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Transcription: [00:19:27]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Well I must say that he's certainly gone to a lot of work on a hot summers day for a cool drink.
[00:19:34]
When one thinks of going still further into the interior, the dense foreboding jungle stands like a hostel guard. The rivers are used as highways. As our boat glided upstream, we both felt very apprehensive about going to such a remote inaccessible territory. Here only the most primitive tribes of man live, such as the Amerindians who were the inhabitants of the country and Bush Negros.
[00:20:02]
We were on our way now to visit one of the villages of the Bush Negros. Thousands of them were brought here from west Africa by the early colonists as slave labor. But hundreds escaped and fought their way upstream into the wild jungle inland which was very similar to their homeland but where at that time no one could follow.
[00:20:21]
And these waters are still heavily infested with the crocodile and the deadly piranha fish. As we pulled into towards shore it really felt as if we were in the proverbial deepest darkest Africa.
[00:20:34]
Once on land, out guide explained just how far it was along the path to the village. And before hand, he had told us what to wear to keep our arms and legs well covered from the hordes of insects plus our heads protected from the penetrating rays of the sun. For it was August and we were almost on the equator.
[00:20:54]
We met a few disinterested natives along the path but on our actual arrival in the village they took one look at us and all scurried in different directions. They certainly didn't welcome us the way they do in Hollywood movies. Children, it seems, overcome their timidity more quickly than adults and soon were surrounding me for the candy we had brought them.
[00:21:20]
[[silence]] Pagan African customs remain unchanged since the time the first slaves escaped into the jungles. And in the center of the village is their Voodoo shrine called a Hoke Poke.
[00:21:35]