Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in Gabon so far! It was Labor Day, and there was a parade in Makokou that we got to march in. Everyone had matching t-shirts, which had an elephant on it that my talented colleague Ruby drew on the computer. We picked everyone up early in the morning and took lots of pictures, then waited at one end of the town along with all of the other big groups that were marching in the parade. We saw so many people that I never get to see all at once - grocery store clerks, hotel employees, secretaries, businessmen, and men from the Chinese logging companies that work in forests around Makokou. The actual marching was a short affair - we walked down the long drag that overlooks the river. When we got to the end, everyone congratulated each other. There were handshakes, hugs, and a lot more photos taken. One of the guys who I work with, Jeannot, who helps drive the pirogue, came up to me and said it was the perfect day, and that he was really proud to have marched in the parade. I think we all felt the same way - it was a wonderful way to connect with the people we work with outside of our normal routine. The camaraderie of the holiday was evident throughout town. Many people were walking though the streets in their matching outfits; vendors were selling gâteaux balls and croquette cookies; some people had even set up games in front of their shops. It was a well-fêted day! Later that night, we came into town to get dinner at a riverside restaurant. When we arrived, some people recognized us from the parade. "Look - there goes the people who work at Ipassa!" they said. It felt nice to be recognized as someone who works and lives in Makokou. It's not hard to feel like an outsider here: I have fair, freckled skin and blonde-red hair; my French is strangled by an unmistakable American accent; I don't recognize the words in Kota or Kwele or Fang that pepper the conversations of your average Makokouians. Usually I get mistaken for a tourist - "how many days are you staying here for?" someone will ask. But slowly I am feeling involved in the community here. I have lots of friends from the places we frequent most often. Elhadj runs the cyber cafe we visit. Honorine is our preferred tailor. And of course all of the market ladies that we buy vegetables from : Blanche and Chantal with their elaborate hairstyles and exuberant voices, Mimi with her enormous smile, Stella with warm eyes who's constantly toting her curious daughter Tracy in a sling on her back, Vicky with a low voice and a shy smile who sells not veggies but peanut paste, and Marie the spice queen. The different Cecado grocery store clerks know us as well, and like to tease us sometimes as we check out. It's all of these people, and the little recognitions, that make it feel like home. tREE OF THE wEEKFamily: Aracaceae
Genus: Elaeis Species: guineensis This is the oil palm, which originated in West Africa but is common in plantations throughout the tropics and is the tree is commonly found in Gabon (though I haven't seen any oil plantations here myself). The fruits consist of a bright orange, oily pulp that surrounds the palm nut. Both the orange flesh and the nut have nutritious oils that are extracted and used for cooking. The sap of the oil palm is also consumed. It can be drunk immediately after being collected from a tapped tree or allowed to ferment into palm wine. The fermented drink becomes more and more bitter with age, and is often flavored with other flowers, fruits, and saps. Personally I have tried palm wine flavored with Garcinia spp. sap, which is a fluorescent yellow-green color. The palm wine itself was quite fermented and had the bitter lingering aftertaste of every non-fruit edible I have tasted (bark, roots, sap), which is not wholly unpleasant. Oil palm plantations are generally a huge contributor to deforestation, especially in Indonesia and other tropical islands. Buying palm oil in the U.S. is best avoided, as it supports these very oil plantations. Buying palm oil here in Gabon is a little different. A lot of the palm oil here is red palm oil, which has the orange-y pulp mashed up into the oil as well, and was probably made here by a woman who is making it in her house. Using this kind of palm oil is better than using olive oil that was shipped in from Europe. (Basically what I'm saying is "Eat local!" But that, my friends, is a topic that could take up at least another blog post, so I'll save it for another day.)
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In terms of animal sightings, I have been decidedly the most unlucky out of all of the researchers here at Ipassa. Everyone jokes that the animals know I'll be happy enough just looking at the trees, so they don't have to show themselves to me. Which is usually the case. But recently I've been feeling a little bummed out that, after living in Gabon for four months, I still haven't seen an elephant. This past week, my luck changed! Last weekend, we were finishing a perfectly lovely day - there had been internet in town, carrots at the market, and we celebrated Rachel's birthday. She invited all of us and all of our friends to get pedicures done in town, and we ate fried dough balls (imagine a banana-flavored doughnut hole) that people here call "gateaux." After this ritzy party, we were ambling down the well-grooved dirt road back to Ipassa when my friend Amelia, who I was sharing the front seat with, turned to me and said, "the only thing that would make this night better is if we saw an elephant on the road." Not a minute later, we turned around a bend and saw the GIANT grey body of an elephant shuffling slowly out into our path! Our driver Miki hit the brakes and the elephant disappeared back into the dark trees. There was a cacophony of appreciative noises as we marveled at our luck - it was the first time any of us had seen an elephant on the road! Then, on the descent to Kongou, I saw not one, but FOUR more elephants! One for each month that I've lived here and haven't seen any; so I think I'm all caught up now. All four of the elephants were swimming in the river near the forest's edge. I saw one lone male, and then a group of three - a momma, teenager, and a baby boy. Everyone was thrilled by our elephant sightings and our pinacier, Lucien, stopped for a long while to let us get some excellent photos. After that, we continued down to Kongou where the work went very smoothly. We were joined at the camp by some very nice French tourists for one night, and then managed to finish up a day early so that we could come back to Ipassa and enjoy our weekend. All in all, it was a very lucky and lovely week. Wishing all of your a bit of luck and love in your lives at home! Tree of the WeekFamily: Aristolochiaceae
Genus: Paristolochia Species: flos-avis Paristolochia is a special type of tree, a liana! Lianas are woody vines, or climbers. These vines play an important role in the ecology of tropical forests, connecting the tops of towering trees together and forming a habitat in which many animals, insects, and other plants can live, move through, and grow. The lianas themselves do not have any support structure in their stems, but instead stretch their floss-like tendrils to weave around stems, trunks, and branches until they reach the sun at the top of the canopy. The tricky thing about lianas is that their leaves are often hidden from view because they tend to grow high up in the canopy, where the sun shines on the leaves to photosynthesize and make energy for the plant. Because of this, lianas are notoriously difficult to identify. But, if you're lucky, you can catch one with flowers or fruits coming out one of its long stems near the ground. This was one of those lucky times! I caught this spiraling liana in full flower, a shocking orange. It was extremely satisfying to finally be able to identify one of these vines in the tangle of the jungle. Things are just swell at Ipassa. Easter this past weekend was a lovely celebration, with colored eggs and quiche and mimosas and even an Easter egg hunt! This week, it's time again for our monthly phenology routes - my favorite week, because I get to check in with the trees. The wheels continue to turn here, and instead of boring you with another report of normal life, I want to touch on the topic of food! Before I left the U.S., everyone asked me what I was going to eat in Africa. I'd heard that manioc was a food eaten in Africa, so I said manioc, but I didn't actually know what it was. Most of the time we end up eating stuff that is pretty similar to what I'd eat at home - eggs, pasta, burritos, curry, spaghetti, veggie burgers. The only difference is that everything is homemade, because you sure don't find bread and veggie burgers in the shops of Makokou. But the ingredients to make most things - flour, oil, beans, eggs, etc. are all on the shelves. The real difference is in the food that we take camping with us. When I think of camping food in the U.S., I think of blueberry bagels and white chocolate peanut butter, crunchy apples for lunch, ramen noodle concoctions, dank breakfast burritos, and piles and piles of hash browns. Sure, we're a little bit spoiled, but my friends sure do know how to cook well in the wild. Camping food is way different here. When you've got to pack it in your backpack, eggs are certainly out of the question. Apples are available here, but rarely do they crunch. Given that there aren't usually bread products available in town, blueberry bagels are not an option. I will say that the peanut paste here is fab - just as good as anything you could grind up at Whole Foods. But one cannot survive off of peanut butter alone. This is where manioc finally comes in. The first thing I think of when manioc comes to mind is the phrase "Il faut supporter." Rough translation - "Deal with it." If you are interested in eating food purely for utilitarian purposes, this is the food for you. It's not bad, necessarily. But I don't think I'd ever say "woah, man, I am craving some manioc right now." It's more that I have absolutely no feelings towards it. An explanation of what manioc actually is will probably help you to understand my indifference. Manioc is a plant. The manioc root is boiled and mashed into a whitish, sticky, paste-like substance, which is shaped into cylinders and wrapped up in leaves. The texture of manioc is usually tacky, kind of like if you were to chew rubber cement. If the manioc is old, the texture is more like crumbly, drier, less rubbery glue. The taste of manioc is highly variable based on how fermented it is, the range is from a very unoffensive bland taste (not very fermented) to something that tastes like a basketful of ripe gym socks were added to the pot when the manioc root was being boiled (wow, that’s fermented). I prefer the blander side of things. When the manioc is more fermented, I like to eat it with canned tuna and a tomato bullion cube. The salty, fishy taste overpowers any flavor that the manioc has, and then it just becomes a vessel to eat fish off of. Which isn't so bad. I know that, leaves left unopened, we’ve kept manioc for at least 3 weeks after the market-buying date. I have no idea how long it was left to ferment before that. According to the Gabonese guys that we work with, if manioc gets too old and hard to chew, you can heat it over a fire, and when you take it off and unwrap it, it will be soft again. I don't know if it ever truly goes bad though. It could arguably be the perfect food for backcountry adventures - compact, doesn't get squished, not too heavy, pretty much nonperishable. The nutritional content isn't fabulous - just carbs and fiber, I think. Anyway, that's manioc. Gabonese food in general is pretty underwhelming in comparison to anywhere else I've been. Luckily for me though, I just got some blueberry and white chocolate cliff bars sent from the U.S. Mmmm… looks like I'll be able to switch it up from manioc for a while! Tree of the weekFamily: Simaroubaceae
Genus: Irvinga Species: gabonensis Otherwise known as the wild mango tree in Gabon, Irvinga gabonensis is a tall, tufty, canopy-emergent species. Its fruits have a mild sweetness and are nice to suck on. The white seeds in the middle are removed and saved (see photo of our chauffeur, Miki, demonstrating below). The seeds are then dried and crushed to prepare "chocolate," which is a thick brown sauce prepared to eat with meat or fish. The first six months of this year in Gabon are a kind of training period. Megan P. and Ruby, who had already been here six months prior to Keary's and my arrival, have been excellent mentors so far. They have gone over experimental methodology with us, helped us to flesh out our French vocabulary, translated cultural differences, and encouraged the guides to walk more slowly as we worked out our trips and slips and found our forest feet. This week, being nearly halfway through our training period, Keary and I had a little test of our skills. We went on our first Kongou trip by ourselves! Megan P. and Ruby both worried over us a little, asking us questions and giving advice as we prepared to leave on Sunday - Did we have all of the GPS points we needed? Make sure to leave early in the morning for the work at transect 3 - the hike there and back alone will take 4 hours, maybe more. Nicholas hasn't been to transect 4 in a while, so if he seems lost, just follow the GPS. Do you have extra nails for the ladder up to the log bridge? Don't let the guides convince you to cross the river on any tiny logs. Do you have enough food? Do you want me to bake you a loaf of bread? Try to keep an eye on the use of pirogue gas. Make sure you come back with all the machetes. And, lastly, even if everything fails, we will welcome you back with open, understanding arms. You know, the basics. After much doting and well-wishing and good luck, we said our goodbyes and set off early Monday morning. Sandwiched between our slinking, three-hour hour trip downriver and the ascent back up on Friday, we fit in forest characterization at two transects and took measurements at two elephant disturbance trees. Nobody got lost, nobody refused to work, the pirogue gas didn't get sold off to mysterious fishermen underneath our noses, and we came back with all three machetes. Overall, I would say it was a rousing success of a mission. Oh, and me - the girl who falls over everything, who tumbles down hills, slips swamps and trips over lianas - I made it across the log bridge without taking a plunge in the river. Not bad, eh? Tree of the weekFamily: Ochnaceae
Genus: Lophira Species: alata This tree is easy to pick out because of its brightly-colored new leaves and flowers. I especially like when we see them from the river. From a vantage point they are a shock of pink in a sea of green, like a flame in the forest. The flowers darken to brown when they ripen and the seeds spin towards the earth like the giant versions of helicoper seeds that are found in the U.S. |