Weekend on the West Coast

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Following Moses the Snail

Last Friday, my roommate Sarah and I took off towards the West Coast to visit Nzulezo, the stilt village in the Amansuri Wetlands. Meeting very helpful and kind people along the way, we were able to trek across unmarked dirt roads to a tiny footbridge where we set off on a canoe trip to Nzulezo. This village is odd, considering the people are not actually fishermen, but rather farmers, so most men have to take leave during the week and live on land anyway! Talk about inefficient! But when asked what the point of living on water was if they were all farmers, our guide told us that these people escaped enemies from Mali and followed a snail to escape. How they managed to escape enemies while following a slow snail all the way from Mali is beyond me. According to our guide, when the people got to this lake, the snail split the waters and when the enemies came in after them, the waters drowned them. And the villagers lived happily ever after on a village made of stilts. Kudos to the storytelling genius of our guide! Presenting: The Story Of Moses And The Parting Of The Red Sea, The Nzulezo Version! Why read this in the Bible, when you can very well pay a guide to hear the very same story??? I am still irritated, considering this guy plagiarized the Bible, got the origins of the people wrong (we later found out from an accredited source that the villagers were from Nigeria and not Mali), then charged us money and proceeded to complain when we did not give him a big enough tip. Grrrrr. But despite the overrated stilt village, the actual canoe ride was highly enjoyable and gorgeous.

Being a Stupid American Tourist

Talk about feeling like an idiot! We arrived in Axim at nightfall and refused to charter a taxi to our hotel because we thought we were getting ripped off. We told a woman nearby who then scolded us for wanting to walk rather than pay because at first she said it was too far. Being stubborn as usual, we started walking until she grabbed us by the arm and told us the real reason not to walk - it was too dangerous at night - and beckoned her taxi driver friend with a broken engine to drive us and paid our fare for us.

After dropping us at the hotel, we prayed the car would not die on our taxi driver friend on his way home, and realized: 1) how far the hotel really was and how stupid we were for thinking we could walk 3 miles in the dark on unmarked unpaved roads with a dinky penlight; 2) how dangerous it really was as later the hotel staff told us a gang existed in Axim and was known to assault women; and 3) that we were so pigheaded that a woman living in poverty paid a fare that we Americans thought was too expensive! STUPID STUPID STUPID!

Well be assured we paid the woman back and thanked her for putting up with our stupid ways and for saving our lives from the terrors of the night, and then had a wonderful time at a secluded beach for the rest of the weekend. The place was so beautiful and warrants another visit soon. And perhaps next time I will be a little older and wiser, and will actually listen to the locals!

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Photos

Nzulezo
Docking station at the stilt village

Axim Beach
Paradise in Africa