Visit to the bush meat market

THIS WAS A MORNING none of us were looking forward to. For some of us, myself included, it may be the only chance to see a monkey, alive or dead. These monkeys are not easily seen in the wild because they have become wary of humans, and rightly so.

Since the ban on hunting monkeys last year, to avoid detection the bush meat sellers move from one stand to another every day so they are harder to find. We, however, found them easily, and it was very much out in the open and accepted. The stands are tended predominantly by women, while the stands where a buyer can have the fur removed for them are operated by men. The women who operate these stands act no different than a butcher at farmers’ market. They wear no expression of cruelty or compassion when they grab a fly-ridden carcass to display to a prospective buyer. A woman seller smiled as she traded a limp squirrel for several thousand CFAs (500 CFA= roughly $1). She advertised it as a butcher would a fine cut of steak or juicy rump roast to bring home to the family for a sit down dinner. They conduct these acts no differently the butcher at your local market, because this, simply, is life.

We arrived late, which meant we missed the monkeys for the day. We were told that there had been only one monkey, which is great news for us who are surprised and appalled by the trade. It means sales must be going down.

Everything edible in the bush is sold at the market: snakes, turtles, birds, squirrels and duikers (little antelope). Some animals are kept alive for selling -- they are worth more alive because the meat does not spoil. To keep a turtle or tortoise alive, sellers place them on their backs because they cannot right themselves. Tortoises are very resilient and do not require much in the way of food or water to survive. For this reason, two centuries ago, seamen would take large tortoises aboard and place them on their backs. The meat would keep for a long time. Being on their backs does not prevent them from trying to survive, though. The two turtles we saw were using the last bit of fight in their in their short legs trying to flip back over because their life depended on it. However, the turtles’ fate was sealed long ago.

The process of preserving duikers and monkeys is far more brutal. Hunters break duikers’ tiny legs and bond them together. Broken in spirit and hog tied, they’re helpless, and pant for their last breaths in the beating hot sun at the market. To keep a monkey fresh, hunters break its back, paralyzing it. If the monkey is lucky, which most are not, one of their limbs will instead be chained, preventing them from moving. The glazed-over eyes of the duiker were difficult to look into, like that of beaten dog or scolded child. I could not picture the expression in the eyes of a more cognizant monkey. The sellers take no notice to this aspect of their daily business and occasionally brush the animals, both live and dead, with what appears to be a horse hair brush as a temporary relief from the grotesque fly epidemic.

After the purchase of a carcass, a buyer can opt to have the skin removed by way of flame torch. If you have ever singed hair the hair on your knuckles or arms, then you know a fraction of the smell of multiple animals having their hair burned off. This distinctive smell, combined with the pungent odor of trash piles and rotting flesh make the eyes water and turns your stomach upside down. The group had no incidents of breakfast revisiting them, but the color on some of our faces definitely faded.

These people are not savages. There is no shortage of protein, and they don’t eat monkey meat because there is no alternative. More than 20 other stands are set around the bush meat stands, selling more affordable meats like poultry or fish (Bioko is an island). The sellers of the meat know nothing of ‘animal cruelty,’ though it is, by Western definition, committed by their own two hands every day. For years, the consumption of monkey meat has continued despite the ban, despite the health risks (which are denied and regarded as myths), and despite the monkeys’ scarcity. Last month 47 drills, Bioko’s rarest primate, were counted at the market.

Enforcement on the primate hunting ban should be stronger, along with educating the hunters about the reasons for the ban and their alternatives for a way of life. However, having a shallow and unenforced ban on primate hunting is one incidence of the country’s poor leadership, and sits unnoticed amongst a long list of additional atrocities the monster of a president (see BBC link on the side) commits. Perhaps if the hundreds of millions of dollars used for palaces all over the island went instead toward the children with swollen bellies sleeping on dirt floors just ten feet from the immaculately painted walls, their world could seem less desolate. Maybe if the cities were run on cleaner, cheaper fuel than gas and diesel generators, hunters would not have to resort to an illegal trade. If prostitution and corrupt military did not run the once beautiful island, its resources could be cherished for their intrinsic value and not exploited to the point of desperation. Maybe if the people of Equatorial Guinea had a stronger education system to help them build their own familial empires, they could understand the gravity of hunting an endangered animal and find an alternative to an illegal livelihood. But how could the president know how to fix these problems? He spends no time here, less than sixty days a year, and someone else goes to the meat market for him.