Hippo Hunt!

On the night of Thursday, December 9th I was invited by Kim Cone, one of the ReachGlobal missionaries here at Gamboula, to come along on a hippopotamus hunt. Naturally, I was very excited. No matter that we would be leaving around 5:15 the following morning. So I was awake by 5 AM and after a short walk to the Cone's house was ready to go. Our guide from the government wildlife bureau arrived with a letter from the regional sous-prefet giving Kim permission to bag a hippo. Hippos (and elephants) are protected in the Central African Republic and cannot be shot without special permission from the authorities. In this case, the CAR Independence Day celebration on Saturday called for a round of hippo to be served to the "bigwigs" in town for the occasion. With permission in hand we set out for the river.

Our transportation was an Alpha jeep, one of those put together through TouchGlobal and shipped to missionaries or ministries where roads are bad or virtually nonexistent. In this case it was the latter. There used to be a decent road from town down to the river due to a tobacco plantation down there or tobacco transport or something of the sort. It had since devolved into a one-track path mainly used by motorcycle taxis. The Alpha handled it well, though, shaving back the undergrowth on both sides and filling our laps with leaf shavings and litter and insects. A tree frog ended up on the windshield.

We arrived outside of a village on the river and parked in a recently cleared and burned garden. A short walk later and we were on the river. Our party of three had by now grown to about seven. We had left for the hunt early to avoid becoming a main attraction and drawing a crowd. The men that were along, however, were much needed. Once we arrived at a popular hippo hang-out and saw no hippos, scouting parties started out in both directions by canoe, searching for hippopotami. We waited for about two hours and then went back upstream. Kim went with three men from the village by canoe to do the shooting while I waited with the others, now about ten or eleven. Soon enough there was a single shot and short while later a canoe picked up myself and a few others and deposited us on the other side of the river where Kim was standing.

A few things about hunting hippos. Sure, it sounds easy enough to kill a hippo. These animals are not small nor are they considered to be particularly fast, elusive or smart. After all, their brains are not much larger than a man's fist. But that's the problem right there because that is the hippo hunter's target. And hippos don't really spend much time outside of the water. The vast majority of the day is spent not only in the water but underneath the water, surfacing every five to eight minutes for a quick breath. When they do come up for air it is only their ears, their eyes and their nostrils that breach the surface of the water, and that for generally no longer than 10 seconds. So for the hunter it is a waiting game. Not just before the shot but even after. Once the hippo is shot it unfortunately doesn't simply do a barrel roll and float there waiting to be pulled to shore. If it is done in by a clean head shot the hippo will go straight to the bottom. So then you wait until he begins to bloat and slowly resurfaces. This takes no fewer than 50 minutes and can even be as long as two and a half hours.

Once I arrived on the other side of the river we waited, standing on a reedy mat of grass that was slowly sinking under the weight of the crowd. We waited. A hippo was seen not much farther upstream and there was speculation that it might be the same one that had been shot at. It had gone down immediately after the shot but perhaps had moved on underwater and unharmed. So after a couple hours Kim went off the to the other side and set up for another attempt. He took the shot but it looked to be a bit in front of the hippo. Still we waited and no dead hippos surfaced. So we moved back downstream where another hippo had been sighted. Getting there involved a combination of canoe rides and walking along the banks in ankle-deep muck and clay that threatened to suck the sandals right off our feet.

Once at the new hunting grounds Kim took another shot and the hippo vanished. More waiting. And then we noticed another hippo a little farther downstream. Coincidence? I think not. He went off again by canoe and took another shot. The hippo vanished. More waiting. An hour passed. Then two hours. It was growing dark.

We finally called it a day and left for the truck, leaving the crowd of villagers (which had grown to about eighteen by this point) with their butchers knives still waiting for the pink belly of the beast to break the surface of the water. We arrived at the truck in the moments immediately before complete darkness fell and drove back to the mission.

Kim said that his scope was probably off. He had sighted it in the week before for one kind of ammo but had run out of time to sight in for the kind he wanted to use. He felt bad for not having been able to show me a dead hippo up close. I didn't mind. It was a good experience. I spent most of the day waiting, standing in muck or in water or sitting on shore surrounded by people I couldn't communicate with. I should have brought lunch too. But, hey, I got to go on a hippo hunt in Africa and of course, I would do it again.

I don't know what the government "bigwigs" ate on Saturday but I don't believe it was hippo.

*No hippos were harmed in the making of this blog post*