Canoe Trip

Friday, February 20, 2009

Cassidy and I moved to Tara Plage, a hotel on a more isolated stretch of beach. We took another hike to the waterfalls where we had lunch and then organized a trip to the pygmy village.

The best parts of our trip were talking to our guides on the way to the village and enjoying a canoe ride on a wide, smooth river through the jungle. One of the guides, although very excited about Obama, was disappointed that he had not fulfilled his promise of purchasing a dog for his girls. According to our guide, this reflected poorly on his character. The guys were affable and pointed out the island owned by Joakim Noah, NBA player for the Chicago Bulls. He comes and lives there for part of the year, according to the guides. There were many goats on the island.

The pygmy village was fine, but it seemed voyeuristic to be there, like trying to get inside an Amish person’s home. The pygmies face tremendous discrimination in Cameroon, but really across Africa (Cameroon, CAR, and northern Congo). Their way of life is changing due to tax laws that force them into permanent settlements (contrary to their hunter-gatherer lifestyle). At the village we visited, they seemed to be living as hunter-gatherers (most of the men were out hunting when we were there), but it was hard to tell on such a short and surface visit.