cameroon log

Beating Up the Baka

Thursday January 8th, 2004

There is a baka con artist here.. that I believe I have talked about before, who tried to sell me honey this evening. Justin. So.. most Baka are very shy, totally nice, and don’t mix with the Bantu. Justin is… well, he carves wooden objects, hangs around town drinking palm wine, and is pretty much a con artist. He ripped George off. I have given him nothing, and plan on giving him nothing. He is a bit confused by me, but undaunted. Last night George and Jen were working and talking about CIAD politics, which are fucking brutal. I was working on my computer, chatting. A knock on the door. My favorite Baka, Justin… with another Baka, who was very shy. Justin wanted to sell us some honey. Now the thing is, I really like honey and have wanted some pure jungle honey… especially the kind harvested by Baka. They climb straight up the trees using vines and such… Tarzan style, people hand up burning sticks afterwards, and they wave the smoking sticks around the hive, reach into the hole in the tree, pulling out honeycomb… getting stung. Down below, people are making baskets out of leaves to hold the goodies. They come down, and leave as fast as possible (bees, apparently, are like sharks, and can smell the honey from far away, and come after it). So, this is what I want some of… but Justin came at a bad time, is the wrong person, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I told him I was working, and that he should leave because we weren’t interested… he got mad, insulted me, and then walked into the house to talk to Jen and George (who were oblivious to the goings on). I got mad, got up (I am easily more than twice his size), and chased him out. One step further, and I would have kicked some pygmy ass. I only like to fight people who are much smaller than me…
Oh, and speaking of people I want to hit, Alex came back triumphant. Motor, freon, and other assorted fridge repair parts and gas for the stove.. Someone told me afterwards, this was the most responsible thing he has ever done in his life. I think that Charly even threatened him bigtime before he left to get the stuff. Now it is a matter of seeing whether or not Izzy is a bit of a fraud as well. He so hypes his ability to fix everything, that I have my doubts, but I really want to give him the chance to solve this for me if he can.