Real Men Wear Jellies and Carry a Machete

Our jungle guide was a real man. I don't know if I was more surprised when he twisted a leaf into a cup and drank directly from the stream or when he stuck his fingers in a pile of elephant dung to see how fresh it was. He tracked gorilla prints through the forest mud and every so often he would freeze, listen, then point emphatically towards some dense foliage. Some words I recognized: les gorilles, l'elephant, le serpent, and other needed no explanation for instance les singes were obvious enough because the monkeys made a lot of racket and could be seen swinging from branch to branch.

In other news we will actually be spending two years in a small village called Mambele.

population: 500
stores: 2 (maybe)
food: sardines and bread baby
attractions: Lobeke National Park (our backyard)
birds: 300 species
mammals: 50 species
fish: 121 species
trees: 211 species
butterflies: 215 species
distance: 800km from Yaounde (2-7 days travel)

note - we are back from site visit (3 days out, 3 days back, 2 days at post)

-S

And the Post is. . .

Exciting News!

We received our post this week and we will be spending the next two years in Yokadouma, which is in the East Province of Cameroon. Although we will be doing some agroforestry, our main project will be working with both the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and USAID on natural resource conservation and park management. Our guidebook describes Yokadouma as being sort of like a Wild West frontier town (except of course in the jungles of Africa.)

Anyway, we are thrilled and will get to check out our post for a week starting tomorrow. Well, almost a week because it will take us two days to get there and another two to get back. Enjoy that Colorado snow for us as were heading to the rainforest!

Best,

-S