...before you take its picture. Well, maybe not the monkey so much as the monkey's owner. So the story goes something like this. I was recently in the village of Bamba, about 2 hours south of Gamboula, with Noel and Chrysler, the agroforesterie seminar teachers, and Josefine, a short-term Swedish missionary. Bamba is a town of about 3000 people on the edge of the rainforest and the town itself is almost solely supported by a large sawmill and the trade in smoked bush meat. We went down for 3 days (Darren stayed behind to work in Eden), and it was on day two of our visit that Josefine and I received our first Convocation in CAR. Not conviction, but convocation. This is like a summons to an government official's office when you have done something wrong.
Okay, so Josefine, Noel and I were haplessly wandering around Bamba Thursday afternoon around 5:00 when I spotted a monkey tied up outside someone's house. I asked Noel if he thought it was alright for Joesfine to take its picture and since we couldn't find anyone around to ask, he said no problem. So, without getting too close, Josefine snapped a picture on her digital camera and we were on our way. Friday afternoon we returned to Bamba after having planted trees in a nearby Baka pygmy village, only to hear that we had been summoned to the office of the Eau et Foret authority. These are the government guys in charge of water and forests and anything that happens to live in them. Actually we had been summoned that morning but we failed to receive their notice until the afternoon. Noel and the Evangelist we were staying with promptly went down to the office to ask forgiveness of the head guy for missing our 'appointment' and they were told what our grievous errors had been.
According to Mr. Eau et Foret, our first fault was that we did not ask the monkey's owner for permission to take the monkey's picture. I told the guys that since the owner wasn't around we should have asked the monkey if it was alright instead. So, yeah, I guess we were at fault. Our second, even larger fault, was that neither of us has the proper authorising papers to take pictures of any and all things in Central Africa. This was a new rule to me and all our immediate reactions was, oh, so the guy wants money!
Saturday morning at 8:00, under a heavy canopy of a rainforest downpour, we made our way on foot to the office of the eau et foret, and wouldn't you know but it was the same house as the monkey's. We entered the head guys office with our peace offering in tow (a lovely little fruit tree) and we proceeded to be chastised for our grievous error in photo etiquette. If I hadn't had been shivering with cold I might well have had to suck on a lemon to keep a ridiculous and inappropriate smile off of my face. The whole thing seemed so funny to me. I asked forgiveness for our sins and told him that we couldn't find anyone to ask permission and we had no idea it was the office of the eau et foret since they neglected to put a sign out front of the office. You can bet when I go back to Bamba next week there will be a sign up! I also told him how hard it is to be new in a country and to not know all the rules, especially when such rules do not exist in our own countries (Canada and Sweden). I even offered to erase the monkey's picture but he refused. We chatted him up for another 45 minutes until I concluded that perhaps the rule he mentioned does not apply to Joesfine and I since we technically are not tourists but rather residents and that we had already paid a hefty price for that very privilege. After giving him our tree offering we left without paying a dime.
Needless to say, Friday and Saturday we continued to joke about the monkey and the officer and I am not sure I have laughed that hard in a very long time. I was thankful that I contained myself enough not to say anything stupid to the eau et foret officer and that my Sango proved better than that of the officer, who grew up in Cameroon. I was more Central African than he was at that moment.
In fact, the whole time we spent in Bamba was one of the best times I have had here and was one of those occasions where you think to yourself, how can I possibly leave this place. Chrysler, Noel and I meshed together like we had been friends for a long time and it was one of the first times I have spent with Chrysler where the colour/culture barrier almost seemed non-existent. He didn't call me madam the entire time we were there. While I was happy to be home with Darren it was also a little like the week after coming home from summer camp, all the fun and excitement left behind in exchange for the daily grind. Not that there is much a daily grind feeling here but I think you know what I mean. In fact, it has been an excellent week in terms of work and Monday we had a chance to group ourselves together and plan the weeks work as we were forced inside due to rain.
Darren, Chrysler and I will be returning to Bamba on June 4 to work with two different groups of Baka pygmies who are interested in planting trees, especially improved oil palm. The red oil taken from the fruit of the oil palm is very high in Vitamin A and a rich source of oil. A Baptist evangelist lives and works among one group of Baka and he has started a school for the Baka children using the government curriculum. It is an impressive little school, just poles and a thatch roof but he is a dedicated, if not somewhat discouraged man. He receives next to no salary from the EEB church and is thinking about moving back to his own village where his wife and 12 kids live. I told him that he wasn't an evangelist so much as a missionary and that hard times are part of the course. We are helping him with trees and vegetable seeds but that is about as far as we can go with him. It seems to me that a denomination as old and established as the EEB here in CAR ought to be financing their own missionary campaigns. We shall see.
We are off to Berberati for the day tomorrow to look at our possible future work sight with a Central African NGO. The roads had been fairly calm but there have been two incidences in the last week so we remain cautious and only travel by night. It is a pain but is also just part of the routine of working here.
Better get going and pack for our day away. Remember, always ask the monkey before you take his picture, otherwise you might get in trouble!
