The opening line of the movie The Quiet American says, "They say you come to Vietnam and understand a lot in a few minutes. The rest has got to be lived." The photo below, or at least the way I was feeling when I took the photo below is summed up by that line (except of course, replace 'Vietnam' with 'Congo'). 

I have to go backward a few steps to explain. Many months ago, actually a couple of years ago, we initiated a study of Congo to consider if we could set up a project there, and if so, where would be the best place to do that. We pulled together information from a wide variety of sources, looking at poverty rates, deforestation, ease of access, etc. This data crunching led us to a particular watershed that begins on the cusp of the Itombwe Plateau, a well recognized biodiversity hotspot, and feeds Lake Tanganyika, the second largest freshwater lake in the world. It seemed to have all the right conditions that would fit our priorities as an organization. We even had some trusted contacts in the area visit the site and do an early assessment. In spite of all these positive signs, there were still unanswered questions. 

Among those questions: would the watershed we had identified be a logical working unit, easily enough understood to be the geographic boundaries for any activities? Well it only took one look at those mountain ridges, on the hike I mentioned yesterday, to see how clearly the basin is defined as I think you can see in the photo below. 

Understanding in a very few minutes. The living, will be daunting.