July 10^th,

Mboti (I think)!

Yesterday, Tomo walked me through the neighboring village of Bomassa. This village currently has 700 people living in it. The houses range from fairly sound wood structures the people obtained from the logging concession that was here a little while ago, to clay and stick structures, to branch and leaf huts. The village is a mixture of pygmies who have inhabited this region for a long time, and people who emigrated here from other areas of nearby forest as a result of pressures put on their villages. There is a Christian church and one other church (not sure which one) and a small school, each a simple wood building with one large room. WCS built the school and are currently building a hospital for the villagers. Most of the people are wearing modern clothes, well, comparatively so to traditional dress. Chickens and goats run all over the place and I assumed they served as a main food source for the village. I was wrong. They sacrifice these animals for rituals, but don’t eat them. That was likely what I heard several nights ago as they were chanting and drumming. They still prefer to hunt their food rather that raise it and wait for it to be mature enough to eat. There was an elephant skull randomly placed in the grass by a hut. Apparently an elephant body washed up from the river. The face was clearly hacked and tusks were long gone. I’m not indicating that this was an act of poaching, though that is a huge problem here, but who ever found the body made sure to quickly get those tusks.

I brought my digital SLR through the village and was told it was completely fine for me to take pictures. I still felt weird about it, to some extent disrespectful, but Tomo assured me the people were fine with it. I snapped away. Most people seemed ok and didn’t care, though some certainly glared at me, understandably so. There was one group of children who were thrilled. They clustered together and posed for a picture that they insisted I take. These kids were adorable! I showed them the photo; they giggled and pointed at one another, then shyly ran away but peeked around the corner of a building shortly after in hopes of having another.

Today Davy, Arbon, Kobo (the guide) and I went on a hike…. To say the least. We took a motorized pirogue down the Sangha River to a village called Monbongo. From the village, we walked to a small bai where not much was going on, so we continued on. We were in search of Monbongo Bai, and our guide Kobo knows exactly where to take us, or so we thought. To start, we hike along a dirt road and notice a lot of animal tracks. Arbon and Davy point out bongo, wild cat, gorilla, leopard, and elephant tracks, all within several feet of one another. These tracks were no older than 24 hours. The elephant tracks were the freshest, just a few hours old. We follow the elephant tracks into the dense brush of the Congolese rainforest. Kobo, with machete in hand, hacks away at the brush that keeps us from following the elephant tracks. At this point we aren’t even on a trail. He knows this forest so well, he doesn’t need a trail.

We follow muddy footprints, charge through leaves of huge tropical plants, climb over fallen trees, dodge giant piles of fresh buffalo ad bongo dung. I’m still wearing my Reef flipflops because my boots are in Brazzaville. “You’re strong”, Arbon tells me. Huh? He goes on to say that not many people can tolerate the jungle, especially in sandals. “Bobbi: Forest Girl”, he states. He’s impressed at my success of conquering every nearly-impassible obstacle with ease. Apparently I’ve got some pretty good forest skills. Brownie points for this middle-class America chick!

We get to a green pool of water. Arbon explains that the color is a result of animal dung polluting the water. So this whole muddy area is basically animal dung! We keep walking. My cat-like reflexes allow me to stealthily avoid the deep mud puddles, “Arbon says’ “wow!”. I must admit I was feeling pretty good, a little too good. My feet are clear from scrapes and clean of the mud…splat! I completely submerged my right foot in the mud of an elephant track. I yank my foot out, but lose my sandal. Davy grabs it for me and Arbon runs to me and douses my foot with water while Davy washes my sandal with his water. “The mud is bad, it causes itch and hurt”. Great. I’m terrified of parasites; I’ve been wearing sandals in the shower just to be safe. Now my foot is practically crawling with them, I’m sure. At this point, I might as well bathe in the stuff; maybe have some for lunch?

After 2 hours, Davy and Arbon start to question if Kobo knows where the bai is. We should have been there by now. They talk with Kobo and decide it’s better if we head back. A toe on my right foot begins to sting…. awesome. We make a new trail back as Kobo hacks away. Suddenly he stops, we all pause. There’s a loud, low grumbling creature no more than 7 yards ahead, but we don’t see it yet. Kobo inches closer to the source and suddenly leaves start rustling as whatever it is moves away. Arbon sends Kobo after it. A minute later, Kobo sends us a signal that it’s OK to proceed, then tells us to stop. There are five wild pigs eating no too far from us. I barely see the rear-end and flicking tail of one. They spook when they hear us again, and bolt away. I blame my MC Hammer pants again, because it’s so easy. Though the mud is certainly camouflaging the bright yellow. We also encounter two bongo in the same manner, and they sprint away after I catch a glimpse of an ear. We make our way back to Monbongo Village three hours after we set out into the forest, then hop in the pirogue and make our way back to Bomassa camp. I immediately shower the dried elephant dung/mud off my foot.

On the bright side, I got my luggage back today!! :-)