Slow internet, harvesting, drinking water

A sincere apology for the lateness of this post. I must say that internet has been the most difficult thing about working here. It's made communicating with those outside the country very tough.

Yet there have been plenty of adventures and business over the past 2 weeks. We've been comparing the abundance and quality of oysters from various harvesting sites, one is known as a particularly high quality ground, yet is a perilous crossing for a small canoe through the River. From this, I've learned about the dangers of the occupation and the incidents that have occurred in the past. Often harvesters are caught in bad weather in a canoe loaded with 100kg of oysters, when the boat is pretty low in the water. In some villages only men are allowed to paddle canoes, which would outrage any feminist. Yet I later learned that this was a reaction to severe incidents in the past where women did not have the strength to reach the shore. Often such rules have good reason behind them.

Aside from work, the biggest adventure I had so far was  going for a full harvest with my neighbour. We reached the ground after about a 40 minute paddle, cut 90kg worth of oysters, and paddled back. Then spent up to 6 hours the next say steaming them I preparation for sale. What interested me was the fact that I went with a 17 year old school student who was going out to get some pocket money. He would earn about Le15,000 - about £2 for essentially 2 days work. Getting pocket money can be tough here in Bonthe. But I was glad to be able to do my favourite thing here - paddle into the pristine mangrove.

The next two weeks are going to be very busy, as I'm planning 3 days of field surveys in the next week, and my supervisor is coming the week after. So I hope to have some fun and cook some good food tomorrow.

In my last bit of news, we found a well with clean water - good enough to drink. One less problem.

Two weeks in

As anyone could imagine, quite a lot has happened over the past two weeks. Living in Bonthe is as much like village life as I've ever experienced. Every afternoon I fetch water from a well outside for my daily showers and toilet use, there is no electricity grid and all power comes from our personal generator which I use for about 1-2 hours of electricity a day - 3 if I feel indulgent and am willing to use my boat fuel, internet hasn’t worked since Thursday (I'm even writing this post offline as it's still not working on Sunday night).

But despite these lamentations, I am really beginning to get into the rhythm of life here. Every day my two translators (Richard and Amara) go with me to villages to interview, examine processing, visit harvesting sites, and analyse samples when we get back to the office. We've analysed a total of 178 oysters since I got here. This is to look at the variation in size and meat yield between each village's harvesting ground. We've found some variation in whole oyster sizes between harvesting grounds, but will need more samples to get clearer results.

This week I feel like I'm starting to adjust to the rhythm of life here. There are almost always kids running into the house or garden when I'm around. It's difficult to work when they're always passing through waiting for the next interesting thing I will do. One is sleeping on the floor by my feet right now.  The teenagers often help with samples for hours at a time. Then if I want to I can always have a Mendei (local language) lesson from the kids. Something I often do when I feel like procrastinating from work in the evening. I even ended up playing barefoot football yesterday while intending to go for a jog.

Perhaps the most fun I had this week was to help cut wood with a friend I've made here. All food in Bonthe is cooked in open fires, so there is a limitless demand for firewood taken from the local mangroves. I arranged to go with my friend Suleiman (a mangrove logger/high school student) - 18 years old. He and I both paddled for about an hour through pristine mangrove forest before he decided to fell a few of the trees. We spent about 40 minutes felling trees and loading the wood onto the canoe before paddling back. I was a bit alarmed about cutting down 4 mangrove trees from what seemed an untouched forest in exchange for 9 logs of wood, but I suppose it’s a way of life here (a way of life that might soon be compromised). Yet still, it was my first excursion in the mangrove and I got a lot of exercise.

Next week is going to be very busy since the tides are perfect for oyster harvesting. Amara, Richard, and I plan to visit 3 communities and examine their harvesting methods. Many more oyster samples to come! 

First days in Bonthe

My departure for Salone 5 days ago seems like an eternity. I'm already starting to miss tap water, dental floss (which I forgot to bring), and my shave. I've spent four days in Freetown (the capital) arranging affairs, polishing my plans while I had internet, and doing some surveys of markets in the area. Travel to Bonthe yesterday was delayed until 3pm after buying a new generator for our office, exchanging my money, and waiting at the bank for 2 hours to get a bagful of bricks of cash! So 7 hours, a flat tire, and a late night boat ride later, we were finally in Bonthe.

After spending my first day here, I've realised that I'll have to put restrictions on things which I've never thought about before. As I've only brought 450 pounds to last me the two months, my expenditures are limited to Le 57,000 (£6.50) a day. Now this seems reasonable, but I am on an island. So I'll have to think about:

1.  water - I've bought 50 litres of drinking water with me, meaning I have to limit water consumption to 900ml a day. Otherwise it's going to hit the daily Le 57,000 budget hard.
2. Boat fuel - My supervisor in country, Salieu, has kindly offered to buy 300L of fuel for me out of his own personal account (he hopes to get reimbursed in the next few months). Which will be the main limiting factor for trips to villages. If I use 20L per day, I should be okay. I'll have to organize my fuel usage accordingly.
3. Food - I hope to negotiate a cook from somewhere who's willing to make breakfast and dinner for as little as Le 30,000 (£3.50) a day. I understand her displeasure with the deal, but my restricted daily budget means things are going to be tight. I might have to make my own food from the firewood stove.
4. I'll have to think about paying for other things such as samples, money to make people talk in surveys, a weekly beer if I'm lucky.

I'm kicking myself for not bringing much money (£600). But I've never lived in a place where I can't draw out cash, so it's going to be a tough adjustment. Maybe I'm going to appreciate certain things much more at the end of these two months.

But so far the work has been good. We've visited four communities in the last 3 days, and distributed three books for recording harvest quantities (something villagers have not done before). Some villages were a lengthy walk away, especially for my translator Richard, who retired a few years ago. But the community here has been very kind and excited to have a young foreign researcher amongst them. 7-8 kids are in my room watching me write this post as I speak. It's sometimes difficult to concentrate on work.

We've learned a lot in the past few days, and expect to learn much more.