In the Danger Zone (7 page)

The men to whom I serve the food are aghast at seeing a weedy
mazungu
bringing their lunch, but they enjoy it – or at least they're too embarrassed to complain. Joyce pronounces herself pleased with my performance. Only then do I realize that I've ground most of my fingernails into the paste, which must have added something interesting to the texture.

As promised, I pay my 30p and eat a bowl of the stew. I've given up worrying about food poisoning and now I'm just hoping for the best. Joyce tells me that she just about makes a living from the restaurant, and at least it's a little more than most people have.

After lunch we look at one of the other restaurants and Pedro introduces me to Atimango, possibly the most beautiful girl in Uganda, with a captivating smile and a wicked sense of humour. She makes fun of our big white UN 4x4 and the laughter is a relief after everything I've seen.

That night I stay at the camp's Catholic Mission run by Sister Mary, an archetypal sweet, birdlike Irish nun. Pedro, his assistant and I sleep together with a cloud of whining mosquitoes in a room as hot as Hades (are you allowed to say that about a Catholic Mission?) and I lie awake quietly fuming with impotent rage about the LRA late into the night. All this suffering, and these rebels aren't even rebelling against anything.

The morning finds us wandering around the tightly packed slum that makes up the centre of Pabbo. It's a dense, apocalyptic vision of a refugee camp, with listless people lying around in the sun, babies playing with turds, and packs of dogs running over everything (what the hell are dogs doing here?). Nowhere is there any water. Pedro is concerned that this place is becoming a dysfunctional city rather than a camp, but it's almost impossible to turn people away.

With so little food to be found here, I decide to cook for all of us tonight. There is a tiny market, and we buy charcoal, bo (the spinach-like leaf), some groundnuts and a charcoal stove made from an old car wheel.

I decide to invite the people I've met here in Pabbo for dinner. I'm worried that it might look like a horribly patronizing gesture, but I want to see them all again, and it would be nice to give them something in return for their hospitality, even if it's only a plate of food. Atimango asks why I want to cook her dinner. This floors me for a while. 'Because I want to see if you like it.' She thinks this is hilarious and agrees to come.

So I cook supper for 12 of us: Joyce, Atimango, the UN team, my producer Ruhi, Sister Mary and a bunch of other people who happen to be hanging around. They are all a little surprised – they aren't used to being invited to eat with the
mazungus.

It's my emergency risotto again, this time with some blanched bo and perfectly al dente rice. I spend hours preparing the whole thing, with my new friends taking the mickey out of me for being so slow. And when finally I serve it up, they all roll about laughing. This is awful, they say – the rice isn't cooked through and the bo is still crunchy. We thought you were a proper cook.

They hate it so much that I have to take the bowls back and cook it again, and they tease me until they've eaten their fill. Throughout the trip I've felt almost like a poverty tourist, and worried that I wasn't really engaging with the people I was talking to, but this is different. This isn't about cooking risotto for refugees – it's about enjoying the company of friends and sharing what we can. I'm sad when everyone returns home for the camp's curfew.

As I clear up the mess, another three huts burst into flames 200 metres away, an inferno in the dark. All I can do is watch.

In the morning I visit Atimango's parents' restaurant and have a breakfast of chapattis and eggs rolled together – a dish that the Ugandans call rolex (for 'roll-eggs'). Atimango scolds me for being late. When we get ready to leave the camp she looks me straight in the eyes and asks, Are you leaving me here? Please don't leave me here.

I feel terrible – how come I get to leave, but other people don't? But she's bright and intelligent, she works hard and all I can do is hope to God that good things will happen to her.

I meet a lovely old lady who has been a refugee for longer than she can remember. I ask her if she has a message for the LRA and she surprises me.

'Come home and stop this pain,' she says. 'Give us our lives back. Tell the world what you have seen here; tell the world what is happening and help to end this.'

The Night Commuters

I return to Gulu to discover another extraordinary tragedy that the LRA have caused: night commuters. The rebels have abducted and brutalized so many children around this area that every evening thousands of them walk up to 20 km from their homes in villages around Gulu to spend the night in camps set up in the town, guarded by the army. It's an extraordinary scene – thousands of tiny children arrive at dusk, with nothing except the clothes they're wearing. They spend the night in tents, then at dawn they give their names to a register, and leave for their villages all over again. They spend their entire childhood in a state of fear, always running, and never spending a night with their parents.

I talk to one of the commuters, a beautiful, softly spoken little girl of six or seven called Nancy. At registration she is asked why she has come to the shelter, and she says 'to save my life'. She's an orphan and lives with her grandmother in a village 3 km away, less than most. We join her for the return journey.

Nancy's grandmother agrees to let us interview her granddaughters, and it is then that I meet Nancy's sister Coincy, and her story is an even greater shock. She was abducted by the LRA at the age of 14 and spent two years fighting and carrying provisions for the LRA in southern Sudan. She fought battles and killed people. It's the most painful interview of my life as I am effectively forcing her to relive her worst experiences. I fumble with vague questions in an attempt not to upset her and Ruhi begins to get irritated.

'Ask her exactly what happened the night they abducted her,' she tells me.

My inexperience is making this a longer and more agonizing affair, and I'm only
listening.

Coincy answers in a whispered voice, 'The night I was abducted they came at 4 a.m. and took me away with 40 others. For some reason they let us all go, but as we ran away, some of the officers grabbed me and took me to a base where there were many other abductees. Some of us were told to be "wives" or sex-slaves to the officers; others were killed immediately or used to fight. They indoctrinated us, telling us that the officers were spirit mediums and could kill us if we ever escaped. I was often tortured, beaten and slashed with knives.' She shows me a scar on her back where she was bayoneted when another girl escaped, and they thought that she was planning to follow her.

'I was constantly fighting the government troops, and was always afraid that I'd be killed in the fighting. I finally escaped when there was a big battle with a government helicopter gunship. I threw away my weapon and surrendered to the troops.'

Coincy talks softly throughout and looks at the floor or away to the side. The only time she cries is when she describes how she came back to her village from a rehabilitation centre and the other children were jealous of the bedding she'd been given.

'They said that it should be thrown out because I'd brought the bad spirits of murder with me.' She is quiet and dignified and tells me she would like to continue her education, but doesn't think her grandmother can afford it.

At the end of the day I walk back to Gulu with Nancy and Coincy. Nancy sings us two songs – a Ugandan national song and one she learnt at the children's centre. Both are heartbreakingly beautiful.

As a final gesture, my translator Bitek has suggested that I visit Majo, his mother, in her refugee camp and she can show us her old village. I suggest we take her back there to cook a meal and he agrees.

I visit Gulu market to buy food and chat to the lovely market ladies again. They are surprised when I tell them that I do all the cooking in my house, and shocked when I reveal that I serve the food to my friends too. 'That's just wrong,' they say. 'Why would you do such a thing?' They laugh at me in peeling cackles that go around the entire market. 'This
mazungu
serves food to his wife!'

I buy matoke, more bo, groundnuts, vegetable oil (sold in reused Coke bottles), onions and some potently stinky small fish. We grab charcoal, mats and a couple of cheap saucepans and head for Bitek's mum's house in a small IDP camp 10 km outside Gulu. I am followed, as always, by three truckloads of soldiers laden with all sorts of heavy weaponry. I'm becoming used to this now. Bitek's mum Majo is quiet but friendly, and after we all squeeze into the car, our little charabanc sets off to make an extraordinary Sunday lunch.

When we arrive at Majo's old village both she and Bitek are visibly distressed at the sight of the ruined huts. 'Everything of mine has been destroyed and I have nothing to come back to. It's all gone,' she explains. She talks about the war, the LRA and her suffering, and I suddenly wonder if I've stepped over the line of bad taste. I ask if bringing her here to cook is inappropriate.

'No,' she says. 'I hope this will breathe life into my village. Perhaps it's a sign that soon we will come back here.'

Majo is deeply suspicious of my insistence on helping her cook – she's not really used to this. First we dry-fry some groundnuts and hand them out to the soldiers as a snack. A couple of them burst into laughter. Then Majo shows me how to make aubergine and fish stew. We've been cooking for about half an hour when the commander, Isaac, finally breaks his silence and suggests a slightly different cooking method. It's quite a shock to hear him speak because up until now the soldiers have been a constant but silently aggressive presence, just magically appearing when we drive anywhere. Isaac is a handsome, powerfully built man who carries an aura of importance. It clearly wouldn't be wise to get on the wrong side of him. He has a serious, calm and deliberate voice, and he suggests that we add salt to the frying aubergine. This opens the floodgates, and everyone starts haggling over the recipe – soldiers, Bitek, Isaac, even our driver. The only one who rises above the din is Majo, who calmly carries on cooking.

Isaac turns out to be intelligent and knowledgeable, and deeply proud of his Acholi tribe's heritage. I start to develop a wary affection for him and even Bitek and Majo seem pleasantly surprised at the interaction – refugees have a difficult relationship with soldiers, whom they see as both protectors and aggressors who prolong the conflict with the LRA.

The soldiers become openly friendly, and by the time Majo and I have negotiated the heckling and finished cooking, they are grinning in anticipation of a good lunch. We sit down to eat with as many of Isaac's soldiers as can be spared from guard duty, and everyone declares the meal delicious, even Isaac, who says that it's as good as his mother would make.

Then the most extraordinary thing happens: Majo and Isaac give me and Ruhi Acholi names. Mine is Oriba (Unity) – because Majo says I have brought about a small miracle in bringing together normal villagers, the army, the UN and a small piece of Britain, and this unity is to be celebrated. No one has ever done anything like this for me before and I am deeply touched. Ruhi is called Anyadawe (Beautiful and Moon-faced). We are both glowing with pride.

Before we clear up to leave, Majo asks if she can keep the big saucepan we brought. Of course she can. She says she will call it Stefan to remind her of the day she came back to her village.

As we leave, I ask Bitek if he really wants to come back to live in this wasteland. He's a modern, urban journalist now with a decent standard of urban living. But he says that he'd definitely like to move back to his home village.

'I was born here. I very much long to return.'

• • • • •

I'm heading for Cameroon now – away from war and brutality, I hope. But it seems that fear and pain are never far away in central Africa, and I have a sneaking suspicion that in Cameroon it might just take another form.

A few months after my visit, the LRA and the Ugandan government announced a ceasefire, hut despite my hopes, there's been much talk and, little change, and up to 2 million refugees are still in the camps. And, to he honest, most people in Uganda don't expect to see change happening any time soon.

POPULATION:
19 million

PERCENTAGE LIVING ON LESS THAN
$2
A DAY:
50%

UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX:
144/177

CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX POSITION:
138/163

GDP (NOMINAL) PER CAPITA:
$1,002 (126/179)

FOOD AID RECIPIENTS:
190,000 to 2007

MALNUTRITION:
25% of the population

I open the door to a
horrible
room in the Meumi Palace Hotel in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon in central West Africa. There's a thick stench of sweat mixed with something I can't quite put my finger on – possibly blood – and a table covered in empty beer bottles and fag butts. A TV hangs from the wall fizzing static and I can't get rid of the thought that someone has recently been brutalized in here. The smell of mould is overpowering, the shower's bust and there's an entire Natural History Museum of insects scuttling across the floor, including several species as yet unidentified.

Outside my grimy window the rain is coming down like a ballistic power shower. I've just found out that it's the rainy season in Cameroon, and I'm trying to look on the bright side but there doesn't seem to be one. This place is poor, unhappy, sweaty and corrupt.

I've come here to find out about the bushmeat trade, and it looks like being a tricky story. I'm probably going to have to eat all manner of unusual insects and mammals, but it's not that that's worrying me – I believe that we should eat pretty much anything on the planet – the trouble is that in Cameroon it's exactly this belief that's causing an ecological and environmental catastrophe. Cameroonians consume a vast amount of bushmeat, accounting for an estimated 60-80 per cent of all protein eaten (up to 90 per cent in rural areas), and cut swathes through the forest fauna. The meat comes from rodents, forest-dwelling animals and even primates such as highly endangered mandrills, gorillas and chimpanzees. Some scientists warn that the next generation of children will grow up in a world without any great apes at all. If you think you've heard all this before, stick with me because it gets messier. HIV and other diseases originated here in Cameroonian primates, and eating bushmeat is one of the ways animal diseases are transmitted to humans. Many people say that we're so closely related to primates that we shouldn't eat them anyway – it's practically cannibalism.

And here lies my big problem: if I'm presented with a primate and asked if I could eat it, my complex carnivorous rationale is going to be severely tested. I've always based my carnivorousness on the simple idea that we can kill animals for food, but not humans, and I can't start differentiating between species now or my whole carnivorous justification might come tumbling down. And if two sticky weeks of moral and zoological relativity sends me home a vegetarian I'm going to be mighty pissed off.

Yaounde Market

The sky is ominously dark and the clouds are on a rolling boil above us. I curse the series producer, Marc, once again for sending me here in the rainy season, and get into a taxi so knackered that it's an insult to knackered taxis: the windscreen is a mosaic of broken glass and the make and model unidentifiable due to years of being crashed and beaten back into the basic automobile shape.

There is no room in the taxi because there are too many people in it. For some reason we have managed to employ two local guides rather than the usual one. This should make my life easier, especially in a place that's as notoriously difficult to work in as Cameroon, with its high levels of corruption, intransigent bureaucracy and lack of infrastructure, but right now they are having a nasty row about who should sit in the front. The diminutive, intellectual Louis says that he needs to direct our driver so he needs to see better, but the garrulous, assertive Joseph says he's bigger and needs the legroom. It's true – the guy's enormous. In the end it's easily resolved when Joseph gets bored with arguing and physically shoves Louis into the back to join me, and we're off. I wonder why we need both guides with us. Shouldn't one of them at least be off setting up our next meeting? No time to ask – we're bouncing along the roads of a new city and I'm excited.

Yaounde City is sticky, filthy, aggressive and chaotic, but at least it's got roads, electricity, pavements and even working traffic lights. And although Cameroon is poor, for a West African country it isn't doing too badly. It's been stable and peaceful for a long time, which has allowed some development and investment, but it's got its fair share of problems like inequity, a heavy reliance on subsistence farming, and corruption. It's run by an ethnic oligarchy led by a chap called Paul Biya, who's been president for 25 years despite widespread accusations of vote rigging and electoral fraud. But it's the country's insatiable appetite for bushmeat that is causing global concern.

We pick up Mme Pascaline, a proud woman resplendent in flowing African print robes, who makes a living cooking and selling bushmeat. Joseph grumpily makes way for her in the front seat and gets in the back with the rest of us. Holy Mother of God and all the saints, I can't breathe back here! Why can't we get two taxis? They only cost the price of a box of matches. No one can hear me so I sit with my face squashed against the greasy window until we arrive at our destination: a roadside market with several bushmeat stalls. I re-form like a
Tom and Jerry
character that has been briefly and painfully turned into an anvil for comic effect.

Joseph warns me that people are likely to be extremely aggressive towards us. Suddenly I'm pleased that he's big and assertive.

There are some specific licensed markets in Yaounde, but in reality every street in the city is crammed with stalls, including bushmeat stalls. The only difference with the bushmeat is that the stalls are always set back from the road in a half-hearted attempt at hiding, although they are laughably easy to spot.

I follow Mme Pascaline towards the stalls that she normally buys from, with the camera slung low, chatting and smiling as we walk, but the shouts and warnings start as soon as we are spotted: 'No camera! No camera!' It's aggressive and panicky.

There are large piles of blackened monkeys, porcupine, rodents, and limbs, hands and heads of Lord knows what. Many of the monkeys have been spatchcocked and sit in piles with grimacing faces and blackened skin. They've actually just been smoked for preservation but they look gruesome, like they've been tortured in some satanic ritual, grinning because their lips have been burnt off. The stallholders cover the piles with plastic sacking when they realize that we're going to persevere. Joseph tries to talk to them, saying, 'We just want to film our friend buying some meat for lunch,' but the anger and shouting builds to hysteria, so he gives up.

We lower the camera and the shouting calms enough for Mme Pascaline (who is clearly enjoying the attention) to size up a few animals that look like vast guinea pigs. She chooses a small one and bargains the price down to 10,000 francs (about £10), which sounds like a heck of a lot of money. I was expecting bushmeat to be cheap. I make one last attempt to film her buying the meat, but the crowd goes nuts, shouting and pushing, and trying to throw water over the camera. I decide to beat a tactical retreat to the taxi. Joseph follows soon afterwards, whistling with surprise at the reception we got. 'Ooh man, they aren't happy!'

Mme Pascaline giggles in the taxi: 'lis ont peur' (they're scared), she says.
They're
scared? I was terrified. 'It's illegal to sell bushmeat without a licence.'

'Why don't the stallholders get a licence?' I ask.

'You can't get a licence – they don't give them out because they don't want anyone to sell bushmeat.' Ah. 'The woman is scared that if your footage shows her stall, the authorities will come and arrest her.'

So is it illegal for you to cook and sell the meat? 'Don't be silly,' she laughs.

Joseph says, 'There are many international organizations who are giving money to people fighting against bushmeat hunting. That's why when they see a camera they think you'll take their picture to give it to those people or to the police.'

I'm confused. If I can stumble across bushmeat stalls all over Yaounde, and it's clearly illegal to sell the stuff, why don't the police close them down? And in any case the animals on sale may have looked gruesome, but they weren't endangered species. Louis explains, 'We didn't see gorilla or chimpanzee because the stallholders keep them out of sight. You have to ask for them and they only give if they trust you. Gorilla is very illegal and very expensive.'

There are three legal categories for protected animals: Class A are species threatened with extinction (such as gorillas, chimpanzees and mandrills) and to kill or keep one requires signed authorization from the minister in charge of wildlife. Class B species (such as buffalo, parrots and African civet) are not necessarily threatened, but may become so, and you need a permit to hunt or sell them legally.

The tricky bit comes in the last category: Class C, which is wide-ranging and contains blue duiker (a small antelope), porcupine, cane rat and all manner of other bushmeat. There can be many reasons why animals are in category C, but certainly these three species are far from endangered (all listed as 'Least concern' in the IUCN Red List, a register compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources). The meat on the stalls all appears to be in this third category and by all accounts it's very popular.

A terrifying problem that's been looming in recent years is zoonosis: diseases jumping from wildlife to humans. The origins of HIV-1 lie in the central common chimpanzee right here in southern Cameroon, and almost certainly transferred to humans through hunting or butchery of bushmeat. Ebola and the glamorous-sounding simian foamy virus are also known to have made the jump.

But if it's illegal to sell them and extremely dangerous to butcher them, why don't Cameroonians just eat something else? Louis explains that 'Cameroon doesn't have a tradition of animal husbandry, mainly because it's always been so easy to catch animals in the forest. Why would anyone go to all the effort and expense of keeping animals when you can just go and lay a trap?'

Mme Pascaline has a simpler line: 'People like bushmeat. It reminds them of living in the forest.'

Delicious Little Porcupine

We drive to Mme Pascaline's house in the slum area of Yaounde called Moloko. It's notoriously dangerous here, but she is well respected (and our guide is the size of a small, semi-detached house), so it feels safe. She has a little shack to serve food from, and behind it, in a rubbish-strewn alley, is her kitchen – really just a place where she leans a fire against a rock.

It turns out that the cute furry creature I thought was a vast guinea pig is actually a 'porc-epic' – porcupine. I don't think I've ever even seen one of these before, but I thought they were covered in vicious quills rather than fur, so I stroke it. I scream with agony as the thick fur turns out to be vicious quills indeed, several of which are now protruding from my hand. Must check my rabies jab is up to date when I get back to the hotel. I dig out
Kingdon's Field Guide to African Mammals
(essential reading for anyone planning to eat out in Cameroon) and identify our little friend as a bush-tailed porcupine. Apparently he's a type of rodent and he's far from endangered.

I help to de-quill the porc-epic by pouring boiling water over it to loosen the quills, then scraping them off with a knife. Around its legs and head the quills seem to be so small as to resembe fur, but they are still angry little things that attack me at will. Underneath the quills the skin is thick, pinky-white and rubbery. It now looks like a huge bald guinea pig.

I ask Mme Pascaline if she's concerned about some types of bushmeat becoming extinct, but she says, 'I know they can never disappear, no matter the amount that we eat.'

I say that there's been a lot of research that says many of the popular species will be locally extinct in Cameroon unless people change their eating and hunting habits.

'Hmm?' she says. She really doesn't care.

'What about gorilla?'

'I've eaten it, and I serve it here, but I need the help of another person – I can't do it all by myself,' she shrugs. 'My favourite is porcupine. And chimp.' Blimey.

'Why's chimp so good?'

'Because it almost smells like human flesh.' Her brother tries to stop her talking, scared that she's taking things too far, but she insists, 'Yes, it's true.'

I ponder her frame of reference, but she hurries me along so that we don't miss the afternoon trade. We chop the porc-epic up into small pieces and lay it in a pot with a few fragrant leaves that I've never seen before. They smell of the best bits of Cameroon: sweet, flowery and dungy. I add a few onions and a little water and the pot goes on the fire for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, Mme Pascaline puts me to work peeling plantain (like bananas, but taste like sweet potatoes).

She unties little wraps of white peppercorns, cloves, fennel seeds, chillies and chick peas, and I grind them to a paste using a large, flat stone. The pot's beginning to smell delicious.

Mme Pascaline lifts a little hatch and declares her restaurant open. It's got bench seats for about ten people, and in a few minutes the place is full. I have to reserve a portion for fear of lunch running out. It's the first time I've eaten porcupine, and I'm very excited. It has a thick layer of tough, fatty skin marked like a honeycomb from where the quills were pulled, but then: tragedy! It's disgusting, like chewing a gamy mouse-mat. The meat is pretty hard to get off the bones, and it's tough and pungent, like . . . like . . . I'm eating engine oil. This doesn't seem to bother the punters, who can't seem to get enough of it.

The customers are all boisterous blokes, dropping in on their way back from work. They sing a little song about the porc-epic for me: 'Hey delicious little porcupine, be kind and don't injure me with your little thorns.'