Re: To Bima & Back Again: A Journey through the Bush of Bas-Uele
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 8:55 pm
Porters? Bath? Man you’re living the life of luxury! Lemme guess, you have more than two undershorts too.
The forum for insect collectors
https://forum.insectnet.com/
If you can afford to, I recommend packing at least 3 pairs of undershorts. That way you have a back-up pair for when you inevitably drop a fresh pair in the mud while trying to dress balanced on two lengths of wet bamboo.
Day 9, in Bamokandi, which I'll write a post about next, was a planned "rest" day, but that rainy morning back in Manonga messed up our schedule and we were never really able to recover, so it functionally became a rest half-day as we needed to do some work in the afternoon. I'll stress again that butterflying wasn't the goal of the trip.
If you look back at my post for Day 7, you'll see that we met with the village chief in Ezabisi (in truth, he hung around with us almost the whole time we were there). Everywhere else... well, there wasn't really a need to because of my association with the church. I believe it was in Disolo, that the village chief came to visit us and ate a meal with us, but if I'm not mistaken he's a member of our church, so the hierarchy of things becomes a bit fuzzy in those circumstances. If I wasn't on official church business, then meeting with the chiefs, even briefly, would be a lot more important.Chuck wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:34 pm 2. I don't recall you using the word "chief." In rural areas which are rather devoid (thankfully) of politicians, there tend to be two authorities: chiefs and churches. Granted you are associated with the latter, but I'm surprised you'd not mentioned anything about the local chiefs.
There are 2 things at play here.
Not really. We'll give $10USD to the pastor to contribute to the cost of feeding us. If there's an obvious need and we can help in the moment, we'll do that too (we left behind a few tarps, I gave away some fishing lures and gave a pastor one of my shirts, etc.), but that's done without drawing attention and usually just before leaving (or even after leaving). None of it is obligatory or expected... perhaps hoped for though. This is the approach we take among the Zande, Kango, and Barambo. In other parts of DRC, the approach needs to be modified a bit, but in my experience it hasn't been very different from what I've described.
It depended on the location, but yeah that's the usual thing that happens. Guests get the beds/house and the hosts find other sleeping arrangements. The tent helped minimize the inconvenience we caused and, frankly, gave me some measure of control over my sleeping conditions.