Life in Moka

The day after our MEGI mom lunch, we packed our bags and headed to Moka for the first part of our Field Methods class. It was a great week…

Accommodations
The first time we went to Moka we slept in the research station building. This time, there were 10 of us including the 5 UNGE students, so we set up shop in tents behind the visitor’s center. The bathroom is inside the visitor’s center, but there isn’t any running water. We have to flush the toilet with a bucket of water from the barrels outside that collect rainwater (it rains a ton in Moka). We have to shower out of a bucket, too. First we heated the water over the fire then took it over to the wooden stall behind the building that was the “shower.” It wasn’t bad at all, none of us showered that often during the week anyway! We had reached what we deemed “critical stank,” and we were perpetually dirty. There’s no way to avoid it. During the day, there isn’t any electricity, but after dinner the generator gets turned on so there are lights and internet.

Food
Every morning we bought a bunch of freshly baked bread from a Bubi woman in the village. For breakfast and lunch we had that bread, the Cameroonian not-quite-as-delicious equivalent of Nutella called Tartina, President spreadable cheese wedges, Spam, sardines, tuna, and olives. All the food in Moka has to be non-perishable.  There’s a tiny refrigerator, but it’s only on when the generator’s on. Also, there isn’t really anywhere to buy fresh vegetables or fruits (although one day we were lucky to get bananas from a tree since they’re everywhere). I got a little sick of these choices by the end of our time in Moka, but it was alleviated by the delicious food we had for dinner. We hired two Bubi women (so many Bubi/booby jokes that week…) to cook dinner for us every night. They always made some combination of rice, pasta, beans, lentils, potatoes, green beans, or cabbage. It was delicious every time, especially with some mayo (I am turning so Guinean) and spicy red pepper flakes.

Daily Routine
We were in Moka for the first half of our Field Methods class. What we mostly did was census of the monkeys and other mammals, and one day we marked a trail every 20 meters with flagging tape. Every morning we woke up around 8, had some breakfast, and left for a hike around 8:30. Each trail was about 4 km, and we had to hike back, too.  So each day we hiked the trail at a slow pace in order to spot mammals. Sadly we found more shotgun shells and animal traps than actual animals. Hunting the monkeys is illegal, but there is zero enforcement so it is, unfortunately, still prevalent. We saw a lot of squirrels, a couple monkeys (I really only saw a quick flash), and heard a duiker or two. I thoroughly enjoyed the hikes, but they were definitely a work out. We hiked 4 km on average, which was the easy part since we had to go slow for our census, but then we had to hike the 4 km back which was always harder because it tended to be uphill. After hiking we usually wolfed down some lunch and relaxed for the rest of the day. At night we ate dinner around the fire and stayed there for the rest of the night. Moka gets chilly so it was really nice.

Independence Day
Wednesday the 12^th was our day off since it was independence day for the UNGE kids, aka the anniversary of the day president Obiang overthrew his uncle who was in power before him. Although there aren’t veggies anywhere in Moka, there is no such thing as a place with no beer in EG. Every little village has at least more than a few bars. So we celebrated independence day in style, but had a sort of rough hike the next day to say the least. We went to the top of the road to see the view of Moka and the sunset. Unfortunately it was incredibly foggy so we didn’t see anything at all, but Karim, Mahmood, and all the Syrians were up there already pretty intoxicated. They were chopping everything in sight down with machetes. It was extremely entertaining and I got to chop shit with a machete too which was just plain fun. I got some lovely group pictures, I’ll try to put them up soon. You really need to see these people to begin to understand the awesomeness.

Overall it was an amazing week. I’ve definitely fallen in love with Moka and I am antsy to get back. I’m bored of the city life, although we’ve been having some fun here in Malabo too. I can’t wait until we get back to Moka in a few weeks for our Field Research class where we will carry out our research projects we’ve designed. I personally will be investigating the impact of human disturbance on chameleon density. I’m excited to get started. We’ll do our research for two weeks then join Shaya (our Field Methods instructor) on the southern beaches for the second half of our class, assisting with marine turtle research. I’m really looking forward to that. Shaya told us it’s the most beautiful place she’s ever been so I seriously can’t wait to get there especially since the beach is my favorite place to be.

Lunch with the MEGI moms

                Thursday afternoon we made our first trip to the MEGI (Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc.) compound. It’s where the oil workers stay while they’re here to work. It was a small little suburbia in the  middle of this African island complete with a swimming pool, gym, lovely landscaping at each house, and a cafeteria. It was pretty surreal, but apparently the Marathon compound is even more ridiculous and is just like being in America. It’s also a lot larger because there’s many more people working for them.
                Our professor for our Society and the Environment class, Kathy, is a MEGI mom (her husband works for Mobil). She had us over for lunch along with a bunch of other MEGI wives. Her house felt like being back in Montgomery – with all of the interior decorating and suburban housewives, and she even had a cat. A bunch of the women had dogs as well. Each of the women made a dish so we had a feast of ziti, enchiladas, chicken and rice, meatballs, and more, followed by some good ol' chocolate chip cookies and rice krispie treats. Once again it was great to get some delicious (and free) home cooking. All of the women were really nice. Some were shocked by the fact that we were excited to be heading to Moka for the next 10 days. Showering from a bucket and living in a tent isn’t really their thing. It’s funny that they are living in Africa but some of them don’t really leave the compound too often so they don’t even know what it’s like.
                After our lunch one of the women took us on a short tour and told us about life on the compound. Some people are “rotators” who work in EG and live on the compound for 28 days, then go home to America for 28 days. They’re 12 hour work days, so it’s pretty intense, but once they’re home they’re home and don’t have to worry about work at all. Sounds like a pretty good schedule to me; they’re really only working half the year. Other people are permanent residents and go home every so often. Most of the women we met were permanent residents. The woman also told us that there’s a curfew and that everyone has to be on the compound by midnight for safety reasons. I thought it a little strange that grown adults had a curfew to adhere to, especially since we’re allowed to be out as late as we want.
                We had class to get to at 6 so Kathy drove us back to our house. The ladies invited us to come to MEGI when we’re back from Moka and have some dinner there. I hope we get to take advantage of the pool!

A day at the beach

                This past Saturday we ventured to one of the very few tourist attractions Bioko has – an old wooden church in a small village called Batete. The whole area used to be cacao plantations back when that was the island’s main export (now replaced by oil). A lovely drunk man gave us a short tour then proceeded to sit in our bus afterwards; he was expecting us to give him money. When he left, we were off to the town of Luba where we ate lunch and went to the beach. Once again our lunch took about two hours, we waited a good hour and half for our food. Guineans really do take their time. I ordered porcupine, which is common to eat here – you can buy it in the central market. I also tried my friends’ duiker, which is a type of small deer. The porcupine was pretty good, once I got past the really thick, fatty skin. Some portions just tasted like beef, others tasted like, well, porcupine. It had a slight tang to it I guess I would say. The duiker was really good too. 
                After lunch we headed to the beach. It was beautiful, with soft, smooth sand, lots of cool seashells, and palm trees lining the shore. It was extremely disappointing to see the mass amounts of garbage and broken glass, though. There was literally a wall of garbage a couple feet high at one portion of the beach. The water was really nice and warm, so we swam for most of the day. The beach is my favorite place to be so I couldn’t have been happier. There were people barbequing and selling Cebu kebabs, to which one of our UNGE partners treated us which was really nice. It was extremely delicious, covered with mayo (of course) and an extra-spicy sauce. After watching the sunset, we called it a day and headed back to Malabo for the night.

The outside of the church.

Lots of snails on Bioko!

A panel of stained glass in the church.

A really cool flower outside the church.

My porcupine lunch.

Super delicious Cebu kebab.

Volcanic rocks on the beach.

Pretty flower on the beach.

Sunset over the water.

Palm trees on the shore.

A pretty derpy picture of all of us Drexel kids.

Goodbye, beach! :(

The land snail experience

Land snails are a super cheap form of food that the locals eat. We decided to try them out.

The snails on the table at the market. It definitely freaked me out to see them crawling around on the table with their little antennae! I didn't expect them to be so big either.

 

 A picture of the produce portion of the market (the snails are in the lower left corner).

The lady at the market preparing the snails for us. What she did was take each snail, stick a rod into the shell, pull out the snail, and move onto the next one. That's what she is doing in this photo. She then trimmed them up for us and gave them to us in a bag.

The final product (thank you Rachael for the great picture) - the snails were sauteed and thrown in with rice, greens, spicy sauce, and served with a boiled plantain. The snail did not have much flavor at all, it was just really chewy. That's really the only way I would describe it: just chewy. It wasn't bad at all, but I'm not sure I could do it again, I kept picturing them crawling around on the table!

The pictures from the market are not that great of quality because I didn't really feel comfortable taking photos, let alone turning on the flash of my camera. It is a strange dynamic here with taking pictures. You don't want to offend anyone. This island is not really a tourist attraction - at all - and they are not used to seeing people take pictures. It's hard to explain, but I mean, wouldn't you feel strange if some young white girl came along and was snapping photos of the way you made your living every day because she thought it was foreign and amusing? Not to mention it is illegal to take photos of certain things in this country, such as the presidential palace or anything that is "of strategic importance" such as the port where the oil companies are located. The people are also sensitive about the country being portrayed in a negative light due to bad press it has received in the past, so taking pictures of anything that could possibly depict the country in such a way might upset someone.

A taste of Moka

 This weekend we took a trip into the town of Moka, where we will later be doing our field research, to get acquainted with the area and where we will be staying. It was great to get out of Malabo and be closer to nature. I didn’t want to leave and go back to the city!
                Moka is a really small village with people living in more of huts than actual houses. The weather is much cooler than in the city which was a welcome change.  It also rains a lot more and can be very foggy. It’s cool to watch the fog roll in and out; one minute it can be foggy and the next it is completely clear.
                We got our first taste of the jungle through a 4 hour hike. It was great to finally be in nature, but it was a pretty tough hike for me. The terrain is very muddy and slippery. Luckily it wasn’t raining; I can’t even imagine what it would have been like if it were! Especially on the way down where I was slipping and sliding a decent amount. There are only a few things you have to look out for while on the trails: traps which are set up for snakes or small mammals, snakes themselves (for the most part they don’t want anything to do with you and they are more of a concern at night), and most of all, the ants. The ants are pretty feisty. They’ll climb onto your shoes and into your clothes and bite you so you have to be pretty vigilant about checking for them.
                When we reached the top of our hike, we enjoyed the view of a huge lake. The original plan was to hike down to the lake itself, but it takes about an hour to do that and we were running out of daylight. We decided we want to go back to that spot and camp out for a couple of nights so we’ll probably hike down to the lake then. After resting for a little while we made our way down and headed to the house.
                After our hike we went to Kareem’s house – a very nice, funny Syrian guy who also works for BBPP. There are actually a lot of Syrians on the island; they do construction work (it’s the same with Chinese people, there are a lot of them here also doing construction). We enjoyed a feast of chicken and rice, beef kebabs, sausages, salad, fries, tzastiki sauce, and other things I can’t even remember. The food was awesome, especially after hiking and eating a lot of the same stuff for a while. We had heard stories about Kareem’s friend Machmud (no idea how to spell his name) killing a cow by tying a rope to its leg, throwing the rope over a tree, and tying the rope to his truck. He then drove so that the cow was hanging from the tree; then he went and slit its throat. Pretty brutal. We had heard this story one of the first nights here, and we finally met the infamous Machmud and learned that the delicious beef kebabs we enjoyed with dinner were from that cow. He was a pretty funny guy, he had a hookah to himself and barely ever stopped to breathe. He also cooked the majority of our dinner.
                It’s funny how generous and hospitable the Syrians are. If you finish your plate, they’ll just keep piling more food on. If you don’t want any more you have to leave some on your plate, otherwise they’ll never stop. It’s the same with beer. If you finish one, they’ll just give you another.
                When we got back from Kareem’s we went on a short night walk. The stars in Moka are amazing (when it’s a clear night, which it was – sometimes it can be really hazy) because there’s no light pollution. Andrew, the director of the research station at Moka (yes, there’s two Andrews), found two chameleons in a tree: one male and one female. We held them and checked them out for a little while. They are so stinkin’ cute and little. After bothering them for a little while we put them back in their tree and let them be. Can’t wait to do some real research on the little dudes! It had been a long day so we headed to bed. This time around we slept inside in beds but when we come next we’ll be camping outside in tents.
                On Sunday morning we just lounged around. In the afternoon, some men from Marathon oil came and barbequed lots of food – sausages, chicken, corn on the cob, three types of fish, and even some filet. Another delicious feast! We also hung out with an adorable stray dog that apparently hangs out there a lot. His name’s Titi/Abdul (he has two names, I prefer Abdul haha). Afterwards the UNGE bus came to pick us up and back to Malabo we went. Can't wait to get back to Moka though.

We stopped to look around and snap a few photos on our bus ride to Moka.

A butterfly I captured at our stop.

The visitor's center.

The research station house in Moka where we stayed the night.

The view of the lake from the top of our hike.

A house in Moka.

On the walk back to the house from our hike. You can see how foggy Moka gets.

On our little night walk - with the female chameleon!

A teeny little frog we also saw on our walk.

Abdul!

The male chameleon in the daylight - you can tell he's anxious due to his dark coloring.

A little snail.

The ants walking in their perfectly formed line. They're crazy!

Some Cebu (a type of cow) we saw on our bus ride back to Malabo - the same type that we ate at dinner in Moka.

Adjusting to EG life

Overall it has been pretty easy to get used to living here since I adjust to change pretty easily…

·         It's the rainy season here, which means it basically pours every day. But it will only really rain for a few hours, it's just pretty cloudy all day, and it's doesn't rain at night. Nights here are really nice; warm and dry. The rainy season lasts for about six months. The dry season starts right after we leave in January. Once the dry season starts it won't rain basically at all for six months.

·         There are lots of stray chickens, and roosters crow really loud in the middle of the night and wake me up. The upside: there is a momma hen and her cute-as-hell chicks living in our yard.

·         The water here is not safe to drink, so we brush our teeth with bottled water. This isn’t hard to get used to or anything but it’s extremely wasteful considering the island doesn’t recycle (it just doesn’t have the resources for it).

·         We have mosquito nets on our beds. The mosquitoes are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be, though, and they are not bigger or scarier than in the US like I thought they would be. I also thought they would get worse when we went to Moka – but apparently there aren’t even any there because it’s too cool for them.

Cheap, delicious African food

                Today I had my first taste of Senegalese food (traditional African) for lunch. The meal consisted of chicken, rice, fried plantains, salad, and of course a San Miguel (the main beer here, it’s a Spanish beer). This is pretty typical restaurant food here in Malabo. All together it cost 2000 CFA (pronounced say-fah), which is the currency here, a French franc. That’s the equivalent of $4, the beer being $1, and it was a lot of food. It’s a place where the locals go to eat. Definitely going back there, it was delicious and cheap! They put ketchup and mayo on everything, it’s pretty funny – there were two little dollops of it on the chicken. It’s pretty good though.
                The restaurants generally have kind of poor service. As an example, I ordered meat but they gave me chicken. Meals also sometimes take a really long time to receive – we had lunch at the Spanish cultural center the other day after Sipopo and it took two hours when we all only ordered simple sandwiches. That’s just the way it is here, but with places like this Senegalese restaurant you’re not supposed to tip at all. At nicer places such as the Spanish and French cultural centers or other nicer, indoor restaurants (most restaurants are almost fully outside) you are supposed to tip 10%. Politeness is also not a huge thing here; they don't really expect you to say "gracias" after receiving your meal or "por favor" when ordering it, and they are not exceptionally friendly. They are not rude either, it's just a cultural difference. They are pretty straightforward people. So the whole restaurant experience is another intriguing contrast between life in the US and EG.

The city built for 3 days: Sipopo

                We awoke early in the morning on our third day to get on a bus and see the city of Sipopo. This city was built entirely for the African summit, which is pretty ridiculous to me. Not only did they renovate the airport and the main road of Malabo, but they also built a whole city! It was interesting to see the contrast of the city of Malabo with Sipopo which was very modern. I wonder why the country’s money is not better allocated to other more pressing issues… The wealth in the country is extremely undistributed, with a giant gap between the poor and the rich. There are some people who have immense wealth, such as the president and his family. There are also a lot of fancy hotels (there is another Sofitel in Malabo, with a beautiful fountain and courtyard) where oil execs and foreign diplomats and other wealthy people stay. However, most live in extreme poverty with no running water and die of malaria - the image you may get when you think of an underdeveloped African country. There are very few middle class members of society. The house where we are staying is considered to be where an upper-middle class person would live, such as a bank worker.
                We went specifically to the hotel Sofitel, a French hotel chain equivalent to a Hilton, mostly to check out the beach there. The hotel has its own beach, artificially created, with a bridge to a little island. One of the employees took us on a tour of the whole hotel (randomly, it was unplanned), which included suites, a buffet, a spa, a gym, a pool with a bar, and of course the beach and the island (he was definitely just trying to get us to stay there). Again, it was weird to see a 5 star hotel in an underdeveloped country. The island was pretty cool; we saw it as baby steps to the jungles of Moka. I really want to post pictures of it, but unfortunately the internet is pretty spotty and very slow, so it’s extremely difficult to do so. We have little modems that plug into the USB port, but apparently the wireless is not much better. Internet is also not widely available. In fact, important figures such as the head of the environmental department at UNGE does not have internet in his office, or even his own printer.

The view from the bridge to the island.

The view from a room in the hotel - you can see how luxurious the resort was, which was strange to see in a country that is still very much developing.

The roots of a Ceiba tree on the island which I thought was really cool.

Ceiba trees have cool little spikes on 'em.

The view from a small bridge on the island.

The view of the shore and the hotel from the bridge, leaving the little island.

Why Bioko?

                The next morning we went to a presentation the grad students were giving at UNGE about the research they have been doing for the past month on the frogs in Moka, which is where I will be going to do my research project on chameleons. UNGE is Universidad Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial - the name of the university here. It is basically a large courtyard and nothing more than that; my high school was larger. The students actually seemed really intrigued by the presentation and asked a lot of questions at the end.  They liked the fact that there is something so unique about their country that people come from so far away just to study it. It was interesting to see the contrast in the younger generation taking such interest in what the grad students had to say vs. the older generation at the airport being skeptical of our intentions with our scientific equipment. Apparently it’s a great thing that the presentation even happened because everything here is so unorganized and things usually fall through. Here you really have to be prepared for things to start really late or be cancelled and just go with the flow. I’m definitely learning to live on “Guinean time” and getting used to everything taking much longer than it would in the US.
                After a quick lunch at the house we had a siesta which is pretty strictly observed here, even more so than Spain. Everything is closed between 1 and 4 (and open from 7-1 and 4-7). Later we went to a hip-hop show at the Spanish Cultural Center. I witnessed some Spanish rap battles which were pretty entertaining even though I couldn’t really understand most of it. There were also dance-offs which were cool since I didn’t have to understand the language to enjoy them. Afterwards we had dinner there. The menu had lots of food from around Europe, including Italian pasta dishes, as well as some traditional African food. I just went with some pasta but I’m excited to try the traditional food as well as some more adventurous stuff like perhaps the land snails.

                So why am I here, of all places, studying abroad? Why travel all the way to an underdeveloped country just to take some classes? The short answer is that Bioko Island is one of the biggest biodiversity hot spots in the world.
                There is a string of volcanic islands coming off of the mainland, Bioko being the closest to it. It is different from the others in that it was connected to the mainland at one point. It shares species with the mainland and has some endemic species as well (such as the Fea’s chameleon which I will be studying). Due to its volcanic origins and the way it formed, there is some pretty steep, treacherous terrain that would be really tough to inhabit, which is why it hasn’t been yet. It’s pretty difficult to get to. For this reason, Bioko has some of the most untouched, pristine mahogany rainforest in the world that would otherwise have been deforested long ago. Researchers can look for weeks for primates on the mainland and find a few, while a researcher casually walking around Bioko forests will encounter many. And that is why I am researching here, as opposed to any other place. The only Americans that really ever come to EG are Huston oil workers or Drexel students, either doing the study abroad, co-op, or their PhD research. So it’s a pretty amazing opportunity to be here studying biodiversity and conservation in one of the best biodiversity hot spots in the entire world - that has barely been studied yet at all. I’m extremely excited to get to Moka and begin my research in such a pristine jungle. We are making a short weekend field trip there next weekend and I can't wait to see what it's like.
                Bioko is also different and interesting in that it was a Spanish colony at one point and is the only African country where the national language is Spanish (their own funky dialect). French is also pretty common, and there is a French cultural center in addition to the Spanish one. The guard who watches our house speaks French and is from Mali. Andrew (our resident director) can speak French so he communicates with him pretty well. In the central marketplace they speak Nigerian pigeon, which was explained to me as a strange Jamaican Patois (which is basically just bad English,  but theirs is even worse and if you speak regular English to them they wouldn't understand you). I have yet to experience that, but we are going on Monday to learn how to shop and bargain with them. There is also the language of the native people, the Bubi. I haven’t heard this yet either, but I believe they speak it in Moka. It is a less developed area than here in Malabo.

                                         

A map of EG: Bioko Island is the small island off the coast of Cameroon. I'm staying where the red star is - the capital city of Malabo.