So, I come home expecting to make dinner but Sara is already on it. Chopping up a big leek just like Lydia on Create TV. Then a big onion. She has my ceramic over cast iron pot I garage-saled on the stove. She says shoot, I didn’t get any stock out. I’m on it, I say. I walk up to the freezer in the garage and get some stock I made from the carcass of the last hooter we ate. I get out a couple steaks of king salmon to thaw in a bowl of water. She gets the pot going with leaks, onions, and carrots. Then in goes the stock. Next is the king salmon steaks. She takes out the steaks when they are partially cooked and pulls the meat from the bones and tosses the meat back into the pot. Must be creme went in last I guess. Wow. What a salmon chowder, people.
Woodstove Cooking
Sara’s had the woodstove going full bore since just after I left for Liberia when the cold set in. On Saturday, she took out a batch of deer ribs from the freezer to boil on the woodstove. I took out 4 packages of berries – two blue and two red huckleberry – to make pies. She boiled the ribs all day, then took the pot off the stove to cool. I pulled out the bones with tongs. I boiled the berries in separate pots by color for about 45 min. During the boil, we put the store-bought crusts in the oven to bake. When I took the berries off the stove, I added flour and a little sugar and let the berries cool. Then filled the pie crusts. The next morning, I skimmed off the fat that had hardened on the top of the water with the deer ribs. Sara cut up celery, onions, and potatoes and added them to the pot and put it back on the stove to boil for the afternoon. She baked some bread with cheese in it. The rib meat made excellent soup, and we had blueberry pie for dessert.
The Man for the Job
When I was about 20 years old, I was a fishing guide on the Nushagak River. I worked for Wood River Lodge about an hours float plane ride away. We’d run 2 or 3 flat bottom skiffs with outboard jet motors down the Agoulawok River, across Lake Aleknagik, down the Wood River, into Bristol Bay, then across the tide flat by Dillingham and up the Nushagak River. I set up a camp and lived there during the first 2 or 3 weeks of July. Guests would be flown over in float planes, and myself and the pilot or a guide from the lodge would take them fishing from boats or on the beach at the camp for the king salmon migrating up the river to spawn. The land our camp was on was owned by Choggiung, the local village corporation. The lodge leased the land from them each year. In my second year on the river, Choggiung hired two people to camp on the river to monitor the lands, and their camp was right below me – a walk down the beach. The two Chog representatives there were Bryce Edgmon and Dugan Nielsen. We became fast friends. I was eager to learn how to smoke fish, and they were happy to teach me. I found an old 55 gallon barrel, and they showed me how to make a smoker from it and we made some good fish when the king salmon showed up. Like many chance encounters in Alaska, I would see these people again, though not in Dillingham or Bristol Bay. I saw Dugan once in an airport or waiting for a plane somewhere – I can’t quite remember now- maybe in Anchorage, Kodiak or on the Alaska Peninsula somewhere. We talked for hours. Bryce I saw when I moved to Juneau and he came to town to work for his state legislative representative. He’s been coming here now for close to 20 years, and we still talk, albeit mostly be email now. He’s now one of the rational voices at the legislature. A former Bristol Bay legislator – Jay Hammond- guided the state through the oil discovery and boom, and worked to establish a savings account called the Permanent Fund, that turned our non-renewable oil fund into a renewable economic asset. Part of the earnings from that fund is handed out to every Alaska resident each year, and in recent times has been $2,000 each. The money, called the Permanent Fund Dividend, has now become not a gift, but an entitlement to many. Up until just a few years ago, extremely high oil prices allowed oil production taxes to pay for 90 percent of the state’s share of the state budget. Now, with low oil prices, oil production tax revenue no where near covers the state budget, and the legislature has used savings accounts to make up the difference. Those savings accounts are about gone. Some legislators are still in a fantasy world where they they think they can cut government to match oil revenues without implementing any taxes (income, sales, etc.) or using the earnings of the Permanent Fund. They say it can be done, but they don’t say how they would cut 3/5 of the government now here, which is what it would take. Many living in this fantasy world are now former legislators, as wise voters replaced them in the last election. Back to Bryce – he’s now quietly risen to House Speaker at a time when a rational voice is required or the Permanent Fund itself – and not just the earnings – will be necessary to fund even a fraction of government services people now take for granted. That would mean that not only will the free entitlement money go away that people here get just for breathing, but also the fund itself that generates those earnings. And once that fund is gone – well, our taxes here would make even my hyper-taxed home state of New York an attractive place to live. We pay no income tax now, and many communities have no sales tax or property taxes either.
Bryce has tried to put in bills for a balance of using income taxes, permanent fund earnings, etc to pay for state services but neither party would have any of it. Democratic leaders think that a recent oil tax bill was too generous to the oil companies but even if it was repealed, we’d still be broke. The Democratic leaders, too, feel that the free money from the Permanent Fund is an entitlement like Social Security, and don’t want it touched, regardless of the consequences. Likewise, Republican leaders want nothing to do with an income tax. Some have called for a statewide sales tax, which would not work here like it does in other states. A gallon of milk in remote places may cost 3 or 4 times what it does in Anchorage, and so people will be paying 3 or 4 times the sales tax for the same commodity, depending on where they live. After the last election, though, those new comers that one were of a like mind with Bryce. And those that managed to win or weren’t up for election and previously holding on to pie-in-the-sky non-solutions to the state’s problems must have seen the light and selected Bryce for the speaker position. He’s another Bristol Bay lawmaker that, like Hammond, will guide the state through this transition to a more balanced system of funding state government, with the nest egg that Hammond left behind. With all that, I’m sure he still smokes his own fish.
Wood Stove, Good Stove
Came home from work about 2 pm. Winter solstice light was fading already. Sara was out shopping. On the way into the house, I grabbed an armful of firewood from the wood locker. I’ve been wrestling with water in my heating oil fuel since before I left for Liberia. Of course, the coldest weather of the year so far came while I was gone, and Sara was left to keep the woodstove going night and day to keep the house warm and pipes from freezing. I dropped the firewood into it’s bin next to the stove. I opened the damper, and opened the door to see what was in the firebox. I threw in a couple pieces of wood and closed the door. I flipped on the Keurig to get some hot water for hot chocolate. Within 15 minutes, the dry heat from the stove has the living room toasty, and I close the damper a tad. I make my hot chocolate and curl up with my Chrome book on the coach and read an article about John Prine, who I listed to at work today. It’s funny – I love the Keurig because it’s convenient. And can’t much do without a computer. And with these modern conveniences, there’s not much you can do to improve on a wood stove. And only the indoor woodstove. It’s the only heater that makes me feel good. Oil and propane heat provides warmth but with humidity. Electric heat and outdoor woodstoves provide heat but without feeling. Nothing dries wet gear faster than a woodstove. It is fickle. You don’t get the constant heat of oil or electric. But no stove seems to heat a room faster than a roaring woodstove. Knowing we have wood lockers full of dry wood and a stove to keep the house warm gives us a sense of self-reliant comfort, come layofff, sickness, or injury.
Day 4 in Liberia: Gbarnga
I’m sitting on a small veranda at the hotel in Gbarnga at about 7 am on this Saturday drinking West Africa’s ubiquitous coffee – little packets of instant Nescafe. I normally take coffee black, but the instant seems better with powdered milk. The hotel is located in a neighborhood instead of in the town. The neighbors are waking up as the roosters crow. One ma in a neon green headscarf is raking her yard, while a son sweeps the steps. A daughter looks stunning in her pink and blue dress as she feeds the chickens. On the house next door a teenager has been on his phone the whole time I’ve been here. At the other neighbor, all hands seem to be cooking except for a child washing dishes in plastic dishpans.
The community well is nearby, with a constant stream of customers coming for water in plastic buckets. I’ve noticed nearly all children here I’ve seen so far in the country have footwear now. They also appear healthy, without all the big bellies of 30 years ago. Clean water seems to have become a standard here, which of course it should. As I noticed in my Sierra Leone trip in 2013 – even most of the dogs look healthy now. Everyone I see is in good shape with sharp muscle tone. Like I was when I lived here. One thing that tempts me back for a long stint is the thought of getting back in shape. In Africa shape. Physical exercise everyday either from work or walking to where you’re going. Eating organic food everyday. Not being in a hurry. Ever.
I went for breakfast. There are eggs and toast, etc on the menu for the expats that obviously stay here. I saw fish sauce over root crops – a West Africa favorite dish. “No, we don’t have that” said the waitress. I asked if I could get rice. She looked surprised but said yes. What do you have I asked? Fish sauce, goat sauce, jollof rice. I said fish sauce. She left to put in the order and returned saying, sorry. No fish. Only goat. After the GB and goat from the day before, I nixed the goat. I said jollof rice – then asked – do you have cassava leaf? Again, she looked surprised, and said yes. With palm oil she asked? Yes, I said. She said do you want fish or chicken? Fish I said. She left with the order and returned saying they only had chicken. I replied – just bring me cassava with peppae. Oh West Africa. When it finally arrived, it was fabulous. Of course, I had to show off by asking for more peppae, indicating I wanted more pepper heat in my meal like any local would.
Patrick came in and said we were off to see a harvest. This came out of the blue, and it’s important to be flexible and on the fly here. Let’s go! I said. We traveled a few blocks to the site that was in a swamp. We were right on time, as most of the water had drained. Tilapia were finning in the water or on their side flapping through the mud to find water. I first met Estelle, who was part of the fish farmer association I had come to work with. She introduced me to Henrietta, who owned the pond. They are the first two women fish farmers I’ve ever met. Henrietta introduced me to Mohammed, who was also a member. He is their “fish technician” and records production for the Bong County Aquaculture Association. It’s a volunteer board position of sorts. One of the men in the pond helping with the harvest I would later meet as James. I found out later he just had a big harvest that produced 1lb tilapia and 3 other species. Henrietta’s pond is adjacent to a pig stall, so she has ample supply of pig manure, which she uses to fertilize the fish ponds. It’s the main source of food it seems for her pond.
Part of the excitement was seeing one of the workers harvesting the pond catch by hand a big water snake that appeared to be living in a hole in the dike. That would be someone’s meal today, too. After the harvest, we went to the Sumo’s house. Henrietta’s husband, John, was a retired educator who was just now getting into agriculture. He said his wife was doing the pigs and fish and she was the one with the know-how and he was trying to support her and help as he learned. Henrietta made rice with fresh tilapia in palm oil and pepper for us. I love this place. James, Odebih and Mohammed joined us, and this was when I was in for a real eye opener.
These people here knew what they were doing, where they wanted to go, and saw a future bright in raising fish in their ponds. The talk was about maximizing the potential of their operations. Even more stunning was their discussion of the money wasted by NGO’s giving people pond projects only to have the people neglect them when the NGO left because no one was now paying them to do the work that they themselves would profit from. Wow. I soon saw I was out of my league with regard to my limited work in tilapia farming 30 years ago. Time for me to catch up on the technical aspects of farming with them, and then work on the marketing that I did know with them. I got more excited as the day went on. This is going to be a great week.
I was also informed I was doing a workshop for a week! I thought it was for a day with 5 different groups. Now the pressure was on to figure out what I’m going to talk about for a week, but the longer I spoke with them, the more I knew we’d run out of time and still have more to talk about. They said a Leprosy Hospital was having a harvest this week and they were going to help. PERFECT. I’m hoping we can put a marketing plan together the first few days, and then put it into effect and go over and sell fish for the harvest day. What could be a better learning experience for all of us? After coming home yesterday somewhat depressed that fish farming hadn’t gone anywhere in the 30 years since I left, I realized how wrong I was and how glad I am to be here.
Day 3 in Liberia – Sanniquellie
Friday Dec 2, 2016
Patrick, Tamba and I traveled up-country to Ganta last night, then this morning headed north towards the Ivory Coast border. After beautiful roads my first 2 days here, I took them for granted. Now we were back on the roads I remember. The road to Sanniquellie (S) was the red mud laterite I’d wrecked my 125 Honda on so many times 30 years ago. When wet, it’s like ice with snow on top. When liquid, like pudding. We traveled several hours to S, where we picked up Peter, a local official. We traveled perhaps another hour or more to a little village where we looked at a couple ponds that were mostly built but had not had fish.
The village welcomed us. When I shook hands with one child, all wanted to shake. When they appeared to want to hang around as the adults got to business, I told them once the meeting was over we would be giving out free injections to all of them. To that, they scattered. The village officials were gracious as always. A cup of water was passed with cola nuts in the water. I took one, split it in half with my fingernail, and bit off a tiny piece of the bitter caffeine nut. We then went across the street to see 2 ponds. I talked with the cooperative member about fish farming. We bid the village goodbye, and were gifted again with bunches of both large and small bananas. There’s nothing like the bananas here. They were my first staple 30 years ago in Sierra Leone until I adapted to the rice and sauce dishes I continue to love.
Much of the talk in the SUV during the day amongst my hosts started with “before the war” or “during the war” or “after the war”. I listened to the stories as I could. Ebola hit the country hard, it seems, but was much more isolated. As my late friend Francis said in Sierra Leone, there is no corner of the country that the war did not reach. Patrick made some very thoughtful statements that only civilians who’ve been in the middle of a war can understand. He said a dictator is better than a civil war. In a war between countries, your army will defend you. In a civil war, your best friend can become your enemy. After hearing their first person stories of the war and just trying to survive, the hoopla over our president-elect’s courtesy phone call to the leader of Taiwan as some sort of international incident and dominating the CNN news as though it is cataclysmic is overwhelmingly trite. Tomorrow will be another insignificant event blown out of proportion and gone the day after. I wonder how much the people care where the civil wars rage on in Syria. And Afghanistan. And Somolia. And Sudan. Wars fueled largely by arms and money from outside the countries. Undoubtedly by some of my taxes. War becomes a constant and people crave something different. Like a phone call that will be forgotten tomorrow.
I saw an article about a kid from Richburg who died in Vietnam and now has the road we take home named after him. The photo of his mother made it clear that once waged, war lasts forever for those who live through it, regardless of their role. It was a long time ago to some, but you could tell it was not for the Scott kid or his family. The generic words of praise from the politicians who took credit for naming of the road seem like they are profiting from Soldier Scott losing his life and his family mourning his death for 47 years. As if they are doing everyone in our part of Appalachia a favor. It’s their job, I guess.
I have to listen intently to Liberian English to understand. I often have to pause to determine if the language is a tribal language or Liberian English. Even then, I find myself often asking people to repeat themselves, and they asking me to do the same. There are many Sierra Leone Krio words in the language, which I understand better, but of course have not figured out which Krio words are part of the language and which are not. Liberian English is definitely it’s own language and something to learn.
We traveled another hour or 2 to a second site. We met a farmer who showed us a cooperative pond built by an NGO. The pond was a catchment pond, meaning it filled with rain and groundwater but did not have it’s own water supply from a creek. There were tilapia and catfish in the pond. The farmer said they harvested the pond once a year, and divided fish amongst the members and sold the rest in the village. They used a pump to empty the pond, pumping the water to a second smaller pond. After water, they pumped the water back and then ground and rainwater would refill it. I thought they were doing what they could at the pond and using it for what it was worth.
We headed back to Ganta, and started having Range Rover trouble. The fuel tank was low, and crap in the diesel was clogging the filter. I worked with Tamba the driver to asses things. Having a diesel fishing boat motor and now an old Ford diesel in my truck came in handy. We sent a passenger (Peter) to the nearest town for more fuel. Tamba cleaned the filters as best he could. It was hot in the late afternoon, and I drank about a gallon of water. Peter returned with the fuel on the back of a motorcycle taxi. Tamba and the taxi driver filled the tank after Tamba flushed the filters and put them back on. I cranked while Tamba used the manual pump to prime the fuel system. The engine finally caught, and Tamba said the pump piston was now solid and we were in good shape. I tipped the taxi driver well, and we were on our way. I had a hard time staying awake, drifting in and out of sleep on the way back over the poor road. We arrived late in the day in Ganta, where our original hotel was now booked, so we continued on to Gbarnga, where I will be for the week, as the schedule is for now. I expect that to change.
Rarely do these trips go as planned. That’s where the experience comes in. If you expect change, it’s not a surprise when it happens. If you don’t, then frustration is your best friend and you should stay where things are as you expect them.