Congo Line

This clip isn't as interesting as I hoped it would be when my sister emailed it to me.  But it does remind me of two interesting anecdotes that her little buddy, Isaac, brought back with him from his time spent in the Congo doing primate research.  



The guy from this clip, who worked with Isaac during his time in Africa, actually burned a poachers' camp to the ground, and subsequently received death threats via etchings carved into trees by a machete.  There's more to this story.  I'm hoping my sister will be kind enough to fill me in.  Again.  

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Her little buddy, Isaac, has this way about him that attracts the friendships of foreign peoples. As in, if you took 100 Americans at random and put them in a foreign country and assigned them to work alongside natives of that country, they'd probably like Isaac the most.  It's partly his sense of humor, partly his general demeanor, and partly something intangible.   I noticed this when Moose and I visited my sister in Costa Rica and met him.   Am I gay for Isaac?  No. But I can see why you might think so.  Hopefully I'll be able to mix some demeaning characterizations into this story to offset this glowing prologue.     

His time in The Congo was apparently no different from his time in Costa Rica in this regard. Given an even more daunting language barrier, however, I can only believe the relationships forged with the Congolese dudes in the camp weren't quite what they were with the Costa Ricans in Guanacaste, as Isaac spoke Spanish pretty well.  Whether these guys spoke Kikongo, Lingala, Tshiluba, Swahili or French, it was all new to him.  Just the same, the Congolese men in the camp trusted him enough to eat crocodile, which they were not supposed to do, in his presence.  On at least one occasion, left alone in the camp, they shared some of the spoils with him.  Huddled around a barbecue, they laughed and ate crocodile meat.  Suddenly, they heard chants coming from the jungle. Isaac recognized the song as one that usually preceded or accompanied armed civil conflicts. Moments after they all turned their gaze and attention towards the approaching song, the men all drew machetes from their belts and sprinted into the jungle, fists clenched and screaming. Isaac, left alone in the camp, stood up slowly, then froze.  Mouth agape, he pushed the remaining crocodile meat in his mouth out with his tongue.  Was he about to die in Africa?  Warm, brownish urine running down his leg, he stood still and waited for his fate.

No sooner had he finished emptying his bladder, his mind wiped as clean as a newborn baby by the little known "do absolutely nothing but pee in your pants" part of the fight-or-flight response, than his compatriots reemerged from the jungle, laughing hysterically.  The joke was on Isaac.   As they approached and realized he'd wet his pants, their knees gave way and they fell to the ground clutching their bellies which ached from frenzied, prolonged laughter. 

Isaac didn't have any clean underwear to change into.