bonobos which we’d just seen). Turns out, this is a real Lingala word which means imbecile – who would’ve thought!



Last stop of the day, we went to the local craft market to get souvenirs. What a crazy buy/sell environment. You could have 4 vendors tapping on your shoulder at any one time trying to sell you something. Each vendor tells you that you are his best friend and to please just give him one moment. It’s not like they only ask once either. You just have to smile and continually say “No Merci” over and over until they give up. We got some good stuff though and headed back to a dark mission as the electricity is still out.

On the way back, Ashton spotted a little boy that was shuffling himself down the median of the street. His legs were lame, and he had flip-flops on his hand as he would shuffle forward dragging himself along on a bent knee – he crossed the street like this. This tugged on Ashton’s heart strings and he couldn't help but feel like he wanted to do something - there was simply no way for us to fill that need. The tragedy of not being able to help everyone hit him very hard.
David Achata gave Corrinne a quote before she left, “We can do no great thing, only little things with great love.” I guess we’ll just have to do what we can.