Soul Food!

I haven't written for a while so I hope you all haven't given up on me. We
have been very busy these days. We are experiencing the shift between the
dry season and the rainy season although it is coming very slowly.
According to Roy's rainfall records this has been a drought year as any
African here can tell you. All of the water holes have dried up. We have
got a few rains this past 2 weeks so we have been madly digging holes around
the hospital and in the gardens so we can plant trees as soon as the real
rains come. Without rain the ground is impossibly hard to dig into.

We have yet to go up north and now it looks as though we will not be able to
for some time yet as the bandit activity north of here has not subsided. I
even heard about it on Voice of America this morning, only because Fulani
are going into Cameroon to get away from the bandits. International news I
guess. We are perfectly safe where we are and south of us if fine as well.
We will be going to Bayanga again for all of July. In August we will be
leaving from Bayanga for a three week road trip along the southern edge of
the country to visit many pygmy villages, planting trees and giving seminars
as we go. We will be travelling with Paul and Dianne Ohlin. We are really
looking forward to being down in Bayanga, getting down into the nitty gritty
of the work, not that we aren't working in Gamboula, on the contrary! It is
just that we really want to get to know the pygmies; learn about their
lives, their values, their practices. From talking with the two couple
already in Bayanga, the pygmies lives are on the balance. We look forward
to being of assistance.

Yesterday we went to Berberati, the second largest city in CAR, about 3
hours from Gamboula on the worst roads we have driven on yet. Berberati has
some electricity, a few telephones and two banks, including a Western Union,
although we aren't to sure about the reliability of their service. The EEB
church headquarters is in Berberati as well as the head Swede, Anita, who
does all of our banking for us. We went yesterday to look at a gardening
project that was started a few years ago by the EEB, to see if we could give
any suggestions for improving the place. We also went to Sango Forage, the
only well drilling outfit in the entire country. It is run by a Swedish
company who are retiring soon and will be handing the business over to an
NGO in the US. With the water crisis around Gamboula and in our own house,
Darren took it upon himself to try and fix the foot pump on the station.
The station has a foot pump that was installed a few years ago but has not
been working for sometime. Darren was able to get it going again much to
everyone's happiness, including the missionaries. Without the pump, people
from around here have been using the water at the hospital and the mission,
draining our water tanks just as fast as they get filled. While in
Berberati we were able to buy some spare parts for the foot pump to replace
the worn ones.

Just before we left for home I was able to peak into a couple of shops in
the centre of town. They are not like shops you and I would normally
picture. They are basically one largish room with shelves on all the walls.
The shops in Berberati have much more than in Gamboula and at more
reasonable prices. The two shops I went into were owned by Lebanese
shopkeepers. I was extremely surprised and overjoyed to find all of my
favourite Mediterranean foods lining the shelves along with the usual
powdered milk, sardines and soap. I bought falafel mix, humus, tahini and
cherry jello. You can't even buy cherry jello in Cameroon. The other
surprise was cans of vanilla coke, imported from South Africa. That's what
you call soul food, the kind of food that makes your heart happy even before
you even eat it. No one else seemed very excited by my find in the store,
but then again, for them, meat here is cheaper than at home and for most men
that is soul food enough for them. I, on the otherhand, am looking forward
to a meatless meal of falafels and humus and am planning on having it on May
14, in celebration of my sister's birthday, as I know she would appreciate
this remarkable food find as much as me!

When not planting trees, grafting or going on day trips I have found myself
continuing in language studies with Clarisse. Last Saturday, I went out to
her garden, about 2.5 km from our house and helped her plant cassava around
a newly planted peanut field of hers. When the rains start I am going to
help her plant fruit trees and bananas around her manioc field. She has
water close to her field so that makes it a good spot for trees. One of her
fields is along a large path and a lot of people stopped to look at us, or
should I say me. Here was me and Clarisse, chatting and laughing, planting
gozo as though it were perfectly normal. For anyone walking by it would
have been a strange sight to see a white women working for one, and planting
gozo none the less. I plan on helping with the weeding when I can. There
is a fine balance to be found here between working and building
relationships and I plan on finding this balance if it can be found.
Clarisse is most gracious and I feel that I can ask her culturally sensitive
questions that you could not pose to just anyone. Clarisse's daughter,
Jurette, who is 8 is starting to write to Nicole our niece in Victoria.
Penpals, I guess.

I have heard that people have been posting comments on our blog site.
Unfortunately we can't read any of them since we don't have the internet so
you are welcome to respond directly to us if you wish at bossbugs@yahoo.ca.

Angela

raining

The last two days we have been working hard building new shade structures in
the new nursery. By the end of this year the agroforestry centre here in
Gamboula will be servicing 30 village groups as far away as Bayanga. This
means we are planting trees like crazy to help these groups keep their
nurseries going until their own trees start to fruit and provide them with a
seed source. Right at lunch today a huge wind blew in, bringing with it an
incredible amount of dust, direct from the Sahara. Following this we have
been getting rain, not a lot but it has been falling consistently for the
past couple hours. I even had to put a sweatshirt on!

I am really enjoying the local cuisine so we had Leonard cook it up for us
at lunch. In Zimbabwe, I wasn't a fan of the local cuisine so much so I am
glad I like Central African food. My favourite is this green called coco.
It is a leaf they collect from a certain vine in the forest. They roll a
bunch of leaves together and then chop it really fine so that it comes out
looking like grass. Leonard cooks it in a sauce with oil and peanut and
chunks of beef. We eat it with gozo. Cassava that has been washed, dried
and ground into flour. They then boil it and it comes out as a big sticky
lump that is easy to eat with your hands. Gozo has no nutritional value
whatsoever but it does fill you up and around here, you have eaten if you
haven't had gozo. It also happens to give you heartburn. Darren and I have
a good arrangement in that I get to eat most of the coco and he can have all
the meat!

Tomorrow we are going to go look at the fruit trees around town, see what
varieties are available locally and hopefully get some budwood to do some
grafting. Darren is continuing Sango lessons with Reuben and he also
started trading English lessons for Sango practice with a guy named Massa
who works at the garage. We were hoping to go up north to see a few
villages but bandit activity in the roads was reported so we decided to stay
put for now until we hear something.

In other news, we talked to Darren's dad on the sat phone the other morning
to wish him a happy birthday. That sure made our day. Technology continues
to amaze me with its possibilities and its boundaries. I have also been
talking with my friends here as to how to get more women involved in
planting trees. I am thinking of putting on a women's agroforesty seminar
to see what kind of interest we get. Right now, the seminars are mostly
men, which is good since they typically tend to be lazy and need
encouragement to help with the food needs of the family. However, there is
a large number of widows and single mothers here so I am keen to help them
with trees. Will let you know what happens as we progress.

That's all for now. We are both well, the dog is well, and pictures will be
coming soon to an e-mail address near you!
Angela

Short note of thanksgiving

Rain came today and we are so thankful. In other news, a new missionary
arrived today, Benjamin. He is a 28 year old veterinarian from the USA. We
are glad for a young face and he will be eating meals with us while we are
here, sharing our cook. I am sure you will be hearing more about him as
time goes on.

I have also been told by my language helper that I am to stop paying for
lessons. I guess I am progressing pretty fast and we have become good
friends so she won't take any payment. We are just going to meet and chat
and have fun together. I find this remarkable since she struggles to feed
and send her 4 kids to school. She is rare in this part of Africa. Many
others you get to know, the more you know them the more they ask for.
Anyway, my heart has been cheered this week.

As well, many of my citrus grafts have been successful and are growing
quickly. THis is exciting especially since when Tim, former ECHO intern,
was here he grafted citrus and only one was succesful and has taken 2 years
to grow 3 leaves. Grafted trees also sell for 3 times as much as those from
seed. Goodnews for the project.

Better go for now, Ange
Oh yeah, the dog, Coco, is alive and well and growing.
Please note that this address sends and receives e-mail via a satellite
phone connection. All e-mails over 25 kb will be returned to sender
unopened. Sorry for the inconvenience. For more updates on the Bosses,
please log onto http://thebosses.blogspot.com

Kete Nyama

A quick update on insect sitings. While in Bayanga I saw the best and the
worst. The fireflies at night were fascinating and the lack of tree ants,
which, by the way are still crawling all over my deck, was most pleasant.
Though not a bug, there was a huge spider that had taken up residence in
Paul's bathroom each evening. It was large enough that I opted to use the
outhouse rather than his flush toilet! I also encountered the three most
annoying insects thus far. The tsetse fly, a very large fly with a painful
bite, though not abundant, is definitely present. They also happen to carry
sleeping sickness so that makes them worse. I did get a couple of bites
from these guys but so far I maintain normal sleeping habits.ha ha ha. The
most annoying by far are the sweat bees. They are the size of a gnat and
are totally harmless except for the fact that they have the possibility of
driving one crazy. They are attracted by sweat and will swarm around your
head just waiting to lap up some of those salty droplets dripping off your
head in the heat and humidity of the jungle. I tried my head net but they
find their way in somehow and have a feast of sweat. Lastly are the
chiggers or chigoes in French. These are nasty, tiny little ticks that
burrow into your feet or parts of the body in frequent contact with the
ground. They burrow in and make little egg sacs in your feet. These end up
rupturing and the babies fall on the ground only to re-infect you. They are
harmless enough if you take the time to inspect your feet and scoop them out
with a pin or if you soak your feet in petrol or paraffin. However, the
pygmy children are infested and many of them walk on the sides of their feet
to avoid the pain of stepping on the soles where the chiggers are. Some
kids are so bad they can't even walk. It is very sad that one little bug
can cause so much pain and disability. This is part of the health teaching
they are doing at the mission centre in Bayanga and when they go out into
villages. As for me, I am sure I have little friends in my feet, just as I
did in Zimbabwe. Fortunately, Jan and Aleta and highly experienced chigger
pickers so when they are ripe for the picking I will take my pin for a
visit.

Until my next encounter with kete nyama (sango for bugs, literally
translated to 'little animals'),
Angela

Elephant poo between the toes

What a trip! It started out with 3 guys and me at 6:00 in the morning on a
bumpy road in Central Africa. After 20 minutes we came to a wide river and
a 2 car ferry called a bak. It is an ingenious system they use to get the
bak across the river with no power, just some cables and a pole and the
current does the rest. After crossing we found a beautiful, freshly graded
logging road and after four hours and many small villages later we landed in
Bilolo, home to a missionary couple and their 2 young kids. The Fester's
work with SIL doing translation work on one of the Central African languages
in that area. They fed us a superb lunch and sent us on our way. After
crossing two more rivers we started to feel the encroaching rainforest. We
drove up a couple hundred feet of elevation and came to a savanna like area
where Bantu (the common Central African), Fulani and Aka (pygmies) all lived
together. This is quite unusual but there it was. Once we left the savanna
we were surrounded by rainforest and we drove by clusters of Aka houses on
either side of the road. One may be tempted to call these villages but they
are really more like camps. The Aka live in small family groups and they
are usually segregated from the Bantu villages, living just on the outskirts
of them, rarely mixed in. All along the road are large areas of land that
have been burned down to create gardens for manioc and bananas. It gives a
disturbing look to the road to see huge trees burned down but then gardens
have to go somewhere and the government will only allow gardening along the
road. The pygmies, who traditionally live deep in the forest, are more and
more living along the road as they have been forced out of the forest by the
creation of a large national forest where hunting is not allowed. Certain
concessions have been made but the pygmies have no chief to stand up for
them. They are very egalitarian. So much so that if one family gets more
attention or success than the guy across the road, death threats start to
surface from intense jealousy. This we are taking into account when
considering development projects among them.

The morning of our first day we spent working in the tree nursery of the
mission, unloading the 300 trees we brought, planting seeds, organizing
things and looking at the health of the trees in ground. Finding good soil
was a challenge as the soil at the mission is extremely sandy. Almost felt
like home since the soil in Florida is much of the same thing. That
afternoon we hired a pygmy guide, Benoit, and we headed off to the park to
see the rainforest elephants, a species similar to the savanna elephants of
Kenya, only smaller. We drove quite a ways in and then hit a network of
trails only Benoit could find his way on. We had to wade through a couple
of streams and in the process got a lot of elephant poo between our toes.
Speaking of elephant poo, it turns out that one of the best ways of
collecting rainforest fruit tree seeds is to look through elephant poo.
Even the seed coat fibres have been processed off.

We stopped and watched some monkeys in the trees above us and then continued
on until we came to a natural clearing in the forest called a bai. The park
has built a look out tower that we climbed up to. It not only gives a good
viewpoint but is also a much safer way to watch elephants, especially when
they have new babies. Many animals come to drink and soak in the mud of the
bai and we also saw bush pigs and a type of rainforest antelope. On the
walk back we observed orchids nestled in huge trees, listened to the chatter
of grey parrots above our heads and dug through more poo to satisfy Roy's
craving for rare and unusual fruits.

The next day, Paul Ohlin, a man who has worked with pygmies both in the CAR
and Congo for many years, took us and some Aka bible students out to some
villages. He showed us some of the projects he has been working on and we
got to see Jackfruit and breadfruit trees planted beside little Aka 'igloos'
.. The traditional Aka houses, which most of the pygmies still live in are
like 1 metre square igloos constructed from a framework of sticks with large
leaves woven through them. They are small yet practical and must do a good
enough job of keeping the rain out. They also make a good breeding ground
for TB since people are together in such a small space. Seeing jackfruits
planted next to these was very exciting indeed but so much more work needs
to be done. A few of the Aka had started little, and I mean little,
nurseries of jackfruits from seeds that Paul had given them that he got from
us here in Gamboula. To get to the nurseries you have to walk 2 or 3
kilometres through the forest on little trails down to a stream. The only
source of water for all the people along the road are these streams a few
kilometers from their camps. Ideally the nurseries would be in the village,
where there is more sun but without water this is not possible. Doing all
of this hiking in a skirt is slightly awkward to say the least but I did it.
I have decided however, that if pygmy women can go topless, I can wear pants
to climb around in the jungle. We also gave an impromptu training session
at one man's nursery and Darren and Roy caught me on video showing a man how
to transplant jackfruit seedlings and plant avocado seeds.

Saturday we spent the day fishing for tiger fish. They get to be huge and
have large, toothy jaws that hooks do not set in. Typically they are hunted
with nets, but both Roy and Kim had some fancy lures from the States they
wanted to try. So a collective 50 hours of fishing later, we only had two
12 inch fish to show for it between 5 of us. I guess I am not cut out for
the 'thrill' of sport fishing. We couldn't even eat what we had caught!

Sunday morning we worshipped with a group of pygmies in one of their camps.
It was a refreshing experience. No one was dressed up, most of the ladies
are topless, and the men are wearing rags. We all huddled under an a-frame
roof on little benches and a pygmy evangelist in training taught for a few
minutes on the flood in Genesis. The believers there are all in the infancy
of their faith and I couldn't help think of the apostle Paul and what he
would have done down there. The singing was beautiful just as we had heard
it was and I could have just listened to them sing for a long time. After
the service we gave a little lesson on the greatness of planting fruit trees
and what kinds of food God has provided for us in the trees, sort of
building off what the pygmies already know regarding the provision in the
rainforest. We had brought a large jack fruit with us for them to try,
especially since they had a trees around their houses that Paul had planted
out there but they had no idea what kind of food it provided. It turned out
to be a very poor quality fruit but no one seemed to care as they all loaded
up on pieces of fruit, latex sticking to everything. I really wish I could
give you a physical picture of this scene but it will have to wait.

There is so much to be done down there it is overwhelming to think where to
begin. We persevere with language learning and now feel all the more
motivated to be able to communicate so that we can help the Aka, truly the
poorest of the poor out here. I am running out of space but will send
another dispatch soon.

The Bosses

President's a no show

Well, all the hype and excitement was for naught today.  The President of the country said he was coming to Gamboula today.  He sent one of his ministers down ahead of him and we got a place ready for the President to stay in and entertain guests,.  Just happened to be the house right next to ours.  The people here planned a big parade and people walked long distances from other villages to come and see him.  All the ag workers took off this morning and headed for town but he didn't come.  He was in Berberati yesterday, about 100 km away and we heard around 9:00 this morning that he had headed back for Bangui.  In the meantime, his minister asked the local officials for a car to take him to Kentzou, Cameroon, about an hour away, to go shopping.  I guess the missionaries aren't the only ones who do their shopping across the border!  We are all kind of dissapointed and glad at the same time that he didn't come.  I am not so keen on guns and he had a huge military escourt. 

 

Roy and Kim returned from a week up north where the bandit problem has been pretty bad.  They went and returned without incident so life goes on around here.  We are leaving for Bayanga tomorrow morning for 5 days.  We are going to meet with a couple of missionaries who are stationed down there and work with the Byaka pygmies.  We are also going to be meeting with pygmy leaders and visitng a couple of villages.  Our plans also include some rainforest hiking to find fruits and hopefully see from rainforest elephants.  The guys are all bringing their fishing stuff so hopefully we will be eating fish for dinner.  I am looking forward to the trip and it should be interesting as it will be me and 3 guys, Roy, Kim and Darren.  I am looking forward to relaying how things go. 

 

In other news, our Sango is progressing, kete kete (little by little) and we are catching more in conversations and such.  I haven't had any lessons in a couple of weeks as I was sick, then my helper went away.  When we return next week I am looking forward to hitting the books again and having some conversations in Sango.  One of my favorite excercises is to go on a walk with Clarice and learn some new vocabulary.  My homework is to then write up everything we saw and did or talked about and then she corrects my grammar and sentence structure the following session.  It is good practice and keeps me sharp. 

 

I am also happy to say that we are eating the first leaves or our garden this week.  I planted mbutu, or vegetable amaranth, a few weeks back and we are starting to pick it.  It is a close cousin of pigweed but tastes great and the seeds aren't so spiny.  We are having lots of trouble with grasshoppers eating off our greens as they sprout so lettuce and pak choy we only dream of eating right now.  It has been very hot and dry for the last week at least so I am praying for rain, especially while we are gone so i don't have to worry if our garden is getting enough water.

Well, I better get going but I will write about our trip when we return so look for something in about a week. 

Merci mingui, Ange

Be ti mbi aso.

Be ti mbi aso. Sango for a sad heart. I wish I had something up beat to
write but there is something else on my heart today. A Central African
injustice that i can do nothing about but bugs me all the same. Laws
regarding women here are so archaic. I shouldn't be surprised but I am.
For example, if a women's husband dies, legally, the house, the belongings
and the children all belong to the extended family of the husband unless he
states otherwise before he dies. Could you imagine losing your children?
The same goes if a women is in a bad marriage and she wants to leave. She
loses everything, including her kids. To leave an abusive relationship
means leaving your kids behind. If you take anything with you you risk be
fined as a thief. Right now there is a situation with one of the cooks.
Her husband took a second wife which she doesn't like at all, being a devout
Christian. The man is very mean and useless when it comes to contributing
to household income. But, she can't leave without leaving her kids and
everything behind. She left hime once before and her kids went to live with
his parents. She came back to him when one of her kids died of neglect. We
are definitely living in a forgotten part of Africa. I shouldn't expect
better of a country whose former president was a reported canibal.

In other thoughts, we celebrated Leonard's 50th birthday today. I asked him
to cook whatever he wanted and he joined us for lunch. It was pretty fun
and the meal was great. We got to practice our Sango a bit too. I have
these strange bumps on my hand and I think they are the beginning of some
new callouses. Fancy that! I have been hauling buckets of water to the
nutrition garden this week since Paulien is away at a women's gathering. I
made it to missionary stage 3 today. Stage three is when you see bugs
floating in your cup and you drink it anyway. Some ants made it into my cup
of tea and I tried fishing them out to no avail so I just drank it. I guess
that is a milestone of sorts.

I am having fun with the language. I learned a new word to day. Fuku ti
wa. Fuku is flour and wa is fire so it is 'fire flour' or fine ashes.
Medar, the supervisor of the nutrition garden brought me a bag of ashes to
spread on some pumpkin plants with a bad bug problem. I can't really get
away from bugs. They are everywhere and I hope to give a short teaching
session on them next week.

In other news, my citrus and carambola grafts met with great success this
week so we are looking at doing a lot of grafting in the next little while,
as soon as we have some good bud wood.

I have joined a ladies bible study, led by Leanne, who also translates for
me. It is a good group of ladies. All but one are cooks on the station,
plus my language helper. Well, more later.
Ange
Please note that this address sends and receives e-mail via a satellite
phone connection. All e-mails over 25 kb will be returned to sender
unopened. Sorry for the inconvenience. For more updates on the Bosses,
please log onto http://thebosses.blogspot.com