Padishar Creel wrote:
"riverman" wrote in message
oups.com...
What'd us furriners miss?
------------
Riverman, speaking of missing things, how about some of your writing? How
are you doing in your new assisgnment, Hong Kong, right? I told on of your
experiences to a group of fly fisherman about the African caretaker snail
thing it was a big hit. Are you getting any chances to fish?

Chris

Hey Chris; thanks for the compliment, although I have no idea what the
'caretaker snail' thing is. :-?

I'm still in Congo, just finished the HS Graduation ceremony, and I fly
out in three days back to the US. Won't be in HK until July, but I've
already made email contact with some flyfishermen and we've even
started a HKFF club already!

I'm getting up the mental energy for one last culminating Life in
Congo post; one that encapsulates my experience here and summarizes the
whole weird stay. Things are getting dangerous again; they postponed
the presidential elections for an indeterminate amount of time, and
since the original elections were scheduled for June 30 (an auspicious
date that coincides with the original 'independance day' from Belgian
Congo, as well as the first of the brutal murderous pillages that have
happened here, the government has brought the army back into the
interior of the city to keep a lid on things. Unfortunately, and
bizarrely, it was the army who did all the killings the last times, and
the civil authorities got them evicted only two years ago because they
were strolling the streets, preying on the people. Well, they're back,
in force. Roadblocks, shakedowns...the whole works. Two nights ago, I
was awoken at 3am by the sound of an AK47 nearby, and the next morning
I heard that an army guy had shot and killed a civilian about a km down
my road. And over the weekend, some Belgian guy on a motorbike was
getting hassled at a roadblock, and finally just dropped it in gear and
rode off....and the army guards shot him in the back and killed him.
Its starting all over again, and even though my flight is in 3 short
days, I think there are about 70-30 odds that the lid will still be on
it by Saturday night.

God, I hope so. I can't get out of here fast enough. Had my fun, got my
T-shirt, gotta go.

--riverman