If you haven't read that Congo story, you owe it to yourself to read it. Wonder how far they would have made it without the missions/churches being in almost every village.

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Drhockey, I believe this is the link.

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http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/50799-Democratic-Republic-of-Congo-Lubumbashi-to-Kinshasa
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This Congo trip sounds miserable.

This right here from the Congo,so miserable


"Day 29

We did not have anything to do today but to keep out of trouble and wait for our mechanics. We slept until the sun transformed our tent into a sauna. Upon opening our tent we were greeted again by the looks and laughter of our crowd. The first thing we heard today was somebody shouting from a distance "Eh Mundele -Donnez-moi de l'argent!" -"Eh mundele - give me money". A very good morning to you too!

We would move our chairs regularly around the car, trying to escape the onlookers. Minutes later the crowd would then move too so they could see us again. They always kept a distance of 20meters or so, but nobody talked to us. From time to time they would shout something (usually begging). We tried to be as uniteresting as possible...

After a while I got really fed up. I took my chair and put it close to them. I sat down, facing them. I looked straight into their eyes. They looked straight back. I just sat still for half an hour, hoping they would get bored of looking at me. Or possibly even embarrased. But I lost. They did not loose interest.
I tried talking to them, explaining that we would really appreciate if they stopped looking at us as we would like to get some rest. I avoided the word privacy as it an unknown concept here anyway. I only got blank stares in return. From the back of the crowd I could here somebody shout "Donnez-nous de l'argent!" -"Give us money". Shortly after followed by "Ce n'est pas vorte pays!" - "This is not your country"

This made me so angry. He was right ofcourse, this was not my country. I was nothing more then a visitor. I had no other intentions but to explore their country and meet the people. But they did not want me here. They wanted my money, but not me.

We did meet a few interesting people though. A teacher from the local school came to see us. It was a math teacher. He had heard that I am a computer engineer. He had a question for me. He had heard about Internet and how it was such an interesting tool. But what is Internet exactly? I asked if they had computer here. They did not. He knew there were computers and Internet in Kikwit, but that is several hundres of kilometers from here.

He kept me busy for many hours. I tried my best explaining him all the different components and concepts. Everything from a modem to a webpage. I drawed him diagrams and everything. But I am a bad teacher I guess.. I could see he had difficulties understanding it all. How do you explain Internet to somebody who has never seen a computer? He took my notes and said he would teach his students about 'Internet'."h

Both, child's play

16 years in a Graham Paige.







Spark your dream

I didn't google fu him I guess I should have. Thanks!

Is he dead yet?

Somebody needs to get him a SPOT Global Phone, http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=123, that he can connect his laptop to so that he can post nightly updates on his adventures and we can see what happens to his Jeep after it is seperated from him.

So, this idiot has been in England for a couple of weeks. I thought that he was low on funds, shouldn't he be getting out of a very expensive area to be in?

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Thanks Mark. If I can find it, I'll try to post one day; a friend of mine, who lives in Boston, but went to Texas, grew up as a missionary kid in Congo. Her grand parents were missionaries, too. She sent me a wedding announcement from the SA Express News dated sometime in the early 1900s, tellingo of her grandparents wedding in SA. Her grandfather was named Roy Cleveland, and was from Brownwood. They got married in the afternoon, short reception, then went to the train station, where they boarded a train with a destination of Philadelphia. From there, they took a ship with a final destination of the Belgian Congo. There are a lot of children and missionaries buried in the cemeteries at the Presbyterian mission stations we've traveled to in Congo.

I'm thinking of taking a road trip in our Land Cruiser in August, from Lundazi, to Northern Tanzania. It's about 24 hours driving, but no knowledge of the road conditions. We'd like to visit and connect with the East Africa ECHO Training Center, and then spend a few days at Serrengetti National Park. Still working on Melissa to get the green light.

Have you heard anything from our buddy, Brian Grossenbacher, lately. From what I read on FB, it sound like he travels all over the world, taking fly fishing photos for Simms and magazines.

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I thought about you when I was typing that, and reading about their adventures.

I heard from Brian a few weeks ago. And yep, he said he was out of town for about 6 weeks doing a photo shoot for ... YETI.

Not Africa, but this shows you how quickly a jungle cat can attack you:

Damn cat ripped his hand off!

There is a reason the British liked to carry these in India when riding an elephant:


[img] [/img]

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Not Africa, but this shows you how quickly a jungle cat can attack you:

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Big pile of NOPE right there!

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Holy Crap! I've ridden on those elephant safaris before and didn't think much about it. I backpacked through the jungle on the Nepal India border once and that is effin' scary. Between tigers rinos, wild elephants and cobras no one should ever live there.