On Call to the Animal Kingdom

“Have A Leg” Despatches From The Forests And Market Stalls Of West And Central Africa. This is a travelogue through a piece of what to me is God’s chosen continent. It is a transect from south to north, spanning rich Guinean gallery forest and the pockets of baobabs that hold in place the harmattan-swept sahelian sands - effectively parts of the historical caravan routes that pass through places like Ouagadougou and Timbuktu. It is also a traverse from West to East - from wave-beaten Atlantic shores where jungle straddles ocean and where elephants comb the beach beside breaking surf - to far beyond the mystical and so-called ‘Mountains of the Moon’ that introduce you to the other side of Africa. Far from being the ‘dark continent’, West and Central Africa is a truly colourful and blessed land and these brief despatches are intended to celebrate the exceptional vitality of a group of peoples most renowned in my memories for their tremendous sense of jest and joviality, and for their incredibly impassioned sense of hospitality. Ignore, though, for a moment the electricity and the magic of the ‘native’ dance to the beckoning beat of the Loangan footed drum. Put aside - just for now - all those fascinating carvings in mahogany and do not seek to look at what lies behind all those very mysterious and eerie masquerades. Sit down, instead, and enjoy all the fervent hospitality, expressed through some recollections about the West and Central African extravaganza of traditional food. Expect the unexpected, though, and do not retch - it certainly takes courage to accept the offerings and become an integral part of the festivities. You do not, after all, become a connoisseur overnight - it takes time to appreciate the master chef of the rich pickings - the ones that come from the gallery of trees and the very depths of the undergrowth. My reason for indulging in a Pan-African trip was not, in fact, to sample the traditional foods - it was, instead, to make a serious assessment of the impact that the world ivory trade ban was having on the efforts to conserve the wild elephant populations that are now peppered across the continent. Serious intent, indeed, for the work went hand-in-hand with much formality - it was a tremendous opportunity to really get to know all walks of people - Wardens of protected areas, Heads of Parcs Nationales, and Ministers of Eaux, Fôrèts and Wildlife. It was, however, during the informal, behind-the-scenes integration with everyday life that I began to really appreciate the tremendous genuineness of the West and Central African peoples’ warmth and welcoming. It was on these occasions, too, that I became all too familiar with the region’s axiom about what in their eyes makes for good food. It’s very simple - if it moves (no matter what the shape or form) - it can be made to taste absolutely delectable. So off I set, then, to find out if there was still any drive behind the ivory train by visiting the colourful market stalls all the way from to Ougadougou to Timbuktu. I’d corroborate what I found at the market place in whatever appropriate way, be it by asking the local conservatuers in remnant patches of Guinean evergreen (Eden itself must have been modelled on one of these) - or by sharing the smoke of a pipe with the Batwa pygmies. The journey, for me, started at a makeshift base that (I soon found out) doubled up as a brothel in Abidjan - I hasten to add that I was neither client nor pimp, but I was certainly the special of the day for its plethora of local blood-sucking invertebrates. Whilst being kept awake by the flapping doors from the to-and-fro of the clientele (the joint obviously did quite a burgeoning trade), I was the sustenance, instead, for a bed-bug metropolis and the landing strip for malaria-ridden mosquitoes that banqueted on me - how, in a revenging twist-around of the region’s axiom about food, these wild animals found the fresh import of lightly tanned skin to be such a delicacy! When it comes to the axiom about food, it was a particular sit-down meal in Ghana that remains most vividly with me - not least because it was the introduction to food that is truly exotic, par extreme. At that particular function, I also witnessed a zest for life and a ‘thanksgiving’ for living that will remind me to really cherish each and every day. Set against a backdrop of chiselled-away, moth-eaten forest in the picturesquely decaying and bustling town of Koumasi, the Ashanti chief at the head of the table had just bid me a warm welcome with open arms, themselves heavily muscled and draped with bright Kente cloth sleeves. His voice was deep and resonant and with his ivory-white teeth and captivating grin, words hardly do justice to such radiance. Many of the other local elders and dignitaries were immaculately turned out in robes adorned with Adinkra print, all here to enquire about me and my perplexingly philanthropic foreign interest in Ghana’s treasure troves of wildlife and its elephants. Local brews soon began to flow uninhibitedly and even the clinks of the more conventional beer bottles quickly became drowned by the luncheon’s general atmosphere of ebullience. Casting an eye away from the speech of great substance (no doubt), I looked down the table at the bewildering array of mouth-watering delights, colourful, bubbling and sizzling away. Assorted soups were surrounded by kokontes and fufus, consisting of pounded plantains and plenty of yams to decorate. The speech alternated English with one of the Akan languages, allowing me the occasional time to ponder about the ingredients in each exotic preparation in front of me. One in particular caught my eye, a stew of some sort which reminded me of some sort of prehistoric fossil - forming pit, the bubbling brown sauce resembling mud with an assortment of bones sticking out of it. Clearly they were the victims that had become stuck after wallowing in there so unsuspectingly. Suddenly, it occurred to me what the victims were, when the entire trunk of a giant cane-rat (still covered in parts with furry bits) rolled around in the wallow, exposing mud-caked eyelashes and providing the perfect contrast with which to accentuate the ghostly look of the white sclera that appeared to be staring right back at me. For a moment, I was taken aback in revolt, and then the carcass rolled again by one hundred and eighty degrees, exposing one of the giant rodent’s trotters once buried within the ‘mud’. I was caught in the act of observing this and was quickly transformed into the party guinea pig, feeling more in the limelight I am sure than a person opening a ballroom dance in front of royalty. By this time, with fingers covered in fufu, everyone had clearly started to tuck right in but chief, wanting to prove himself as the perfect host, gestured with his hands for me to follow suit: “Please, my good friend, just go ahead. Why don’t you ……have a leg?” In a bid to find out more about Ghana’s elephants and in order to glimpse (in its living form) at least some of the culinary menagerie on that table in Koumasi, a trip to the nearby Bia National Park seemed a most logical move. Bia, it turned out, had precious few elephants - thanks to the local consideration of these creatures as a cheap source of protein that can much more than feed a family. As I deliberated with the deputy warden on ways to conserve the remaining elephant groups, his wife brought out some palm-wine aperitif to wash down the hors d’oeuvre of boiled-up African land snails that was placed by our side as ‘bitings’ to pick at in a relaxed Roman style. It turned out that the main course still needed to be harvested from the jungle behind and the deputy lethargically lifted his head from his hand-rest, picked up his gun in a lackadaisical way and shot down a hyrax or dassie that was calling from a nearby tree. The sun was going down and the flying termites spinning in orbit around the kerosene lamp were gathered, to