Well I know I’ve said it before, but I’m gonna say it again. Life here might not always be pleasant, but it is always interesting. Two days ago I was gradually shaking off a good night’s sleep after having travelled from Bo the night before. Minah came to knock on my door and whispered in my ear “There’s a hippo in one of your traps.” That woke me up real quick. My heart both soared and plummeted at the same time. I was so excited and yet so nervous that something would go wrong. I walked over to Kenewa’s house and called both him and Bockary into the room and said “OK, this is really something amazing but I don’t want you to tell a soul in this village.” I told them and they let out a little whoop of joy and we might have danced around hugging for a few seconds.
We tried to contain our glee as we let a few more key people know and gathered up the materials. Me, 2 of the trap monitors, Kenewa, Bockary, Minah and Pa Ansu (the old man who made the traps to begin with) headed out to the trap. We got closer and closer and finally crept up to the pit. And there, before my eyes, was the most beautiful animal in the world – a pygmy hippopotamus! He was lying down, obviously tired from struggling. He didn’t really acknowledge our presence. Kenewa began to try to collapse one of the walls but the hippo started to get agitated so we decided that was not the safest thing to do. We had brought 2 empty rice bags to fill with dirt as a backup plan. We filled the bags with dirt and dropped them in. The first one, the hippo tried to attack it and tear it to pieces. We let him calm down and then put the other one in. He kind of just gnashed his teeth for a few minutes and I instructed Kenewa to throw a little dirt at his butt to get him a little motivation to get out of the trap (I was sitting in a tree that was unfortunately covered in razor grass and I am therefore very cut up today!). The 1st time he threw the dirt the hippo roared a bit. The second time it started to climb out of the trap. At that moment my camera stopped working, as did Minahs (strange huh??). So I just watched as the hippo struggled out a bit then ran off into the forest. “Ah bwa! A-yah!” He’s out! He went! I told the rest of the people who were a distance away in their own trees. I taped all of their reactions afterwards and it was pretty adorable.
So then of course it was time for a party! The trap was on the mainland on Kambama land so it was a way of thanking them for their help and permission to dig holes in their land. I bought a goat, some peanut butter, tomato paste, pepper, onions and msg and it was time to go. Oh and of course some soft drinks for the elders. There was dancing, I showed the videos and photos we took, and then there was more dancing. I was in bed by 11pm cuz I was tuckered out but everybody seemed to have a great time.
Yesterday I then went to Potoru to brag on the achievement and check my email. I took Minah’s brother on the back of my motorcycle and Minah took somebody else so that they could all go to a Gola Forest Programme meeting in Potoru. On the way home I still had Minah’s brother on the back. I approached a group of about 10 children on the road while riding home. I beeped my horn, then beeped it again. All the children except for 1 girl got off the road. I kept beeping my horn and she started to run along the road. There was an empty oil container ahead and I guess she was going to move that. She still wasn’t getting out of the road and even though I was slowing down, I couldn’t stop completely in time to avoid her. So I decided to swerve around her and go into the lefthand lane. As I am almost passing her, for some reason I still don’t understand, she also decides to run into the left lane of the road and right in front of me instead of moving off the road on the right. I hit her, hard. I came to a complete stop and jumped off my motorcycle. She had a gash on her head and road rash on her shoulder and legs. I had thought I had killed her when I hit her but she was standing, crying. Minah rode up shortly after and stopped to see what had happened. We put the girl on the motorcycle and took her back to Potoru to the hospital. Everybody who had seen the accident said it was the girl’s fault, but I still felt terrible. Minah went to get her father, who I know very well. The nurse refused to treat the girl until seeing whether the family wanted to go to the police with the matter. The father came and said that no, he knew us and he had heard the story and it wasn’t my fault. They stitched the gash on her head and I sat there listening to her screaming. It was a pretty horrible experience.
We had all planned on going to a dance that night in the village Serabu. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks, but of course it wasn’t possible after that accident. It turned out to be good that we did not go, because there were an extraordinary number of fights that night. Kenewa’s brother, Mediwa, got into a fight over a woman and somebody hit him on the head with a soft drink bottle. So now he is in the hospital getting stitches. A few other people I know got into fights too, but nobody was wounded very badly. Still that doesn’t sound like a very fun dance!!
My frustration with this situation is that Kenewa’s brother is one of my village interviewers. I issued all 3 of them a Pygmy Hippo Team tshirt at the beginning of the work, with a strict admonishment that this tshirt was only for work, not for “patrolling” around. So I find out that Mediwa (the one who was injured) wore the tshirt to the dance. This tshirt was ripped by the person who he got into a fight with and bloodied. Now, if you were in this situation, what would you do? Would you fire the man or would let him continue working? My best idea is to make him pay for the shirt and issue him another. The tshirt is about $10 and so that would be about 3 days work for him…I’m sorry he is hurt, but to put on the Team Tshirt and go out and get drunk and fight in a dance is just not with the spirit of the hippo team. I hate this kind of situation.
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