Friday, May 29, 2015

chiefs

we are working on some projects with some villages in another province. we invited two chiefs to our workshop. they told me they took a 28 hour ferry down the congo river and are now in the capital. they attend all our pre-workshop meetings with a translator, always dressed in their official color: red. no one else in the village is allowed to wear red. 
one has a christmas sweatshirt and an inner tube covered in red fabric around his neck with real lion teeth on it: passed down from all the previous chiefs. he holds a wand with horse hair to wave away spirits and his hat has red feathers. the other one has a satin red shirt, a wooden baton and women's fashion glasses with rhinestones and a hat with shells sewn on. amazing.   
at one point they told a great long story, how if you want to marry a woman, you have to court her, and show her you are serious about your love. this is how things work in their village. and so if WWF wants to work with their village then we have to prove our love, and prove we are serious.
how do we do that?
we'd like two motorbikes please. we were promised motorbikes, but we have none, and we are tired of walking everywhere.
is that all your love costs? motorbikes are cheap.