Jenge and the Baka

6.24.08 - Akonytie - We spent an afternoon and evening with another Baka village to film their Jenge (forest god) festival. We went into the forest with them to make the grass skirts for the ceremony. We all marched in singing and jumped around as they all worked together to prepare. 

In the night we filmed the Jenge as it came out and I was a able to get a few snapshots to try and make sense of it. Basically, everyone sang and danced and the Jenge would come out every so often and perform for us.

This is the final post of the trip, so if you made it this far, thank you. Images will be available for purchase on my photoshelter account, should any of these strike your fancy. Also, hopefully over the next few weeks, I'll be able to put up a proper slideshow on my website -- www.willnunnallyphotography.com -- so you can see them all together.

Thanks for all of your kind words over the past month,

Will

Heading into the forest, singing.
Making the skirts.
Getting bamboo from the Indian bamboo trees in the forest.
Splitting the shoots to make the straps that were tied in a line to make the skirt
Kids worked on the skirts as well.
Mothers made little head pieces and other bamboo inspired bracelets for kids. Leah, Dom and I received one as well. Pretty awesome.
A guy looks into the jungle for bamboo
A little girl and her machete. 
Jenge. 
Singing and dancing for Jenge.

ECO guards

6.23.08 - Djoum - The eco guards work to stop the bushmeat traffic coming out of the Dja Reserve. They set up checkpoints along the roads and monitor the traffic. Unfortunately, they aren't compensated regularily and will sometimes go 10 months without pay because of bureaucratic corruption. As a result they can be susptible to bribes from commercial hunters a fact these eco guards acknowledged in our time with them. They showed us their office in Djoum and some confiscated rifles, furs and ivory. 

Living Earth was working with them to improve their communication with the local Baka communities which in turn would lead to more confiscations because the Baka know who to stop.

Serge is the head of the Eco guards in the South Dja. The Dja is broken up into four quadrants, East, South, West and North. Here is sitting with confiscated shotgun shells and ivory tusks. 
The barrels of some confiscated rifles. The guns were heavy as lead and have probably been around since WWI.
A monkey fur and some wire traps, which are illegal when set in the reserve.
A map of the Dja, left, sits on two elephant skulls the guards found in the forest several years back. 

Water Music

6.22.08 - Minko'o - This was cool. We went out in the middle of the day with a group of women so Victor could record them making traditional music on the water. They would stand in a circle in the water and hit it rhythmically at different speeds to produce music. Really wild stuff and specific to this group of Baka. 

I wish I could explain it better, but these photos will have to do until we can get the films up in September. 

They jumped right in...
And started hitting the water to a beat...
And laughing, a lot.

This was also right before I realized I was covered in fire ants, not recommended.

Baka Village

6.22.08 - Minko'o - We spent an afternoon in this Baka village outside Djoum. The Baka are the hunting tribe in the Dja Reserve and are the only people who know every step of the forest. Living Earth is working with them to stop the bushmeat trade. Commercial hunters have to hire Baka as guides when they go into the forest to kill gorillas, deer, crocodiles, etc. 

The biggest problem is that the Bakas are very easily bribed by commercial hunters to take them on guided trips into the reserve (sometimes for as little as a bottle of whiskey for a service that is worth millions). Living Earth and the government are struggling to provide them with alternatives to the bushmeat trade because the Bakas get what they need to subsist from the hunters or the NGO and don't seem to care, which one offers money first. 

Often while we were in the village, we'd be filming people working in a tradition house and talking about how the trade was harming the forest, and a man with a rifle would walk into the house next door, clearly returning from a hunt. 

Most of these shots are from the village's kitchen where the women were preparing manioc for dinner (a starch made from cassava root served with bushmeat). I think the women got a good laugh out of the non-french speaking white boy who was trying to take their pictures. 

Boy at the first house in the village.
Child from the kitchen
A woman pulling off leaves for the manioc.
Group shot.
This has nothing to do with anything, it was just a nice shot from an afternoon we ran around Djoum looking for some b-roll wide shots of the reserve/forest.

Fishing the Dja

6.21-22.08 - Sangmelima - We went out on the Dja River, which runs in almost a complete oval before it trickles into the Congo River, forming a natural border around the reserve. On the river's edge live the Kaka, a fishing tribe in southern Cameroon. The fishermen took us on a short trip down the river to watch them set nets and fish in their dugout canoes. It was an amazing experience.

As we started filming, the fisherman in the red hat started singing a song (pretty perfect, singing a hymn-like song as you are floating down a river in the rainforest) as he gently laid the nets into the water and pulled out other nets he had set the day before. Then suddenly he pulled up what appeared to be a small catfish and quietly stopped singing to beat the hell out of the fish. Then, he went back to peacefully singing and the Tao of the river was restored. 

Living Earth provided these fishermen with a deep freezer to allow them to collect more fish and sell it at market in town. They are currently trying to finance a motor boat because the fisherman have to travel nearly 40 km down river to bring in enough fish to feed their families and sell at market. 40 km is a long way to go in a dugout, hence the motor boat.

River scene
Dropping a net.
Checking for holes.
The aforementioned catfish...poor bastard.

Heading back home.
Heading back home 2.
The day's catch, small, but delightful.
The catch was bought by one of our assistants to take home for dinner. 

Bushmeat troubles in Sangmelima

6.20.08 - Sangmelima - We hit the road from Yaounde for seven days of filming in the Dja. On our way down, we ran into a few guys selling bushmeat on the roadside. Again, they probably are hunting it illegally, but no one seems to really care that much. The government and NGOs are trying to stop commercial hunters, but so many people trap one or two animals casually that its hard to say what's more destructive over time. The fact is these animals are being killed at an alarming rate and the market for bushmeat isn't slowing fast enough. 

In Sangmelima, we met another hunter-turned-cane rat farmer, Samuel Ayolo, that Living Earth had trained. He is enjoying a good life raising the valuable rodents to eat and sell (new house, feeding 17 kids with a lot less effort than hunting bushmeat) and hopefully he can spread the word that hunting is rarely worth the effort to friends and family. Until then, maybe these pics will help.

Selling these animals on the road for less than $10 (for the pair). The worst part about it was that the deer was still alive. Probably the most stirring image for me of the trip.

Samuel goes down the road from his house to collect this elephant cane which he feeds to the cane rats. Imagine my surprise when I finally figured out that's why their called "cane" rats.
A man sits in Samuel's village in the late evening as a kid walks by.