louiseinlimbo

Normally when I watch religious events in Africa, the religion involved is an African one – whether voodoo or some kind of animism – or less frequently, Islam.  But yesterday I found myself on the periphery of a Christian event.  I was taking advantage of a shopping trip by the Lodge staff to a town just over the border in Cameroon, since this involved a trip by river.  But yesterday the other passengers on the boat were a Polish Christian missionary and a two of his helpers, who had taken delivery of a white-and-gold statue of St Michael that they wanted to place in their church in the village of Lidjombo.  This church, built some fifty years ago, had been abandoned and surrounded by forest, until the missionary heard of it and organised its restoration, the final stages of which were the painting of some religious murals and the placement of this statue.  An engaging man, who has lived here for thirty years and learnt the language, this missionary has a number of devoted converts who

This week's visitors cancelled their trip, having been in contact with someone Covid-positive and not wanting to take the risk (you still need a negative PCR test result to be allowed into this country - and also need to pass a rapid test before being allowed to go to look for gorillas).  So we have another few weeks without clients here.  & life is better when clients are here - better food, constant hot water - not to mention the income for the owner that he needs to maintain the on-going repairs to the place. It is astonishing how much needs to be done.  Not just the obvious things like keeping it clean, but things like dealing with ants and termites.  Driver ants apparently nest in colonies of up to 20 million, and from time-to-time they decide to relocate.  We had one such move within my first few weeks here, with very organised lines of driver ants crossing the trails, as well as big masses of them which appeared to be milling around aimlessly over large areas.  The trail