Bush Meat Meal in West Africa
The civil war in Liberia started in 1989 and a number of refugees crossed the borders into Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone. While the caseloads in Guinea in Cote d’Ivoire had received some attention, those who crossed the border into Sierra Leone had not benefited from much attention. Before this influx of Liberian refugees, the Sierra Leone Office of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which was based in the capital Freetown had only dealt with urban refugees from a number of West African countries, providing counseling and assistance grants.
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When the Liberian refugees crossed the border into the Southern and Eastern Provinces of Sierra Leone, they were readily received by the locals, who were mainly acquaintances and relatives, as the artificial borders, set up by the colonialists in Berlin of 1884, did not respect ethnic boundaries. These poor people had shared their meagre resources with the refugees and although local groups had rendered some assistance, as the war accelerated in Liberia and more and more people crossed the border, these villages were now overwhelmed by the presence of refugees and needed international assistance. It was in this connection that we went on mission to Sierra Leone in early 1990 to evaluate the need for international assistance to them. We arrived in Freetown and after brief meetings there, we proceeded to the refugee locations.
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It was the raining season and on the morning we left the rain was pouring down. We observed the dense green forests on both sides of the road, as the driver negotiated the huge portholes left by the rain.
There were monkeys everywhere, some playing cheerfully, jumping from tree to tree, oblivious of the car traveling along the road. Now and then a monkey would stop and glare at us. It was a sight to behold. They looked so sweet that I imagined adopting a couple of them as pets.
On our visit to the Southern Province, we stayed in a small town, Zimmi where UNHCR had recently set up its field office, from where we were to undertake trips to refugee-hosting villages. Our initial reconnaissance trip took us to the Mano Bridge on the major Sierra Leone — Liberia road.
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On both sides of the bridge there were traders, proudly displaying their wares. Prominent among these were what looked to us like roasted pigs.
“I see they raise sheep around here,” I remarked to our Field Officer. “But why do they smoke and sell so many lambs?”
“No”, he said, “this is not lamb, this is bush meat”.
“Bush meat?” I asked.
“Yes”, came the response, “spring mutton”. This is a major source of protein for people around here.
I proceeded: “spring mutton? “But what animal is it”?
There was a chuckle in the car as he responded, “monkeys”.
I thought of the large number of monkeys we had seen on our trip to Zimmi.
“This must be a prospective business”, I remarked as we turned our conversation to something else.
On our return to the residence for lunch, we were informed that there was a well-known restaurant offering the best local food in the area. On our way to Zimmi from Freetown, I had boasted to my Tanzanian colleague about the “cassava leaves stew”, a well-known Sierra Leonean speciality dish. So I thought this was the best occasion to introduce him to this delicacy, as the Southern Province was renowned for its tasty cassava leaves stew.
We ordered some with rice. It reminded me of my childhood days when we ate with our hands and to relive these days, I reverted to eating with my hands — it was simply divine, the best cassava leaves stew I had ever tasted.
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Armed after a heavy meal, we continued our work for the rest of the day. Early in the morning of the second day, we ordered our lunch for the day — rice and cassava leaves stew. On the third day, we did the same. But as I started to eat, I noticed something strange. The piece of meat on my plate looked like a small hand. It took me some time to examine it. Yes indeed it was a hand, with the fingers clutching the other ingredients of the cassava leaves stew. I stopped eating and watched a colleague opening up the fingers of the hand in his plate, one by one as he sucked lustily at the contents.
“What is this?” I asked our Field Officer.
“Just spring mutton”, he replied.
We had been feasting on monkeys for three days.
