National Hotel Bangui

Luckily for all anthropology doctoral students who are beginning, ending, or in the middle of fieldwork, Bach's Remedies exist. A former non-believer turned believer like myself is quite sure I would not have survived without them. From a catch-all stress reliever to a concoction for dealing with major life changes it has definitely saved my life (or my sanity I suppose is more accurate). I am sure that Lesley would agree with me on this as we relied on it to get ...

The end of the road. I mean this literally, figuratively, emotionally and all other possible ways of meaning. As I have posted on facebook (and am of course writing this blog way after the fact) I have finished all of the forest research. The final field site was Mossapoula Source (the headwaters of the Mossapoula river). Physically this site is located at the end of the St. Francois road, figuratively it marked an end and a beginning of my life as an anthropologist, and ...

Sometimes these things all go together and sometimes they don't. In the context of this blog they do and they don&#8217;t. <br><br>I finally (accidentally) made it to the famous Dzanga Bai to see the elephants and other animals. One may think I would not be interested in seeing elephants given my troubles with them, but you can&#8217;t work here without going to the saline, it&#8217;s just not right. An American women and the tourism coordinator were kind enough to let me tag ...

... trip always did the trick. However, there is never really any relaxing as I am using the time and access to electricity to get caught up on all my data entry. But what can be better than sitting in a hotel room, watching Friends in French, eating cheese, and entering data! The only thing better is doing all of these things at Doli Lodge while hippo watching but we can't always get what we want I suppose. Being ...

... issued by the proper ministries, and that was my next step.The document is called "autorisation de photographier" and was given to me free of charge by the Ministry of Tourism.Good news, since my next trip was the pittoresque "Chutes de Boali", around 100km to the north of the CAR capital. Impressive waterfalls, around 50 meters high, and in a very nice landscape.It is also possible to spend the night ...

... good. I am not anxious, nervous etc. I am currently attributing that to the team of people here who watch out for me all the time. They have been incredibly patient with me and my lousy french skills (thus the title of the blog). Even though me, Jean Boscoe, Justin etc. end up having franglish conversations we still get there in the end. It's a bit fuzzy in the middle part where no one ...

... in and out of the country per week]. Needless to say, after all of this, I was exhausted. I am continuing to get e-mail updates on Tom and his progess. However, it is frustrating not being in contact with him. Or for that matter, not being in contact very well with anyone except for e-mail. In Bangui, it's sometimes hard to get to e-mailing as the electricity may shut off one or two times per day. Anyays, I just keep moving forward and taking ...

... when I feel like I should be able to take care of myself. The reality is that I don't have the experience in living here and it really is quite different. For example I have learned that you really only need 1 kind of soap. A bar of Dove works well for EVERYTHING especially laundry. All you need to wash your clothes is a bar of soap, 2 basins, a stiff brush, a hard flat surface, and a line. An ample amount of time on your ...

To describe Bangui where would you start? 5 tarmac roads, converging on one side of a roundabout. To the other side, a vast mud-brown river and then Congo. One of the roads used to be the airstrip and is so wide it takes you 10 minutes to scuttle across it. Forget about looking left or right. The situation usually changes dramatically by the time you're a third across. The roads are interconnected by innumerable red, beaten dirt ...

She emerged groggily from the airplane, breathing in the thick, perfumed air of central Africa. Asides from a small misunderstanding in the Parisian airport where her electricity inverter had been mistaken for a bomb, the flight had gone smoothly, marred only the occasional escaping curse as she remembered things she'd forgotten to pack (battery charger, hairbrush). Her mood could only be described as positive- finally her plans were being realised. Striding towards ...