OT: Africa ** Skinning a Deer

[Guest guest]

Howdy Trish,

 

> Interesting and tasty creature called " cutter-grass " in Sierra Leone

> (or that is the best way to translate from the Mende). It may be a

> small deer or a big something else; I've never seen it on the hoof,

> only in chunks.

 

I don't know much about West Africa but its probably some type of antelope ..

like the Bongo or a similar critter. Such grazing animals .. along with goats

and camels .. are pretty much the main source of food in East Africa .. and

sometimes folks catch them when they are young and fatten them up.

 

> (I prefer to at least supervise the slaughter of my meals while

> I'm over there - no such thing as a butcher, nor refrigeration

> when we're upcountry) (or electricity, phones, clean water, and

> roads, neither).

 

Folks would have to experience it to even come close to understanding where you

are coming from.

 

> Delicate flavor, not too gamy, but strong enough to withstand the

> West Africa predilection to pour red pepper and palm oil over

> everything remotely edible.

 

Different kinds of condiments fer'shur used in that part of the world.

 

Afore I touch on that .. I wanna salute you for what you are doing and putting

up with while trying to do it. Takes a special type of person to tolerate such

conditions. Your experiences are good fodder for a book or maybe even a movie.

I thought Vietnam was bad till I went to Albania .. then thought both were fine

living when I got to East Africa.

 

I worked closely with folks like you in August 1999 while performing SAR during

the quake in Turkey. I watch the events on Haiti now and its like a rerun of

what went down there .. no surprises whatsoever. During that time the group

that most impressed me was Doctors Without Borders .. a more dedicated group of

civilians I have never seen .. so a salute to y'all who go out into the wildest

places and try to help folks under the most difficult of conditions.

 

A tad of humor on the lack of sanitation and storage of food. If one wanted to

give the world an enema they would stick the syringe into downtown

Mogafriggindishu, Somalia. I spent a lotta time there .. we went in while smoke

from the departing Russian aircraft was still visiable. Aside from from an

insect bite that caused me problems for a couple of years .. I caught none of

the diseases that are common there and that affected some other American GIs ..

so I am convinced that I have the immune system of a Great White Shark. ;-)

 

There was an outdoor restaurant in the center of town .. run by a Chinese Kenyan

expat. Foreigners congregated there cause Somalis (except for the generals)

couldn't afford to eat in a restaurant. One could hear forty eleven different

languages being spoken throughout the little place. The Russians had created a

nice fish processing plant in Mogadishu .. and they concentrated on lobster ..

which the Somali Muslims would not touch but they knew the rest of the world

craved .. so the main dish at this place was lobster with ginger over rice ..

and the price was a couple of bucks. But .. no refrigeration.

 

I would go there night after night and pig out .. and by midnight I would be

hungry again cause though it tasted real good going down .. I would almost

always barf it back up afore I got back to my hooch. ;-) That was bad enough

but while out and about if one came up on a Somali herder they would be offered

a drink from his gourd .. it was fermented goat or camel milk .. with blood.

When the dude opened the gourd my first reaction was to grab for my gas mask. I

never tasted it .. told them I could not drink milk .. which is a fact .. and

for that too I thank the Lord. ;-)

 

Again .. I salute you for what you are doing and can honestly say that if duty

called I would go back but I would not volunteer to work in that part of the

world again.

 

> Trish Ross

> Midwives on Missions of Service

> www.globalmidwives.org

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch ... http://www.AV-AT.com