In the jungle, the might jungle
September 1, 2015
On Sunday I went with Guillaume and Sarah to an Aka Pygmy church, made of fire-hardened bricks from the local soil, located further North of Impfondo. The Aka live in a Matriarchal society, with women holding the power and authority. It was amazing to watch and listen to how they pray and worship as they sang traditional African songs.
Spending so much time with people of the Christian faith has been a real experience for me. Certainly, Christianity has played, and will continue to play, a significant role in the social and spiritual processes of African society. I have myself come to a much clearer understanding of one of the most influential spiritual movements in the history of human kind, whilst also challenging my own beliefs along the way. If anything, it has strengthened my desire to travel and experience more of the world’s religions, cultures and ways of life.
After the church we went on what is probably the only tourist attraction in the Likouala region, a jungle walk with people from a local village. We trooped through the forest and were given some brief presentations of how people live in one of the most hostile environments on Earth. I learnt which tree barks can be used to cure gastric problems and headaches, and was even shown a type of tree sap which apparently makes you run faster when you play football! We then ate from an a la carte menu of forest food, including a sweet and citrus-like flesh which surrounds cocoa beans before they have been dried out for export. It was delicious.
One of the women in the village was suffering from gastric problems and hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. Inside her small, dark mud hut she crouched, stick thin and with protruding ribs, clearly suffering a great deal. Sarah had no medicine to give to here, so we cycled for about an hour to Impfondo and back to get her the meds. Though she was suffering, her husband pulled a Ukulele out of nowhere and began to play ‘In The Jungle’, and everybody had a sing-along. The way people cope with hard times never ceases to amaze me. That day I also saw a man with what looked like bad burns covering half of his face. From a distance it looked black and scar-like, and later on I learnt that he had shingles. It upset me a lot to see a young man, probably my age, embarrassed and at risk of damage to his sight. Good health is something a lot of people, including myself, take too much for granted.
Guest Blog By
Rowan Cassels-Brown
New Sight Summer Intern
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