Beating Around The Bush
Stories 'r Us - these are the events in the bush you are sure nobody would believe because they are simply too hysterical, so you probably never told them before. But _we_ want to hear them
Another from Andrew Clark:
My first safari into deep bush of north Masai was a learning experience. As a newly minted Veterinary Officer in Masailand, I ready and eager to rip and snort and carry on. The trek was a 2-day trip from Arusha into the western section of Loliondo Division. We drove the first day from Arusha, up the scarp, over Ngorongoro, through Olduvai, across the southeast Serengeti, and into the Loliondo country. Evening came on and, driving the lead Landrover, I selected a nice spot to set up camp for the night and stopped. The other Landrover carrying a second contingent of Masai staff drew up behind and I proposed making camp in what appeared to me as a nice grassy area with large trees and fairly level ground. The Masai staff guys stood on one foot and then the other, looked askance at each other, and conversed in kimaasai. Finally a spokesman, oleMakoi, came to me with a small speech that was quite wonderful. He began by acknowledging my status as being the Veterinary Officer and "the boss and in charge". He then acknowledged my education and technical training. He acknowedged my decision making authority. He then said what I remember most clearly, that the Masai staff realized that "you very ignorant, and if you are going to live and work in this country you will need to know some important things like the fact that your proposed campsite is in the middle of an elephant trail".
Needless to say, I acquiesced to their superior knowledge of the area we camped elsewhere that night. When camp was pitched and supper finished, oleMakoi came to my tent and invited me to the campfire and there I received my bush education for living and working in Loliondo. Among my lessons - what do you do in a surprise encounter with a lion at close distance? What about the same with a leopard? (entirely different response required). How do you determine how far a cobra can strike? Likewise a puff adder? What do you do when an elephant becomes restive and is setting up a charge? How do you behave when a rhino charges? What are the dangers of a troop of baboons in the wild? And most importantly, because it is the most dangerous and vicious animal going, how do you avoid lethal encounters with buffalo? And what do you do if you get into an encounter with a buff? (Buffalo are the only animal of the whole menagerie that Masai are actually afraid of, and there are lots of stories about the intelligence and craftyness and visciousness of buffs - they represent quintessential malevolence and have extraordinary attributes. For example, buffalo are so mean that their urine poured on wood will cause the wood to immediately burst into flame!! Imagine what a wonderful camp tool that could be and if you could market it to the Amercian public during the summer camping season you could make millions. BUT THE PROBLEM IS --- how do you collect it???)
So I was educated by a group of men who signed their names on the salary voucher with a thumbprint and who had never attended a day of formal school. But what wonderful bush savvy they had, and what comprehensive knowledge of how to raise cattle in that environment, especially during drought. They understood how much stress cattle can take, especially in terms of dehydration and long distance trekking, better than I ever could or will. They understood their ecosystem and how to live in it. I, on the other hand, had lots of technical knowledge about diseases and how to control them and how to organize programs and make things work and so on, so between their savvy and my knowledge we got a lot of very good work done like vaccinating 850,000 head annually for rinderpest and dipping a quarter million monthly for tick borne diseases. I really enjoyed working with those guys.
From Andrew Clark:
The problem referred to by Larry began with my having my arm out the Landrover window while driving through North Masailand bush country and having a thorn driven into the elbow, creating a bursitis that required removel of the bursa. I think you'll probably agree that such a maneuver doesn't take much brain power. The initial surgery was actually done by Jim Morrisey and indeed, Larry, the incision was made transversly rather than longitudinally as it should have been done and it became a chronic problem that required the arm to be confined for months. Thereby I had the opportunity to prove conclusively the worthlessness of a one-armed vet in Masailand.
I had another interesting situation with surgery while in Sumbawanga. One night there was a knock on the door and the medical assistant asked if I could come to the dispensary, as the physician was out of town and I was the other medical person available. An Mfipa woman, apparently epileptic, had fallen into her fire during a seizure and severely burned her foot. By the time she came into town for help the foot was gangrenous and she was in serious trouble and mortal peril. There was no possibility of getting her to a more sophisticated medical situation like the Mbeya regional hospital or whatever, so the alternative was to amputate the foot there and then.
Obviously I was not qualified for this situation - not because of medical or surgical knowledge or abilities but because she was a human, the one specie I'm not qualified to work on. But after all, a human is a mammal halfway in size between a dog and a cow, isn't it? The alternative was to simply let her die because she's human. So we put her on the surgical table, the medical assistant administered a anesthetic (spinal or regional, I've forgotten which) and set up the little curtain that disallowed her to see her feet (but did allow her to see me as I worked on the foot), and away we went. After scraping off the gangrenous tissue all around the end of the foot it turned out that the the top was much more severely involved than the sole, so I was able to cut through the bones along the top of the arch and then roll the sole up and suture to the top, thus providing a very acceptable stub for walking - much better than removel of the foot above the ankle that would have required use of crutches for the rest of her life.
The part of this whole episode that I remember the most clearly, because is seemed pretty horrific, was that it was not general anesthesia so the woman was entirely conscious throughout the procedure, and she was watching me and hearing the discussion as we progressed through the procedure. Maybe she didn't hear much, being a bush person and probably understanding only Kifipa. But I particularly remember cutting through the bones with an instrument that is essentially the same as a wirecutting plier - you put it around the bone and squeeze until it cuts through with a loud SNAP! It was a hot night and I was sweating, cutting the woman's bones, and she saw and heard it all loud and clear. What would it be like watching a sweaty guy you've never seen before noisily cutting through your bones in the middle of a hot, dark night? But - she was in process of checking out for good that night and what was done worked. She healed and walked again, and carried on with her life.
We had some odd experiences while in Peace Corps, didn't we?
From Larry Harris: (Andy's autosurgery)
We should let Andy tell this story someday 'cuz he is not only the victim but the perpetrator. But meanwhil, here goes...I overlapped with Andy whenever he came into Arusha during month end layovers as WDID was trying to get my Landrover back into the field again. That would be good ol' GT 6016! As I understand it Andy got some sort of infection in his elbow. This went on for some time and he, being a Vet, decided that he and our northern sector PC supervisor, Barry Bloom, could perform the necessary surgery by candlelight off in Mbula or wherever it was he was saving Maasai livestock. Well, a technical error caused the incision to go lateral to arm-tissue-flexing rather than longitudinal with it. No matter, these two emergency room Gurus solved the infection only to create a surgical wound that stretched open again every time he flexed his arm. This, of course, would not slow Andy down all that much; he birthed all future cows single hand
From Larry Harris: (pantry practice)
One volunteer teacher, (not George Cummins) decided to stay on for work in the Mkomazi Game Reserve. I'm quite sure this was an extension of his tour but I would need to look in my immaculate log books to confirm. He was assigned the work of grading roads with a Ford 5000 diesel tractor (with scraper). And so he goes riding around out there for several days, perhaps even weeks. Because I'm the Bwana, I only supervise him and let him stay in my self-constructed concrete block house. He gets afflicted by what turns out to be a boil on the backside. This was a really bad boil but I was not particularly into dealing with backside boil-bursting. Although we had created an outside privy, its lack of water and lights (or anything, of course) inspires him to instead deal with his affliction in the food pantry. And so he lays a mirror on the floor beneath his, umm....., bifurcation. Then, with the benzine lamp nearby, he proceeds to do a reverse-image dissectomy of the backside boil. I hear of all this activity in the pantry and look in; only to be mooned with both the moon and the reflection of same. But there, too, are two eyes are staring at me from an upside down and fully framed position. We don't need the guy's name do we?
From Walt Ward (where is the Equator these days)
On vacation in Uganda Andy Clark and I were traveling in a rented VW. We knew we were approaching the Equator and were watching for a sign. We came to a place where double white lines were painted across the tarmac but there was no sign to indicate what the lines signified. Jees, we thought, is that really all they did to indicate that we have crossed the equator? After driving a few hundred yards farther down the road, we came across a huge concrete sign lying on its side, indicating the Equator. A new survey had evidently been done and a more accurate location for the equator had been found. I still have, I think, a photo Andy and I, eating lunch in different hemisperes, sitting on the sign dumped by the side of the road.
From John Daley: (the Brits let us in on a secret)
Work occasionally took me into the Tanzania Attorney General's office, nd on a couple of visits I ended up conferring with Ken Konstam, one of the British expats who had continued on in the office even after Independence. We clearly hit it off, and on one visit he said that he wanted to show me some papers from the office safe. When he came back, he had a typed account of an incident in the Southern Coastal Region from the '50's, when of course Tanganyika was still a British colony.
It seemed that there had been a series of disappearances in one village are, and while the authorities had suspects, they had no proof. They eventually decided to bring in a "white witch (the government's term for a witch who used his or her powers for good, rather than harm)." The "white witch" came from Dodoma region, and had a bit of a reputation. He roundly insisted that he had never been out of Dodoma region, and certainly had never been anywhere near the Southern Coastal Region.
The authorities assembled the villagers and introduced their guest to them. He said to the crowd that he was about to solve the mystery of the disappearances. In order to do so, he would concoct a potion, and drink it himself. He said that it would put him into a trance, but that in short order he would snap back to reality after identifying the locations where bodies were buried.
He mixed the brew, and downed it, and went into a trance. Then, leading a parade through the village, he would stop at random points, and point -- saying, "dig here." The authorities dug, and, to the fascination of all, every place the Dodoma witch said they should dig, part of the missing villagers were uncovered.
"Now," said the authorities, "our guest will identify for us the ones who have done these terrible deeds." They did not reveal that they had seven local suspects, but no proof as to any of them. Supposedly at random, they called out the names of 14 villagers, and asked them to step forward. The 14 consisted of their 7 suspects and another 7 who truly were randomly chosen.
The Dodoma man said that he would now brew a new potion, and each of them would drink from it. "If you are a witch, you will go into a trance after drinking it, but if you are not a witch, it will have no effect on you. If you do go into a trance, you will come back in five minutes. To prove that it will have no lasting ill effects on you, I will take the first swig."
He did, and, as advertised, since he was himself a witch, he fell into a trance. Then the brew was given to the 14. Of the 7 random villagers, 2 went into a trance, and the other 5 showed no effect. Of the 7 suspects, all went into trances.
When the 7 suspects emerged from their trances, the British authorities sternly said to them "See, we now have absolute proof of your guilt. For the sake of your soul, it would be better if you confessed to your wicked deeds." They confessed, and the last line of the account in the Attorney General's Office says that they were brought to trial, found guilty, and hanged.
I finished reading, and turned to the British Assistant Attorney General and said "Ken, this is a gripping and fascinating tale. You ought to have it published." "Oh, no, John. This story will never see the light of day. Just imagine what the world might think if people concluded that Her Majesty's Government was using witchcraft to solve crimes!"
From Gil Crosby (EASTER FIASCO – 1966)
In Musoma there wasn’t much entertainment and no restaurants. But there was the R.M.S. VICTORIA that arrived every Wednesday evening in Musoma harbor on its way to Kisumu, Kenya. Three Peace Corps teachers, Pam, Helen and Ellen, had packed their bags for the boat safari to Kenya for a long Easter weekend. At 7:45 PM Neil Christianson and I escorted them to the pier to get on the boat. We all boarded the boat. Neil and I headed for the bar to wait for the girls.
They came back with the news that there were no cabins available and didn’t know where they were going to sleep on the overnight cruise. As we sat there mulling the situation, the steward goes around the deck playing on chimes.. We didn’t know what it meant so we ignored it. About 10 minutes later a rumbling occurred in the bowels of the ship and Neil said he thought the boat was moving. Not to worry, I looked at my watch, it said 9:00 PM., the boat never leaves before 9:30PM. Neil went on deck sadly noticing that the Port of Musoma was getting smaller and smaller as the boat headed for Kisumu..
We were dressed in sport coats and slacks for this festive occasion but had come on board without passports or a lot of money. Now, nobody had any cabins so we all ended up sleeping under the lifeboats on the upper deck which is 1st class. We were traveling on 2nd class tickets after the purser caught us.. (The girls had tickets beforehand.) The boat arrived in Kisumu at 6:30 AM. Luckily for us passport challenged, there were no Customs or Immigration checks as we got off the boat. We all went up to the Kisumu Hotel and had breakfast. The girls then headed off to Kampala.
Neil and I now tried to figure out how to get back to Musoma in time for work on Tuesday given that the boat wasn’t going back until Wednesday.. We found a cheap room for Sunday night, 15 shs., to wait for the early bus to Tarime, a village just across the Kenya-Tanzania border. 6:30 AM began our return trip, in the same clothes we had worn for 3 days.
This first “bus” was a converted Bedford truck with a box on the back. The conductor insisted that we sit in the cab of the truck all the way to Kisii, Kenya at no improvement since the seat was broken down and the road was a typical East African dirt road. We were to connect with a REAL bus when we reached the main, paved road, but it had just pulled out as we reached the connection point. We caught up with it but it was full, so back we go to the Bedford truck.
We arrived at Kisii at 10:00 AM. While standing around waiting for the 2:30 connecting bus, a teenage boy was caught picking a pocket. The crowd turned on him with a vengeance. They kicked him, stomped him and beat him pretty badly. We thought he might even be dead, but later he got up and walked away.. a lot smarter about stealing.
On the bus to the border, the conductor, a surly Asian, took a liking to us. However, he treated the Africans like dirt. Later that evening 2 pretty African girls and a guy flagged the bus. The conductor said the boy could board because he had a through ticket. The girls only wanted to go to the next stop. As they tried to board, the conductor put his foot on one girl’s chest and pushed her to the ground as the bus took off.
We arrived at Migori, 20 miles from the border, at 4:30 PM. We were tired and would have to wait until 2:30 AM for the bus across the border. No rooms or beds were available. It began to rain. We met George Harvey’s cook who showed us a bar where we could get some food.
The bar was loud not in keeping with our need for sleep. The agent at the bus stop said there were no sleeping rooms available, but if we didn’t mind sleeping on the floor we could go to his house. We agreed. His house was 100 yds.from the village. A woman answered the door when we got there. Inside two men and two women were sitting around drinking. 30 minutes later an argument broke out between one of the guys and women. He called her a whore. The girl called a man named, Onyango, and he threw the two men out.. (They were all Luo tribe)
Although we wanted sleep, one of the gals thought she would try to interest us in something else. She asked us point blank if we wanted a woman.. We politely declined, saying we had been on a long trip and were really tired. The girls insisted we sleep in their bed, a single bed while the man and one girl slept on the floor on a mat. The man said he would call us when the bus arrived. The girl tried once more to convince us of her desirability by dousing herself with cologne, but finally gave up. For the next half hour the girl and man lay on their mat singing church chants and prayers. We dozed off.
Neil decided to take his jacket off and crawl under the covers. I kept my jacket on and slept on top of the covers.. When the fellow called us at 2:30AM Neil woke up and found he had not been sleeping alone after all...bedbugs…
The bus conductor insisted we take the prime seats next to the door. That meant we would be the first people the border guard would see. So at 4:00 AM when we hit the border, Neil and I pretended to be asleep. The guard stepped up into the bus with a friendly greeting, came back down the aisle, stepped off the bus. We thought we were free but he changed his mind, stepped back on the first step and politely asked to see our passports..
Neil explained that we didn’t have any, how we got on the boat, got hijacked to Kisumu, rode several buses, (we didn't mention the whores) etc., and that we were trying to get back to work in Musoma.. The guard thought it was all hilarious and laughingly accepted our ID cards in lieu of passport. We arrived in Musoma at 11:00 AM Tuesday morning. One more adventure for the Peace Corps Volunteers…
From Ernie Farrow: Not about Alan Bertaina"s wedding.
We'd been 'in country' probably less than a year when I received an invite from Alan for his marriage to Beverly in Bukoba. Not having personal transportation I purchased fare through the bus company from Kahama thru Shinyanga to Mwanza, then by boat across Lake Victoria to Bukoba. The bus was part way out of Shinyanga heading north, I was sitting mid bus, left side, just in front of the rear wheel-well, propped against the window, reading a Western paperback. The bus was not near full, maybe 15 or 20 riders, but the seat behind me was occupied by a middle aged Indian mother and her 10 -12 year old daughter. If you know the road, you know it passes along the barrier fence that skirts around the Madui Diamond Mine. The road along the section of fence we passed was about a mile long, wide and straight with no, that is no vegetation except low dry grass. At the bottom of this run the road crosses a dry wash then repeats in a long gradual climb up the other side. The only significant thing about this section of road was the railroad spur line that crossed the road in the dry wash.
On this morning, it so happened, a lone engine with a caboose were slowly backing, ass first, across the road. Needless to say the bus driver was sure he could, and would, beat this slooow train through the crossing. When we finally collided, the bus was off the right side of the road, had crossed the wide shoulder and was about 100 feet up the wash. It was only a glancing hit between the left side of the bus and the right rear corner of the caboose, but enough to stove the bus in. The best I can determine is that because I was pressed against the wall of the bus the initial contact threw me into the isle immediately. But the Indian girl behind me, because she was on the right side of the seat, hit the bus windows just when the train burst through that part of the bus. I saw her shortly there after lying on the grass with her forehead and nose missing. Im still counting my blessings. I did have the good fortune of getting a tour of the diamond mine medical cllinic for some stitches in my shoulder but unfortunately could not get to Bukoba in time for the wedding, and being a day late, I found the bride and groom had departed for parts secluded.