The Democratic Republic of the Congo (or DRC for short), was similar to Dominica in that we had the meal way before the lesson because of all the craziness lately. But, there was also another reason for it. When I started doing the countries, I knew I wanted to stick to the UN recognized countries. There are 193 of them. Now, we did Vatican City, and I know Vatican City isn't recognized by the UN. But, when I did all of my little info sheets, I came up with 193. I double checked, but I couldn't figure out what I missing. I just figured it would even out eventually.
Fast forward to Democratic Republic of the Congo. Part of the reason it was delayed was because I couldn't find the info sheet. I was convinced I must have replaced it. It wouldn't be the first one I had to reprint. But, when I opened up my big Word folder of 'Countries', it wasn't there either. I had located the one I missed. Now, technically there's three countries the UN doesn't recognize: Kosovo, Vatican City, and Taiwan. So, now I'm thinking I do those and just commit to the 196. Eventually I'll have to change that 193 I've had for 120 countries now. Or, something. But, either way, there's a bit of a conundrum for me. At least I found the missing one, right?
The DRC shouldn't be confused with the Republic of the Congo, which we did earlier this year. The sit on either side of the Congo River, and when we covered Republic of the Congo, we mentioned how it is the only place in the world where two capital cities sit just across the river from one another (Brazzaville in Republic of the Congo, and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Once upon a time, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was known as Zaire. Zaire derives it's name from some word in Portuguese that means 'rivers of all rivers'. It is the deepest river in the world (you could put two Statue's of Liberty's on top of each other and they'd still be underwater) and 60% of the Congo River flows through the DRC.
Zaire collapsed in the 1990's as their dictator was removed from power. But, the troubles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo didn't stop there. Currently, the US Department of State warms against all travel to the DRC (Worth noting, while not Congo related, Cuba got a travel warning today. That's sad, after all the progress. ) DRC's travel warning sites poor infrastructure, armed groups, and even attack helicopters. As far as travel warnings that I've seen during this project, this is one of the most severe.
DRC is home to more than 250 ethnic groups and 700 languages, making this huge country of almost one million square miles, incredibly diverse. It's the 11th biggest country in the world, and is bigger than Spain, France, Germany, Sweden and Norway combined. In Africa, only Algeria is just ever so slightly larger.
But it isn't just the diversity of it's people that makes this country unique, it's also one of the most bio-diverse regions on the entire continent.
There's Mount Nyiragongo, one of the world's most active volcanoes. The center of the volcane is a constantly boiling lake of lava nearly 2,000 feet deep.
It's home to 50% of Africa's tropical forests, and our landmark, one of Africa's oldest National Parks: Garamba National Park.
The National Park was once home to an African Elephant Domestication program which trained tourist-rideable animals. It was also once home to the Northern White Rhinoceros.
Sadly, that's all past tense. In 1991, a town near the Garamba National Park was captured by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and refugees began to migrate to area's surrounding the park. Besides the refugees now taking up residence in the animal's territories, there was an influx of automatic weapons into the area. Not only did people use the weapons to capture bushmeat, but the park rangers were unable to secure the park from heavily armed and trained poachers. There were 121 shoot-outs in the park between 1993 and 1995.
African buffalo and elephants fell to the poachers, and the Northern White Rhino, today, is presumed extinct in the wild. The last four Northern White Rhino's in the wild were recorded in an aerial survey of the park in 2005, but are presumed dead (they technically are listed as 'critically endangered, however).
As far as any captive Northern White Rhinos, there are three still alive today, but they don't really reproduce in captivity. The three are own by a zoo in the Czech Republic, but live in Kenya and are under armed guards 24/7. (Sudan, the only male of the three, has his own wikipedia page if you want to learn more about him.)
The status of the Northern White Rhinos isn't the only reason we should care about the animal and plant life in the DRC.
The DRC is home to all kinds of endemic species, one's you can't find anywhere else: there's the Grauer’s gorilla, and the Congo peacock.
Of course, you can see some Okapi's at the Animal Kingdom at Disney. But, the super cute- striped butt-giraffe related- guys can only be found in the wild in the Ituri Rainforest.
And there's also the Bonobos, which are most closely related to our DNA (98.7%). The DRC is only place in the world with a Bonobo Sanctuary, trying to help those Bonobo's orphaned by the illegal trade in endangered wildlife.
Besides the animals, the DRC's plants play a critical role in our environment.
Dense forests and woodlands cover over half of the country (and we already talked about how big of a space that is), all those trees and plants play a critical role in maintaining global climatic cycles.
The country is also rich in natural resources, but it's also one of the most underdeveloped country in the world (with 70% of it's citizens living under the poverty line). As you might have guessed, in such a situation, those natural resources are not being mined or harvested responsibly.
The DRC is a large producer of industrial diamonds. It also contains 10% of the world's copper, and 80% of the world's colton. Colton may not be something you think you need in your life, but it's used in things like cell phones and laptops. So, yes, you use it. (You can read an interesting article about it, and the mining practices in this link, if you're interested.)
So basically, I'm telling you, we should all care about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because there's a whole lot of unrest there, and a whole lot at stake.
And if nothing else, people, it was the sight of the 'Rumble in the Jungle' between Mohammad Ali and George Foreman in 1979. Ali knocked out Foreman in what was called 'the greatest sporting event of the 20th century' for the Heavyweight Championship in Kinshasa, the capital city.
The boys made their postcards.
Calib's featured some of the carved wooden masks of the Bapende people. We had talked about the various people who take part in the Gungu Festival, which is like a music and dance festival for all the different tribes. (FYI, there's a youtube compilation... how did anyone home school before the internet?)
Peyton's featured the dense forests with the rumble in the jungle.
And Hayden focused on the wildlife.
We'd already had Republic of the Congo dinner, so Democratic Republic of the Congo wasn't really a whole new thing to us. It's also really hard to find recipes that don't involve fish (because after that Chad debacle we haven't tried that again).
We basically had a very similar meal to our other Congo dinner with Poulet Moambe (served a bit different this time), Congolese Braised Mustard Greens, and bananas. But, I had to do something a little different here, and decided, maybe for some of the remaining African countries we could do one of the dishes as a nod to the country that colonized them. I mean, is that terrible? At this point i feel like I've had enough rice, so don't blame me too much for going with the Belgian Baked Potatoes here with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
We had this dinner awhile ago, and not with our country, so I don't remember exactly how well it went off, but if I can't remember, then it wasn't terrible. I do remember the Belgian potatoes were really good, and everyone liked those, so my colonized idea isn't a terrible one.
We colored in DRC in purple right there in the middle of Africa, just below Central African Republic in light blue, and above dark blue Angola.
After the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we voted on our next set of collections. Hayden's, on the bottom, got a first place vote from everyone (except himself, of course).
Next Up: Over to Oceania for a stop on the Marshall Islands
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