Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The road to the river at Befori made the journey between Djolu and Kokolopori seem easy. We
stopped often as the young Congolese who rode with me on the back bumper cut away fallen trees.
There were a few old brick Belgian and missionary homes, this region known for coffee plantations
before the national infrastructure degraded and the last of the expatriate community fled in the early
nineties.
Small clouds passed all day, no rain but for a few scattered drops, and as the sun hit the horizon,
golden against the forest canopy, we reached Befori. I'd imagined a port town with markets and
rows of shanties, but there was just the grassy shore, a few small huts, and a woman cooking fish in
a pot over a fire. The only boat was ours, a vessel composed of three forty-five-foot-long dugouts
lashed together side by side, with a neat roof of blue tarpaulin over the center. The dugouts had been
carved from massive trees and sat low in the water. One was reserved for fuel drums and two were
for people, bamboo cots set head to foot inside, each with a thin foam mattress. In the rear of the
boat, there was an open space with more fuel, where the boatmen steered the outboard engines.
The next morning, while the boat was being loaded, we visited Likongo, Jean Gaston's conser-
vation site, motorcycles shuttling us through bamboo forest and across rotting log bridges, each trip
taking more than an hour. BCI received its warmest welcome yet: ceremonies and talks and dan-
cing. The local people held a symbolic wedding between their community and BCI, consecrating
the new partnership, and they gave Sally a spear and a thick copper bracelet.
People showed us their projects, speaking of Jean Gaston's leadership, of how he'd used his
own money to lay the groundwork for a community-based reserve. As they guided us to a large
hollowed area where they had cleared the trees and dug up a spring for their pisciculture project,
Sally and I walked past a mamba, oblivious to the danger. Behind us, Mwanza saw it, just off the
path, a few feet from our ankles. He jumped, spun, and ran. The snake apparently fled, too. Jean
Gaston's people beat at the underbrush with sticks, but the snake didn't reappear. We learned that
Jean Gaston's daughter had died the year before from a mamba bite.
After a final meal, we again headed toward the river. The boat had left Befori to meet us at the
port nearest to Likongo. Again, the motorcycle ride took an hour, though in a different direction,
with an additional forty minutes for the removal of a large fallen tree from the path. We then walked
for an hour through forest toward the boat. In each village, we stopped and spoke to local leaders,
Mwanza or Sally explaining BCI's work and its long-term vision, taking sips of
lotoko
and leaving
small gifts of cash.
On the boat, whatever reticence I had about a six-day river haul, sleeping head to heel with nine
others, dissolved, and soon I knew that the journey would be one of the most memorable of my
life. Immense palms grew thick on the shores, a corridor of pale foliage beyond which the forest
canopy rose. Every few hours we passed a solitary fisherman standing in a dugout as small as a
surfboard. He paddled close and held up a fish that the team bought. At one point they purchased a
