Monkeypox Field Work

Mungbau drove our team of three -- Zairian nurse, Zairian chauffeur, and me, a Peace Corps volunteer -- from Lisala, on the North side (the right bank) of the Zaire river to Kinshasa and beyond, by road. We traveled for six months, and lived entirely out of what we could carry in the short-bed Toyota Land Cruiser. In 1986, we were detached from the National Program of Vaccination to the World Health Organization to conduct field studies on the wild animal reservoir for the zoonotic disease called monkeypox.

We traveled light because we had to. Over half of the back of the vehicle was for our supplies, including a liquid nitrogen tank, animal live traps, tissue sampling supplies, and a battery operated centrifuge, pictured above. The centrifuge was needed to spin down the tubes for the serum that was frozen in the liquid nitrogen.

We also carried a big box of replacement parts for the truck, a chain saw, and tools. Our own supplies were limited to some kerosene lanterns, folding cots, cooking utensils, buckets, a card table, a short-wave radio with antenna, and a metal trunk full of money to pay people. The three of us each had a small duffel bag with several changes of clothes, a towel, and soap. We bought powered milk, rice, sugar, salt and coffee where we could find it along the way.

Mungbau was the most ingenious and talented mechanic I have ever known. When we were stationed working at a village, Mungbau would offer his considerable expertise to fix anything that had moving parts, especially generators, old trucks, and motorcycles. He used scrap metal, wire, and rubber. Once he jury-rigged a broken leaf spring by shoring the side up with wood chopped out of the forest and the driver was able to limp in to the next commercial center.