The Village Pounga

The African rainforest. The Mayombe Mountain range. Home of chimpanzees, gorillas, and all manner of secret and rarely seen wild animals. Some local peoples tell tales of a forest elephant, smaller than the ones seen on the plains and savannas of Kenya and Tanzania. Other legends speak of an enormous, ancient creature, with a long neck and tail that dwells, rarely seen, in the deepest and darkest corners of the rainforest. Whether or not any of these tales are true, this is where we ventured to spread the good news of the Gospel.
We spent 16 hours on the road, climbing higher and higher in our little 4x4 towards our goal: the village of Pounga. Our eyes widened as we saw towering trees perched on green, growing hills of grass and thorns and vines. Fruit trees with no name stood beside banana plants without number. Deep in the mountains were ancient, thick, muscled, twisted trees with long, hanging vines. I imagined grabbing them like Tarzan and swinging for miles. The red dust stirred up by our passage came in sharp contrast to the lush greens on either side.

Our voyage continued well into the evening and night, until we finally arrived in Pounga. All was dark and mysterious, but not silent. The sounds of the night were swallowed up by the sounds of families talking and laughing around the campfires outside of their houses. Contrary to what I expected, the pounding base line of music coming from the local bar/nightclub almost made me forget that we were as remote as we could get.
As we stumbled out of our vehicle, inky darkness surrounded us. I could barely see my hand in front of my face, and even the light from the moon and stars was hidden by thick clouds. Someone grabbed my hands and gave me a kiss on both cheeks to welcome me into their home. Chairs were set out for the weary female travelers to rest upon, while the brave, manly men set out to search for an acceptable place for us to sleep.
Amazingly, they found a place! There is an old, 100-yr Catholic mission stationed at the top of a steep hill/mountain they made us climb up (in the dark), on a slippery steep path about as wide as your foot, surrounded by tall, whispering grass that bent in the breeze and scared me half to death when it trailed across the back of my neck. The second half of my remaining life was almost removed when a goat jumped across the path right in front of me. By the time I reached the top, both my legs and my lungs were burning.
We spent the night in one of the guesthouse rooms. It was a termite-ridden affair held up by stilts over the edge of the small cliff we had just scaled. The boards on the floor of the girl’s room creaked and threatened to snap, protesting the years of feeding colonies of said termites. The little critters had even bored into the walls and left peepholes to the outside. I didn’t mind so much, because my mind was otherwise occupied figuring out how to set up our mosquito nets so that we didn’t all die of malaria (I try to avoid dying of anything whenever possible. Also, it gives visitors a bad impression…)
However, my paranoia of collapsing supports came back to the forefront of my mind when I visited our luxury, INDOOR bathroom, which included a real ceramic toilet seat! It was only missing the cover seat. And toilet paper. And plumbing. (Our fancy toiled was bolted down, but its primary way of flushing involved pouring a bucket of water into the bowl, and hearing certain things splash to the ground under the floor). But the relief I felt at not having to ‘do my business’ outside under a tree in the dark, where my friend the attack-goat might make a reappearance at any inopportune moment, quickly faded as I realized that the termites had also found their way to the bathroom. I could literally SEE THROUGH THE FLOOR to the ground. Every step caused the room to shake and shift, which did not make me feel confident that I would not end up falling through the floor and resting my mortal body among years of other people’s waste, while my eternal soul was turned away from the pearly gates as the stench, (which would surely permeate not only my newly-dead body, but also my spirit, for the rest of the existence of time) would cause even benevolent St Peter to turn me away. Did purgatory include showers and soap? I certainly hoped so.