Demarcation Diaries
15 September 2001
We were woken up by a torrential rain last night. It cooled the
air, but it also made the soil more muddy. I knew we would have
a difficult day today.
As if to cheer everybody up, I performed a sudden slip on the
tiny bridge between the Comte Savio and the beach when we departed.
I was carrying two huge bottles of water, and the weight plus
the slippery surface on the bridge failed me. Luckily I did not
fall into water with my Global Positioning System and camera.
We took another aluminium boat and when we arrived, the Deni
took off right away to the starting point. We tried to follow
their trail, but found ourselves lost in the forest after one
and a half hours. While we were trying to find out where we were,
one of the Deni came to look for us. I swore I would never walk
alone in the forest.
The forest was muddy, very muddy. Janine said: "Muddy as
hell!" It made me remembered Dante's Inferno. Walking in
the muddy forest forever would be an appropriate punishment for
the illegal loggers. Actually, it might be a good idea to write
a modern environmental version of the Inferno.
We brought food and cooking utensils this time. It took us more
than three hours to collect the firewood, set up the fire and
make the food. We had beans cooked with potatoes, cabbage and
onions. It could have made a nice dish, except that we forgot
to bring salt! While we waited silently for the beans to cook,
Bryan and I shared the feeling that camping and living in the
forest would be a very, very difficult thing to do.
I am beginning to have an allergic reaction to the mosquito repellent.
I will stop using it from now on. Although I am wearing long sleeve
shirts and pants all the time, I still have bites all over my
body except the triangular part around my private parts. Yup,
it is because the mosquitoes here can get you through shirts and
trousers, unless you are protected with two layers of clothing.
Then there are ants. When you stand in the forest for more than
a couple of minutes, there are always ants which make a long journey
climbing up your legs, under your trousers, and give you a good
bite before you realise how far they have travelled on your body.
All in all, for those of you who are thinking about going to tropical
forests, here is my advice: bring sturdy and tight underwear.
Kontau
(Team A)
Find out about the different
volunteers on the demarcation project.
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