Jenny in the News

Jenny sent a link to an article about Cameroon in the Baltimore Sun: Monkey meat and its hazards. She mentions some highlights:

• (well, i'm in it, oh, and credited) [in the slideshow/gallery]
  
• old man sitting in bed is the chief of akam
• man holding goat, about to slaughter it, is my house guardian, joel
• house pictured with boots in front - that's my friends marthe and joel's house
• church, other shots of village - that's all akam (and literally, that's about *all* of akam)
• truck overloaded with cocoa on the road? that was on the way back to mvangan; we got delayed about half an hour there
• (turn the captions on for the slideshow; it helps)
• pangolin on the tree? good stuff.
• mat (lebreton) "trekking through the forest"? that's about 20 feet behind the project house

Check it out!

Mmmm....rats.

Waaaaaay down South

(It’s true; there’s only one PCV in country who’s further south than I am)

*an article I just wrote for our environmental education newsletter. And keep in mind that these are the rantings of a *former* vegetarian...*



Mvangan is a village of 2000 people in the South province, about 50 km from the natural border with Gabon. It’s both the seat of the arrondissement and the seat of the health district (I’m based at the district hospital), but being in the South province, there are few people, little infrastructure, and few income-generating projects going on. The main economic activities are cocoa farming and bush meat hunting.
So….what’s in the South…besides the beautiful equatorial rainforest, the childhood home of Paul Biya, the Bulu, several land/animal reserves, KRIBI, and Ebolowa, provincial capital and “gem of the South”? Well, there’s a lot of bush meat. And I know bush meat used to be the buzzword (and only word…) of EE, but it’s true – bushmeat and manioc are the staple foods in the South province. And that in itself provides a lot of Health/EE opportunities, but for now…I’ll focus on bush meat…and its new, lovely, photogenic alternative – the cane rat.
And it tastes like chicken. (awww)(….dinner!)
Through a partnership with Heifer International, Peace Corps is funding cane rat training for farmers in several provinces. Two planters from my village are attending two weeks of cane rat training this month, with training and progenitors (one male and three females – rodent polygamy). As I recently completed two hours of cane rat training [with the (currently) sole raiser of cane rats in the South province], I consider myself an unqualified expert who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about cane rats but never thought to ask.
First, why cane rats? (besides that they taste like chicken)
Cane rats are also called aulacodes or herissons in French. Similar to guinea pigs (calico-colored, overgrown hamsters? Yep, they’re good food too), they look like a cross between rats, rabbits, and hedgehogs. One cane rat can fetch as much as 15.000 F CFA at the current market rate – this meat is pretty special. Cane rats are easy to domesticate, are relatively cheap to feed (grass, anyone? Little bit o’ manioc and corn?) and being polygamous, reproduce at a fantastic (for the breeder) and alarming (for the mother) rate. One female cane rat, after a gestation of 5 months, can have a litter of 2 – 15 furry little drumsticks…
And that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know.
But. Introducing and promoting alternative sources of protein to bush meat (and this can also include plants like soy and moringa) can a) help reduce hunting pressure on wild species 2) add protein to the diet by having more consistent sources available (yay health!) and 3) provide an excellent income-generating activity for your community. And this will hopefully tie into future/in-the-planning nutrition animations in the community. The Bulu are traditionally hunters, and meat = pride. Introducing non-animal forms of protein is an uphill battle, but worth the challenge.

*Nods knowingly* Oh, la Sorcellerie.

Le 10/06/06

(apologizes for using action brackets in the title. Couldn’t be helped).

Background note – Mus (or Musica, Musser, Mustifer, or Lazy Cat) is my cat. Clingy, neurotic African cat.

I had an argument with the chef. Too long of a story to explain…essentially, rather than seeing me and wanting money, he has seen me and wanted a Project. This is closer to a PCV’s job, yes, but the particular project has turned into a territorial/family dispute. And has lately made me Angry. (the project is not going to happen). After some harshly spoken loud words with him and with Mama Regine on the subject…I went home. End of story.

That night, lying in bed, I start to hear strange noises. I’ve gotten used to living alone in my house. Used to the noises chickens make beneath my windows, noises my neighbors in back make, noises of mangoes and birds falling on the roof. I’m even used to the (somewhat rare) noise of Mus devouring a mouse or a little gecko.

This was different than all those.

To convince myself that it was not, in fact, a human intruder in my house, I turned on my bedside lamp.

The fuse blew and the lamp exploded.

Ok, I know where my flashlight is at all times. It helps when electricity is uncertain.

I get out of bed, slightly shaken, and walk to the living room. It’s dark, but the light switch is on the other side of the room.

In the middle of the floor is Mus.

Wrestling with a long black snake.

I panic. Don’t scream. Somehow have the presence of mind to back away to the kitchen to get my butcher knife.

I stand there, shaking, knife in hand. Mus is fighting valiantly. I reason that – since she seems okay – the snake must not be poisonous. This doesn’t help so much. Standing there, shaking, with the knife. Had I my machete (on the other side of the room, next to the light switch, would entail stepping over the snake) I think I would have hacked at it. But the knife…handle too short, I have to get too close to the snake, if I don’t hit hard enough the first time and it reacts up at me…no.

The snake is tightly curled on the floor. There’s some snake blood on my cement…is it dead? Maybe. I wait. I go get my raclette (squeegee like broom for mopping the floor). I will just push it out the front door…it starts to uncurl. Slowly. As calmly as I possibly can, I push it toward the door. Forceful. Step around it to unlock the door, open, push it as far as I can out into the yard. Mus follows (but she can get back in through the window). Shut the door. Lock it again. Turn on all the lights in the house. Go back to my bedroom, shaking…as I realize there is enough room under my door for a snake to crawl, I push a suitcase against it. There. Fine.

Somehow, I manage to sleep.

In the morning, I get up, remove the obstruction at my door, go back into the living room.

There, lying stretched across my books, is a dead black snake.

The same one.

Mus didn’t eat it…it’s completely intact…but she killed it somehow. And she’s sitting on her usual chair, purring, now meowing at me for breakfast.

Shaking…again…I pick it up with the same raclette and fling it into the side yard. Truly, truly dead.

Then I look at my doors. Front door – no way in hell a snake could have gotten under. …same with the back door.

Window? How could a snake climb several feet up the cement wall? And why?

Mus is notorious for brining in the mice and geckos to eat inside. And leave the heads for me to find. But…the snake was bigger than her. And she didn’t want to eat it. She would have had to jump through the window, struggling with it…and why.

And it almost six months I have never seen a snake in Mvangan.

Snakes are traditionally connected with sorcery. They’re warnings, say, to make you pay attention or change your ways or whatever.

I don’t believe in sorcery.

But if I did….

I have no idea how the snake got inside.

Mus, my hero.

I think.

She got Friskies (dry, found now in Ebolowa, her new favorite) for her efforts, and the next day, an avocado.