Practising Videojournalism

I now understand why they call it the suicide season. It is so hot that your brain fries, nerves stretch and the will to live gradually disappears. That’s why the Gabonese slop slop slop in their sandals everywhere, lifting their feet is too great an effort here on the Equator.

Staying in the Tropicana Hotel on the beach – grey Atlantic ocean, white sand and palms. Old white men, exceptionally unattractive with beautiful young black girls in the bar – some of them apparently students, not surprising in a city where a coffee costs £3 and lunch is more than in London. Yes this is the most expensive capital after Tokyo and here we are in the middle of Africa – with nothing to show for the oil dollars Gabon earns. Well apart from the huge palaces for President Bongo. A few streets off the main road and there is no tarmac and holes in the sandy lanes.

Still ,a cheerful taxi driver singing “I’m sad to say I’m on my way won’t be back for many a day….” So I joined in and he said he adored “le country music”.

He was the first and last pleasant taxi driver the rest are aggressive, call me “la blanche” and accused me of having lots of money and that I shouldn’t be riding in their communal cars. So of course I shout back (all this in French) and say “just wait until the oil runs out, then you’ll see……” This fails to register with them but makes me feel good as the prophet of doom.

Evening meal with local Gabonese journalist and Prof from the university talking about the paradox of Africa … especially Gabon, here there is everything and nothing.

Dollars buying imported food etc because it’s cheaper especially beef mountain from EU and even frozen fish – when the sea is full of fish but no-one can be bothered to fish them out! So huge freezer centres at the port, no local farming or industry … just hands outstretched for those oil dollars.

Did you know that oil as it passes through the pipes makes the most amazing rushing gurgling – the sound of money.

Off to film pygmies which takes two days to get to, taking planes and 4×4 vehicles on untarred roads of course. To get to one village in the forest I had to walk through the forest, take a pirogue down the N’tem river and then walk the other side through jungle to the settlement where 35 people lived in bamboo huts or round ones covered in leaves. Cut off from the world they lead a tranquil life – or did until the government banned hunting. As traditional hunter/gatherers who provide local towns with bushmeat they have been left as poachers on their own land. Their children are not attending school and most of them are unregistered – so officially they don’t exist in Gabon. Even though they are the oldest race.

That night they danced to conjure up the Edzengi spirit – the god of the forest who brings good luck for hunting. It’s a man of course dressed in white raffia who jumps around for hours while they beat drums, drink red wine mixed with gin!! And chew this root ibago that is like dope and drives them, as well as the forest elephants who eat it, mad. So everyone very excited and the women wailing in high pitched screams – all this until four am and my tent is pitched in the middle of the village.

The next morning we went down the river to film the fishermen, a peaceful scene with me wondering if this wasn’t just the best way to spend a Saturday morning.

I left the village having filmed interviews with them about how they welcome tourists who will bring them money and a chance perhaps to get a school built. I wonder if they know what a steady stream of visitors will do to their privacy and their lives. How the dance will change and become a “routine”.

The government is doing something finally to help these dispossessed people. It is running a campaign together with UNICEF to register the newly-born and older children so that they can vote and more importantly go to school. Although those children who tried in other villages were verbally and physically abused by others who taunted them for being pygmies or Baka.

To become socially integrated and to find jobs or a role to play within Gabonese society is not going to be easy for these people. They are respected for their spiritual and healing powers, much like the sangomas in other countries, but this will not be enough for them to survive and prosper.

Watching them through the night as they danced with their god Edzengi, I realised that they were still dancing for themselves, for the past and not their future.

This film report will appear on BBC World TV.