La foret qui parles (the forest that speaks)

To some of you, this may come as a bit of surprise - for others, perhaps not. We arrived in Bukavu, South Kivu, in eastern DR Congo last night after a couple of flights and a long drive through 'Nyungwe National Park' - or, in other words, the jungle.

It is our second day here and we have just finished a short security briefing for our area, and things are relatively safe. We are here in the DR Congo living and working with an ngo (non-governmental organization) called Tearfund (click here). Monica has taken up a 1 year post as the Public Health Promotion Advisor - working with local staff and communities on the subject of hygiene, sanitation, HIV/AIDS, and facilitating trainings on specific on health needs. Ian has taken up a 1 year post as a Grants and Information officer - meeting with donors, writing grants and working to secure funding, so that really important programs can continue to run. We will be traveling between Bukavu in South Kivu, Goma in the North Kivu and various project sites. This is such a beautiful country.

Anyways, the longest part of our journey which ended in crossing the Rwandan border into the Congo after dark was the long overland voyage from Kigali, Rwanda to Bukavu. On the way we took a rest in a town called 'Butare' - which, according to our driver was the site of Rwanda's 'first school', under the former colonizers. He also informed us that Butare was Rwanda's first city. It was a really lovely town, with boulevards (tree lined streets) lots of hotels, restaurants and shops, local fast food-type places - Butare even boasts national museums of culture and art. Brilliant.

Our drive through Rwanda was beautiful. Unlike Port-au-Prince, the overcrowded and polluted capital of Haiti, Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) is extremely clean and well-maintained. Sadly, it doesn't have a view of the ocean which is one of the many things Port-au-Prince has going for it, but the terraced nature of the city, the lush gardens, people walking and others riding pedal bikes, gave us the feeling that we had arrived in a sort of East African Shangri-la. And we weren't even in the Embassy district.

Some more prevalent things we saw during our drive through Rwanda:
- Tilapia stocked fish hatcheries with little chicken coops above the water to shower the fish with some organic fertilizer (if you know what we mean).

- Gridded rice patties with people dressed in orange working among the crops. The combination of orange and rice reminded us more of Nepal than anywhere else.

- Eucalyptus trees, evergreens, terraced hillside tea and coffee plantations - 'plantations' being used in the NOT south-eastern United States sense.

- Amazing roadside villages with lovely homes, power lines, maintained infrastructure.

One of the most memorable parts of our overland from Kigali to Bukavu was our trip through the national park, previously mentioned above. It took us something like 3 hours to drive through one end and come out the other, closer to the Congo border. As the sun began to set and the temperature dropped outside, along with the cool air came a distinct sound - like the squeal of trains breaking on railroad tracks. It was like a blue, metallic sound, not ear splitting, but peaceful. I figured it was the soft jabber of insects or some other thing. Perplexed, we asked our driver, a jolly guy called Justice, what the sound was. And, taking his eyes off the road for a short second to look at us directly, he said 'It is the trees themselves, who are speaking'.

Colobus Monkey


Tea Plantation through the trees