Resilience (by Karen)

When we moved to our new place in January, we were thrilled to have a full kitchen, complete with stove and oven. But Eric was hankering after a grill to roast eggplants for baba ghanouj, so R got us this little one and a bag of charcoal.

This is what most Congolese use to cook all the time – more about the charcoal economy in another post.

Mmm ... smoky eggplant!

Fresh pita from Nazem, the Lebanese bakery

Tasty baba ghanouj!

We soon realized we weren’t going to use all that charcoal, and since the nights can be cold (even more so now), we let T, our night watchman, use the brasero (the hibachi-type thing) and charcoal to keep warm.

However, when the power goes out here, the generator doesn’t always get turned on, and if it is turned on, it’s only at night, and it’s only strong enough to run the lightbulbs and (yay!) the wifi router. No electric kettle, no stove or oven. So, a few weeks after its eggplant debut, the brasero was called back into service for dinner.

Resilience

We’ve only had one more brasero dinner since then, since this is not Eric’s favorite way to cook, and he’d rather get take-out from the yummy Lebanese KFC (KFC = Katanga Fried Chicken, but we usually get their falafel or shawarma) or from Galito’s.

Over the past month, we’ve had several days with only a few hours of power and nights with none at all. With no reservoir of hot bath water from the electric water heater, we’ve put the brasero to use to heat water for our morning baths and coffee. Too cold these days (or we’ve gotten too soft?) for a cold-water bucket bath!

Weather (by Karen)

We haven't posted much in a while, but I have lots of bits and pieces floating around in my head. So I've started to write them down, and will post them little by little.

Here's the first (from May 10th):

We both sleep under a blanket now, a thick shaggy polyester blanket made in China, and in the early mornings mist rises from the ground inside our compound. It burns off quickly, and the days are blue-sky clear with cotton-wool clouds. It’s warm in the sun, even hot, but the air is cool and dry. Doors that were swollen and needed a sharp push or tug to open or close during the rainy season now slide with less effort in and out of their frames. A couple of months back, the last of the avocados from the tree in the yard plummeted to the ground, then the tree was covered in cream-colored spikes of small flowers, and then baby avocados the size of grapes started falling. The drops are getting progressively bigger; maybe some will be edible by the time we leave at the end of July.

Zim-Zam Addendum: Livingstone Railway Museum

I found some pictures from the Railway Museum in Livingstone. We arrived after it had closed, but we could look at some of the exhibits through the fence. While walking back to town, we saw the working coal-fired steam train that still runs as a tourist attraction go by. The coal smoke really stank. The train crosses the Victoria Falls Bridge, which supports road, rail & foot traffic.

Zambia State Railways.

Obviously, if I had Photoshop, I could try to stitch those together. The engine above and the one visible below were different, but identically painted steam engines. You can read "Rhodesia Railways" on the passenger car. Northern Rhodesia became Zambia in 1964.

One more photo. This was taken this morning in Lubumbashi. Our little friend found itself in a predicament. We released it into the wilds of our backyard. Too cute to flush.

Our Zim-Zam trip (by Eric)

(It should really be Zam-Zim because we traveled from Zambia to Zimbabwe, but Zim-Zam sounds better.)

Last October we got an invitation from an old friend of Karen's to go hiking in Zimbabwe in April,  so we've been planning on this practically since we arrived. We went overland through Zambia to Livingstone with A, Karen's colleague from the University of Lubumbashi. On the way, we stopped overnight at the Chikuni Mission, where Seattle University has a connection. After a couple days in Livingstone, Karen and I flew to Harare for the hike, while A returned to Lubumbashi overland. The trip was about two weeks in all.
Our primary taxi driver, R, was having car trouble, so at 6:30 am on the Saturday before Easter our "understudy" taxi driver, M, came to get us and A to take us to Kasumbalesa – the town at the border between Zambia and the DRC, about an hour away. We had gotten our visas before we left, so it was pretty straightforward to walk through the border crossing and pick up another taxi on the other side. We went to Kitwe where we bought bus tickets for Lusaka. This was our first time in Zambia, and during the ride we quickly noticed the similarities and differences between Zambia and the DRC.
Overall, things were pretty similar: the cars were similar, but in Zambia the cars drive on the left and have the steering wheels on the right while in the DRC, the cars drive on the right with the steering wheels on the right, which just isn't optimal [Karen: not safe!]. The buildings were pretty much the same and in the same basic condition, but the roads were more consistently paved in Zambia. The agricultural sector in Zambia seemed to be more robust, with lots of produce available along the roads. We saw huge pallets of tomatoes on trucks in the town across the border – probably for importing into the DRC.
The bus to Lusaka was fairly modern. After 7 hours, we arrived in Lusaka, the capitol, after dark. Most of the way the bus played some choral music sung in either Bemba or Nyanja. Just like French is the official language for the whole DRC – while individual Congolese mostly speak their local language at home and with friends – in Zambia, English is the official language for the whole country, but a number of local languages are spoken in different regions. This linguistic compromise between unity, diversity, and European languages was made by many African countries. For example, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya all use English and the traditional languages. One notable exception, Tanzania, unified the country by standardizing on just Swahili. We hear this did reduce tribal/regional differences, but it also may have made economic development more difficult vis-à-vis the West.
The hotel was only a few blocks from the bus station, which was the reason I chose it, but we were reluctant to walk there in the dark, so we paid too much for a 5-minute taxi ride. For dinner, we just walked across the parking lot to the food court at a shopping mall – not something you see in Lubumbashi!
On Sunday the three of us walked to the Zambian national museum and then took a cab to the Sunday Crafts market. The museum was kind of lame, but the craft market was pretty nice – like the similar "thieves market" in Kinshasa but without the hard-sell we felt there. [Karen: since we were traveling ultra-light with just one daypack apiece, it was easy – or necessary – to avoid temptation and resist buying the granite birdbath with a hippo's ears and eyes peeking up from the bottom, or the carved traditional-style stools or chairs. Eric bought a small piece of malachite, though, which probably came from the area around Lubumbashi but cost a fraction of what it would go for in L'shi.]
Our hotel was a corporate hotel situated next to a shopping mall, and that allowed us to watch a movie in a theater for the first time since we arrived in Africa: Danny Collins, with Al Pacino. After the film ended, we left the theater suffering from culture whiplash.

Monday we took the bus from Lusaka to Monze, where we were getting picked up by someone from the Chikuni Mission. Karen is planning to write more about our visit to the mission, but I'll give an overview from my perspective. The Chikuni Mission was founded in 1905 and currently has primary and secondary schools, a radio station, clinics, and a health center that was upgraded to a first level hospital by the Zambian government in August 2014. Karen's colleague A was interested in seeing a top-notch health center in Zambia because, unlike the US or Europe, Zambia's health system is only a bit better than the DRC's and so the clinic at Chikuni provided an example of realistic improvements over what is currently available.
I'll mention one more detail about our visit: we also learned about the home-based HIV/AIDS care program the mission runs, and in connection with that we visited the rural home of a patient. For me, it was interesting because it reminded me of visiting the home of a coffee farmer in Nicaragua. Both houses were small, poor, rural, actual homes used by people working the land, but it was also clear that Nicaragua was a bit more developed.
 Tuesday, we were driven back to Monze and made it just in time to catch the bus to Livingstone, which is the town on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. This time, the bus played some videos and I discovered that the choral music we had heard before was actually the Zambian army chorus and the songs were either religious or patriotic. They also showed Wes Craven's film, "The Breed," which was a stellar example of American cultural imperialism. [Karen: I just thought it was a stellar example of a ridiculous horror film, but several cuts above the over-sexual B-movies I used to be subjected to on bus rides in Egypt.]
In Livingstone, we stayed at a nice, affordable place called Chanter's Lodge. We arrived early in the afternoon and immediately got a taxi to take us the few miles to the falls. Ponchos and rain slickers were available, for a price, and we (foolishly?) opted out.

Satellite view of Victoria Falls; the white line is the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe

The right side of this photo is Zambia, and there is a metal walkway that runs along a ridge line to the point of land you can see across from the falls on the right. We got absolutely soaked walking across it. The water was mostly falling straight down, so I was convinced that it had started raining very hard, but it was just the spray from the falls. Very impressive. Karen discovered her rain jacket wasn't waterproof. We also walked down the to river, sort of below the bridge, to a place called the boiling pot and we also walked along the upper part around to about where the bridge is, too. There were many baboons along the path here and I was a little nervous getting too close to them. We did enjoy watching the young baboons wrestle and chase each other. We returned to Chanter's and had a disappointing dinner there.

Wednesday we signed up for the "Rhino Walk" which was pretty much what you would expect: we were picked up at the lodge and drove to the second-smallest game park in Zambia, where we drove through the park, saw some birds and antelope, then parked and walked to where two rhinos were grazing.

Rhino sisters

White rhinos are not aggressive and not particularly endangered. It's the Black rhinos that are nearly extinct. The guide suggested that, although the 2 species are the same color, the wider mouth of the White rhino may have been the source of the name: wide becoming white. These are 2 sisters. The younger was about a year old and the other about 4 years old. The mother died of natural causes a few months ago and at that time the younger joined her sister.

Thursday we said goodbye to Karen's colleague, who headed back to Lubumbashi by bus, and Karen and I crossed over the Victoria Falls Bridge into Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

The bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Can you see the bungee jumper?

We only had one night in Vic Falls, but on this side we could walk to the falls. The views from the Zimbabwe side were just as stunning as from Zambia, but we only got "rained" on for a short period, so I was able to take some pictures.

Victoria Falls. Karen providing scale.

Although we didn't see any baboons on this side, we did see these affectionate beasts:

Warthog love

More affectionate beasts:

Our honeymoon at Victoria Falls?

Friday we went to the Vic Falls airport and flew the discount airline (FlyAfrica.com) to Harare where we were picked up by Karen's friend S and S's friend J. Karen worked with S in the Philippines many years ago and J is Zimbabwean. They had organized the trip to the Nyanga National Park in the eastern highlands next to Mozambique. The first night we staying in a wonderful rental cottage set in a beautiful location near the park.

The idyllic cabin before the grueling trail

We would have been happy to have stayed there for more than just one night, but the next morning we drove to the main campus of "Far and Wide" which was a large complex of 2-bedroom and dormitory style cabins set up to provide outdoor experiences for students and corporate team building offsites. They even had a ropes course. Besides the cabins, Far and Wide also provides other services including the porters that we used to carry most of our gear. Karen and I have gone backpacking before, including a 9-night trip in Wyoming, but we had never used porters before. [Karen: I did, for a couple of days on Mt. Kenya ...] It felt a little odd to trot along with just a day pack while hiring young guys to carry huge packs. But the senior porter had also built the trail himself and loved backpacking, so I grew a little more comfortable with the arrangement.
From Far and Wide base we left to hike the Turaco Trail that loops through the Pungwe river valley and adjacent ridges. Along the trail we didn't see any larger animals or many birds, but we saw some interesting insects, including this spectacular lavender praying mantis.

A praying mantis disguised as a flower.

Karen also spotted a dwarf chameleon walking across the trail mottled brown, black, and grey like the leaf litter. It was about 4-5 inches long, but I didn't think to take a picture. I also found a porcupine quill, but the dominant feature was the flora: the trees, ferns, and vines seemed exotic to me, having done little hiking outside the northwest! We spent two nights in tents and three days hiking – the last night we spent in one of the cabins at Far and Wide, which was also a treat.

The trail passing underneath a giant tree fern.

It's always interesting visiting other countries and comparing them to what we experience in Lubumbashi. In Zambia, the better roads, cars, and obvious business activity indicated more development. The geography and the emphasis on mining are similar, but, for example, the shopping centers in Lusaka seemed to fall between those we saw in Nairobi and Kinshasa. I imagine the rural hamlet near Chikuni we visited was very similar to what we would find here in the DRC. [Karen: I thought it was more developed -- fruit trees, outbuildings, rabbit hutch, etc. than many rural DRC places would be, at least now that things have gone downhill so much over the last 40-50 years, but I've only been to a few places outside the city and am reluctant to generalize.] I could picture the DRC developing to a similar level within 5-10 years.
Zimbabwe, however, felt different. Being farther from the equator and at 4800', the climate in Harare was much more temperate. The country used to be even more developed, relative to similar African countries; however, as Wikipedia says, "Zimbabwe's economy has consistently shrunk since 2000, in an atmosphere of political turmoil, capital flight and mismanagement." This contributes to the feeling of Zimbabwe being a country going backwards and a pervasive pessimism. I'm hoping to write more about these issues in a later post.