By Rich and Fran Juro (2018)
Our friend Brian, who conducts safaris in Zimbabwe and Uganda, and now leads dangerous anti-poaching teams in Southern Africa, told us: “I’ll never land in the Kinshasa Airport again. The last time we lost a good part of our luggage and money, and we were in fear for our lives.”
Our friend Munro, who lives in Capetown, South Africa, and has traveled extensively, stated: “The Congo is the last place I’d visit.”
The Advent of the Adventure
We were running out of countries in our quest to go to all 195 or so nations (193 in the UN, plus Kosovo and the Vatican Republic). Yemen and Afghanistan are still too dangerous for us to visit, and the small West African countries were just getting free of the deadly Ebola epidemic.
Kinshasa is the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where we would be flying into. The DRC, as the big Congo is known, is a large country in Central Africa, rich in minerals and other resources, but near the bottom of the world list in helping its people become safe, secure, and lead a decent and happy life.
Our decision to head to the DRC was firmed up when we met Professor Paul Williams. He is the head of the religion department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Paul was born and raised in a village in the Congo by a missionary mother and engineer father. He assured us:
“I’m heading for the Congo for a month. I’ll be happy to set my schedule so I can be in Kinshasa then and take you around or arrange for a guide.”
To get a visa for the Congo, one must get a “recommendation”. Paul sent our visa application to his friend, Prof. Mgr. Daniel Ngoy Boliya, Director of the Universite Protestante au Congo. Prof. Ngoy “recommended us”, and eventually our visa was officially granted. But a few days before we were to fly to Kinshasa, Paul regretfully told us: “My own visa has not yet been approved, so I can’t meet you there, and I can only get you a guide or driver if I’m there in person.”
But Paul did give us the name of a friend living in Kinshasa. When contacted, she gave us the name of Jeffery Travel. We e-mailed them, but worried that no e-mails would get through because of a scheduled demonstration by the Catholic Church against Congolese President and strongman Joseph Kabila (which shows how convoluted things get in the DRC). Luckily, the e-mail worked, and Jeffery’s people showed up at the airport to meet us. We had planned well and had no checked baggage that could be broken into or disappear. We only had two stuffed rollerboards that we brought on the plane. Our suitcases had been shipped directly to New Zealand, the next destination. The guys from Jeffery Travel led us outside in the dark for a couple of blocks to their office. We paid, and they did take us the 25 miles to the surprisingly excellent Hotel Kempinski Fleuve.
If you look on the Internet for guides or tours in Kinshasa, unlike any other big capital city of 12,000,000, there is nothing listed. But when Paul couldn’t make it, Fran had called Audrey, our travel agent. Audrey contacted American Express, which came up with an expensive but real tour company with a Kinshasa “branch office”. Sure enough, the next morning, our guide, Norbert Selenge, appeared in the lobby. After chatting for a few minutes about what to do, we went out to the car driven by Adolph.
Norbert was in his late twenties. He had grown up in the Southeastern part of the Congo near Katanga and Lake Tanganyika. He was chosen to attend the American Catholic University in Belgium, where he learned to speak English well. His wife had died (the life expectancy in the Congo is quite low), and he had a 6 year old daughter, Clara, who was living with an aunt. Unfortunately, the private school (public schools are terrible) his daughter was attending needed $300 more for her tuition, books, and uniforms. Norbert didn’t have the money, so his daughter was not attending school. Sad but not uncommon. (When back in the USA, we wired money via Western Union to the headmaster of the school, so Clara was able to enroll.)
The Bonobos
The one attraction we knew about and were looking forward to is called Lola ya Bonobo. Literally “Paradise for Bonobos”, it’s a 75-acre sanctuary for orphaned and injured bonobos. The bonobos are great apes, similar to chimpanzees. They are endangered for three main reasons: because people are clearing the native habitat of the bonobos in order to farm, bonobos are eaten as bush meat, and little bonobos are captured to be resold as pets.
Chimps and bonobos are both 98.5% same DNA as humans, which make both our closest living relatives. Some differences between them:
bonobos live only in the Congo, south of the Congo River, while chimps live north of the river and across Central Africa;
chimps are slightly larger, which is probably why bonobos were originally called pygmy chimpanzees;
the bonobos’ brains are larger and more developed than in chimps;
each chimp group is led by an alpha male, while bonobos are led by an alpha female;
perhaps because of who their leaders are, chimps make war, while bonobos make love (with any partner, in all ways, and all the time!).
To reach the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary, Adolph had to drive us for two hours, mostly on a rutted, muddy dirt road. We had called to see when Suzy, the English-speaking handler, could show us around. We didn’t mind waiting when we saw that Suzy was finishing an educational tour with a group of young Congolese students.
Suzy led us to a spot across the small lagoon from the natural habitat where the bonobos lived. She started crying out a special sound, and slowly a clan of bonobos started appearing from the brush. Suzy explained, “This group has learned that my special call means dinner”.
We circled the edge of the lagoon to get nearer. We were separated from the bonobos only by a wire mesh. Tasty fruits were tossed over or handed through. Particularly entrancing was the baby that clung to her mother’s back. Suzy told us the alpha female was named Samander and bossed all the others around, whether female or male. I told Suzy that Fran’s name was Samander too, which Suzy thought was an amazing coincidence.
After explaining about bonobos and the sanctuary, Suzy had to leave to guide another group to the nursery and later for a two mile hike around the property. They would see other groups of bonobos “au natural” who were being prepared for release to the wild. They might even see bonobos using twigs or stones as tools to get food. Yes, bonobos are clever. At the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary, bonobos have been taught to drive golf carts, grow their own food, and even communicate with humans using a collection of 400 lexigram symbols.
Another handler appeared in a rowboat in the lagoon. He threw fruit onto the shore. Some went into the water. The bonobos cannot swim, but they didn’t mind wading into the lagoon to get the food. Some bonobos interrupted their lunch to engage in sexual acts. They didn’t seem to care what age or gender their partner was nor what position they took. We laughed a lot but felt like voyeurs at an open-air peep show.
The handler eventually ran out of fruit, and the bonobos drifted back into the vegetation. We certainly felt privileged to see our remarkable “cousins” in a natural habitat and learn about them. Knowing how they make love rather than war made us wish that humans inherited more of the bonobos’ DNA and less of the chimps.
Driving home continued the adventure. Even though Adolph was a skilled driver, the company had not given him a 4-wheel drive vehicle. So we got stuck in a 50 foot mud puddle. With the aid of a long board and a couple of local guys to push, after 20 minutes or so we finally emerged from the muck.
Kinshasa and the Chabad
The next day was our “city tour”. Adolph showed up in a different car as the previous one had a damaged transmission from the mudhole escapade. We set out to visit a few sights in Kinshasa from the listings in Trip Advisor. First, we went to the National Museum. It’s a good-sized building with a nice collection. It’s the only museum in the Congo with traditional tribal crafts on display. We were assigned a young lady as a docent, but her English was so poor that Norbert had to give explanations.
Next, we headed for the Academie des Beaux Arts. It has a large garden with trees, foliage, and large sculptures. Inside there’s a workshop for local artists, and a showroom with paintings, crafts, and sculptures for sale.
Then we drove to the big craft market. It has over 100 stalls filled with creations by local craftsmen and artists. We were the only shoppers there, so we were very popular. As anyone who has been in our home knows, we don’t have any room left, so we left without any purchases.
Our next stop was the National Post Office. We collect “first day covers”, which are new stamps on envelopes issued (and canceled) the original day of issue. The post office actually had a “Philatelic Window” for stamp collectors, but the clerk had decided to leave early, and no one else could help us. We came back the next day, the clerk was there, but said they didn’t have anything for us. When we went over to the regular window to mail some post cards, that clerk tried to charge us $5 US postage for each card. We don’t mind helping local people, but we don’t like being ripped off. Our grandkids were surprised that the Congo picture postcards were postmarked in Australia.
We had read with surprise that there was a Chabad house in Kinshasa. A Chabad house is a center for disseminating traditional Orthodox Judaism by the Lubavitcher Hasidic (“black hat”) movement. They are in over 100 countries and over 1,000 cities worldwide. In those cities with few Jews, the Chabad also provides outreach to non-Jews with humanitarian and spiritual aid. We had tried to e-mail the rabbi from the USA but received no reply. Most Chabad rabbis are known to each other, but even Rabbi Mendel Katzman who runs the Omaha Chabad was not able to contact the Kinshasa rabbi.
Norbert called the phone number for the Chabad, and he made an appointment for 4 pm. Adolph drove us to the address listed in the center of Kinshasa. There was an impressive building. Inside there was a big grassy courtyard with palm trees surrounded by numerous offices and a beautiful synagogue.
Rabbi Shlomo has been in Kinshasa for 21 years. He’s originally from Montreal, so fluent in both French and English. He supervised the construction of the Chabad 19 years ago. The rabbi has dedicated his life to keeping the Jewish rituals and traditions alive for the Jewish people who live there and for those visiting or working in the Congo. He said there are about 250 members in his congregation. They have a minion (religious service) twice a day. Rabbi Shlomo is the head rabbi for the 6-7 Chabads in Africa. He also performs good works for the local Congolese.
He and his wife, the Rebbitzin, have raised a family. Three grown sons are (I think) in Paris, Montreal, and the US, and his daughter is married to a Lubavitcher young man from Montreal. The young couple is opening a Chabad in the West African country of the Ivory Coast (actually, Cote d’ Ivoire, so French is as necessary there as in Congo). We thanked Rabbi Shlomo for his hospitality, made a donation, and left with a feeling of admiration for those who dedicate their life to their religion and to helping other people.
Downstream on the Congo River
Our hotel was named the Fleuve Kempinski. Fleuve in French is river, and the hotel sits on a hill overlooking the Congo River. Some facts about the river:
The Congo River is the second longest in Africa (to the Nile);
It is the second largest volume of water into the ocean (to the Amazon);
It is probably the deepest river in the world;
It’s the only river to cross the Equator twice (so it never runs dry as the rainy and dry seasons alternate);
It is navigable for most of its length, so most of the trade of the country floats on it as there are few roads or railways;
It’s the only river where national capitals sit opposite each other (Kinshasa of the DRC is on the opposite shore from Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, a similar name but separate nation);
Cataracts from Kinshasa to the Atlantic Ocean prevent boats or cargoes on the river from reaching the ocean, so the products from the interior must be off-loaded and transported by railroad from Kinshasa to the ocean port 200 miles away.
Norbert suggested we take a river cruise the next day. Adolph drove us for over an hour through the streets, paved and unpaved, until we reached the harbor area. We then walked through littered streets that were “paved” with a variety of mud, rocks, dirt and concrete. We finally spotted our boat. It was wood, about 40 feet long, with some benches. The real problem was that it was sitting in the water about 10 feet from shore, with a gangplank stretching from the boat to the muddy shore. Fran said, “I’m not going to walk that plank”. After about 15 minutes of discussion, Norbert walked ahead of her on the wooden plank, and the two-man crew walked in the mud holding her hands. I wasn’t anxious to walk the plank either, but after Fran did it, I did it too.
It took us an hour using poles to maneuver the boat through the mass of watercraft crowding the harbor. Finally on the river, we settled down on the wooden benches to watch the scenery. There really wasn’t much to see. The ground on both sides gets flooded so it can’t be planted. But we enjoyed a delicious chicken lunch cooked by Norbert’s lady boss, who had joined us for the river cruise. After about two hours on the river, we returned, luckily finding a water path so it only took us about 15 minutes to find a place to moor. This time Adolph came up the plank and lifted Fran from the boat to the shore.
We flew out the next morning, mentally and physically tired from our visit to Kinshasa, Congo, but filled with wonderful memories.
A few months later, Congo had its own Ebola epidemic.