Hunting with the BaAka pygmies & Closing notes on CAR

Having checked off the Dzanga Bai (#1 on my list) and western lowland gorillas (#2 on my list) plus throwing in the adventure of just getting there, I was fairly content with how my trip had turned out.

After returning from Bai Hokou I was still in Bayanga though and it was already my 6^th day in CAR and my flight out of Bangui was late afternoon two days later. The mind at that point, was subconsciously already drifting towards making my way back to Bangui and visiting my family in India. On my onward journey from Bangui to Bayanga, I’d caught a break when I got a lift from Boda to Yamandu in a nice Toyota Landcruiser making my journey that much comfortable and efficient. With the road between Bayanga to Boda being remote I knew I might not be lucky twice. I had to bake in more travel time and plan on traveling on motorcycle taxis all the way to Bangui…a good 540 kms away!

A BaAka pygmy hut

There was however one more thing I needed to do before I left the Dzanga Sanga National Park – go hunting with the indigenous BaAka pygmies. My first encounter with pygmies was in 2013 in south-east Cameroon on the way to the adjacent Lobéké National Park. It was a novel experience back then. While in CAR, I had seen pockets of their communities dotted along the way between Mambele and Bayanga. Even our trackers at the Dzanga Sanga NP were BaAka owing to their innate knowledge of these jungles.

A ritual before they go hunting

Before we went hunting we had to collect the BaAka people from their community and then proceed to a patch of forest that they felt would yield some catch. They use several techniques to hunt but the one we were participating was a community net hunting technique where a small group of men and women team up and spread a network of nets in a patch of forest. Then they try to flush out the animals by beating the bush and making noises so any animal that tries to escape the commotion gets entangled in the net made from strips of bark.

Laying the net made of a tree bark

They repeat this exercise as they move from one patch of the forest to the next until they find their catch or run out of time. In our case unfortunately we ran out of time but I suppose some duiker somewhere was happy that its life was spared.

The BaAka are paid for going out to hunts regardless if they make a catch or not which is a good thing because then they have another way of feeding their family. If we would have caught any animals then that would have been a bonus to them. All in all, I think it is a good thing if it is mutually beneficial to the wildlife as well as the indigenous communities. What I’m not sure is how viable this is in the long term with the upward curve in human population in Africa and the concurrent increased pressured on the natural environment to support more and more humans each day.

Drinking water from a cut section of a liana vine

A BaAka woman with a face tattoo
and chiseled teeth

I returned back to Doli lodge after the hunt and packed my backpack and paid my outstanding bills to the park authority and the lodge. Fredrik was going to stay a couple more days to visit the bai one more time before crossing into Cameroon and returning to Sweden. Since he was looking for “that” picture for his publication he felt the need to revisit the bai whereas I had already got my experience. We even discussed about possibly meeting up in Burkina Faso in Q1 2020 for the mask festival so let’s see if that happens in the future.

Got a wrist band made of the same tree bark
that makes their net

My guide from the park had already arranged for the mototaxi so off we set from Bayanga to Yamandu where I intended to rest for the night before figuring out a way to get to Bangui the next day. Although I have ridden similar bikes growing up in India it was a little unnerving riding on the back of the ones in CAR. I think they ride it too fast for the condition of the road which could range from wet slippery to sandy to ones ridden with potholes. Perhaps the nastiest being dry laterite with large pebbles prone to skidding at higher speeds.

Back on the road meant checkpoints and more “formalities” or demand for bribes by the police and gendarmerie. It also meant the customary flat tire for the motorbike which is not surprising given the state of the roads and the speed at which they ride their bikes. A flat tire meant roughly an hour of wait time for the rider to go to the nearest place to get it fixed while I wait out on the road for him to return. This time it was beside a small hamlet of a few thatched huts where I passed my time paying hide and seek with the local kids most of whom probably never interact with foreigners. Although it can be an enforced event, if one is open to it, most often than not these can turn out to be a pleasant experience to see the character, warmth and cheerfulness of the local people.

Sunrise on the way back to Bangui

Pounding cassava...staple for the Sango people
just like in West Africa

After the night’s rest at Yamandu I made my way to the logging town of Mambele on another mototaxi where I got lucky (again) to hitch a ride in a nice Toyota Hilux pickup all the way to Boda. This time it was an NGO vehicle that works for the security of children in CAR. They are actually not supposed to pickup hitchhikers but the chief (Salifu) made an exception for me to ride with them. Along the way we stopped by remote villages to drop off supplies and check on their aid programs. For someone from the corporate it was quite interesting to see the reach and functioning of an NGO. Thinking I am part of the program, some locals thanked me and asked for photographs with me. Not knowing how to explain them that I was just hitching a ride with the NGO team, in either their local Sango language or French, I just nodded, smiled and shook their hands.

Interacting with locals as i wait for the mototaxi
to fix the flat tire

Boda is roughly only 5-7 hours away from Bangui. However, talking to Salifu I got to know that after spending the night in Boda they were leaving for Bangui the next morning so I asked if I could continue with them the next day as well and they agreed. That was a huge relief which meant I didn’t need to take any motor taxis after dusk and/or no more no more sitting on a generator (sic).

Planning my route back to Bangui
L to R: Bayanga, Lopo. Yamandu, Mambele, Bambio,
Buda, Mbaiki and Bangui

We checked into an auberge in Boda and then went out for a drink that night and shared a few cold beers to celebrate an almost successful trip for me and as a gesture of gratitude for their help. Spending the evening and night there allowed me to get a sense for this shanty looking town in the bush.  I’d seen several compounds with the words “Collecteur de Diamant” and learnt from Salifu that the area surrounding Boda is rich in diamonds (and gold) and that explains the multitude of agents around Boda. Surely…it’s an industry that is not regulated though!

UEFA Champions League game at a bush
theater in Yamandu

I’m sure if I wanted I could have bought a few but as a foreigner I need a license to carry diamonds out of the country and moreover, I’ve never seen a lot of value in pieces of stone or more technically put…hardened carbon. The next morning, they dropped me close to the airport in Bangui from where I took a taxi and thus ended my 9-day adventure in CAR.

Jungle road on way back to Bangui...notice the width

I think the country has much to offer but presently its only suitable for either the adventure traveler who can rough it out or the well-off traveler who can shell out top dollars for an all-inclusive tailored option with chartered flights and luxury accommodation. If the security in the nation can be improved perhaps this can bring in more tourists but CAR is far from there.

Diamond agent in Boda

I only visited a small section of the country in the south west. There are even bigger national parks in CAR but they all lie in regions that are a strictly a no-go as of the time of this writing. Salifu said that on one of the roads leading north-east from Bangui to a town called Bria, one could encounter checkpoints alternatingly controlled by the anti-Balaka and Selekka showing how tenuous the security situation is around the vast majority of the country.

Charcoal on the final leg to Bangui

I wonder though, if the fight is strictly religious. CAR has a lot of resources…timber in the south, pastureland in the Sahelian north and several regions across the country rich in diamonds and gold and I’m not even talking of other precious mineral deposits yet to be discovered.

To me, it seems like fight due a complicated web of resources, power and religion. I don’t think things are going to change in a rush. Going from my limited experience of living in post-war Liberia this looks like atleast a decade or two and a generation lost for the country. Hopefully I’m proved wrong and more people get to visit CAR in the near future.