Plants and Animals

Some of the plants in the jungle were really interesting. The trees were huge - not only tall but with immense trunks. Some had growths that looked like fins at the ground level. The fins could be almost 2 ft tall and about 3 inches thick and looked like a bench. They might be 15 ft long, running along the ground. There were tall trees where the trunk wasn't actually connected to the ground, it was just supported by a series of vines. The trees gave a lot of shade over the path through the jungle, and it kept us somewhat cool while we were walking between villages. We would look for a nice breeze to make a comfortable spot for a break while walking. We figure that we walked about 80 to 100 miles during our 2 week trek in January. I walked about another 40 to 50 miles in February and March. The villagers don't measure the distance in miles, they measure it in hours. What takes them 3 hours to walk would take us 4 hours. They are a lot faster, as they have been walking all their lives, they are not overweight, and they are used to the heat! We walked a total of 47 hours in January when we visited 13 villages. In February and March, I walked about 26 hours to and from the villages where we worked on the wells. I knew in advance that we would be doing a lot of walking, and I was somewhat apprehensive about it. Looking back on it, it wasn't too hard. It was very interesting. I'm ready to do it again!

We didn't see many animals along the trail. The hunters have cleared them out. We did see evidence of the animals. We saw elephant footprints and broken down trees where they had crashed through the jungle, near Kondesu. We also heard some elephants crashing through the trees, but we didn't see them. They are very dangerous, so I'm glad we didn't see them. We didn't have any way to protect ourselves. It's like avoiding bears in Alaska.

They had some animals in the villages, but they don't raise them on their farms. They keep a lot of chickens in the villages, and I had hours of entertainment watching them. In Lowuma, they had 2 sheep that the government had distributed. The villagers carried them in from Fassama (7 hours). While I was there, a new lamb was born. That was exciting. So, they are on the way to repopulating. Previously, they had lots of sheep, but they were all eaten during the war. The villagers keep cats, dogs, and monkeys, but they don't treat them like we treat our pets. Our pets are better cared for than their children.

I have more photos of plants and animals in my photo album.

Bugs

The children in the villages love catching termites and eating them. A few days after a heavy rain, they come out in force, and the kids are up early in the morning scouting them. The first evidence that I saw of the termites (besides the damaged buildings) was their wings. There were wings all over the ground one morning, and the kids were having a hay-day. After they catch them, they fry them up in a pan and eat them. They're kind of crunchy, and they do have some protein, but I didn't care for them. They left a scratchy feeling in my throat. I'd have to be pretty hungry to eat them. The kids enjoyed them, though. They also eat them raw, which may not be such a good idea. The termite mounds are impressive. I have a photo here of Bekki and Stan in front of one. The black box in the photos is a video - take a look at it.

Another disgusting delicacy is the bamboo worm. It's about 2 inches long and 1/4 inch in diameter. They say it's real sweet, but I didn't have the guts to try it. For something sweet, I'll take sugar cane. We chewed some of that, and it's good.

Have I mentioned that Bekki doesn't like grasshoppers? There were plenty of them around.

There were also a lot of butterflies. They seem to come out more in the afternoon. Beautiful colors - blue, green, black & white, yellow.

What's for Dinner?

A note about the photos. I cannot get them embedded into the body of the text, so I'll describe them here. The top one is the 16 ft+ boa constrictor that we ate in Lowuma. Next is the community vat for processing palm oil. Center is some people that we met along the trail, walking to the market with their bush meat. Next is a closeup of the smoked monkeys - you can see a paw sticking out. The bottom one is some people we met on their farm close to the trail, showing the rice that they are harvesting.

I have had people ask me what I ate when I was up country. I ate what was available! The villagers live a subsistence lifestyle. They eat what they can produce by farming, hunting, or trapping. They grow rice, cassava, eddoes, types of eggplant, peppers, onions, pineapples, oranges, bananas, plantains, potatoes, jackfruit, mangos, peanuts, and maybe something else that I've forgotten. They usually eat one meal a day, and they must have rice. If they don't have rice, they say they haven't eaten.

They use palm oil, processing it from the palm nuts that grow wild. There is red palm oil, which comes from the fruit of the palm, and there is brown oil, which they process from the palm kernel. I helped them with the processing. What a chore. The palm kernel oil is delicious, so it's worth the work. I'm posting a photo of a big vat where they process the palm oil. This is in the village of Gbeleyankei, and all of the people use it. It would hold about 400 gallons! They live a communal lifestyle, so they share in the work and the product. They take care of each other.

Dinner usually consists of rice and soup. The soup usually has meat from the forest, such as monkey (yuck), porcupine (yum), anteater (yum), snake (yum), chicken (can be yummy), deer (can be yummy), catfish (yum), or other things that may not sound as good! They don't believe in wasting any part of the animal, so the deer stew even had part of the hide in it. Once, they cooked chicken which had un-laid eggs in it. Otherwise, they wouldn't eat eggs, believing that you are taking away somebody's child. I always picked things out of my food - like fish heads and bones - and left them on my plate. Somebody then took my plate and ate the rest. They don't waste anything. I was there during the dry season, when food is more plentiful. I understand that in the rainy season, they don't eat so well.

When the hunters bring something home, they share it with others in the village. One man shot a boa constrictor snake while I was there. That was delicious! It was 16 ft 4 inches long, so there was a lot of meat on it. They shared with the whole village. Since they don't have refrigeration, they smoke everything to preserve it. While on our village trek, we met people along the road that were taking dried monkeys to market. There is a photo of that posted above. They put the whole dead monkey on a rack above the wood fire. They have about a 2 day walk to go to market, where they sell the "bush meat". They will then buy things like salt and sugar. They also buy caustic, which they use to make soap. And of course, they buy shotgun shells for hunting. Fishing is done with hand-made nets.

So, what's for dinner tonight? I'm having chicken breast - boneless and skinless. I'm spoiled.