What is bushmeat?  Forests in Africa are often referred to as "the bush."  Therefore, wildlife and the meat derived from wild animals is referred to as "bushmeat."  This meat is eaten and sold in the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Republic of Congo. The quantity of bushmeat consumed across this Congo Basin may exceed 1 million tons a year.  That would be the equivalent of almost four million cattle.

More than 5 tons of bushmeat is smuggled from Africa into the main airport of Paris every week.  Most of it is smoked and arrives as dried carcasses.  Experts found different types of bushmeat:  monkey, porcupine, large rats, crocodiles, small antelope and anteaters.  About 40 per cent of the animals were listed as Endangered Species.

Madame Toukine, an African woman, confided that she receives special deliveries of crocodile and other bushmeat every weekend at her restaurant in Paris.  Though it is illegal, for those in the know, bushmeat is on the menu in some Paris restaurants.  Experts suspect that similar quantities of bushmeat arrive in other big cities in Europe.  Surprisingly, Chief of the quarantine unit at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that underground markets for bushmeat exist across America!


Eating bushmeat can be dangerous.  Even after outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus was linked to eating bushmeat, the practice continues.  Bushmeat has a high risk of bacteria like salmonella and it may also carry new diseases.  The virus that causes AIDS originated in monkeys and the 2003 SARS outbreak was traced to a virus in civit cats and bats.

Meat from endangered species is sometimes used in black magic rituals because it is believed to possess magic powers.

O.k. you Arts and Crafts fanciers, get your passport and your walking shoes and get ready to go to Ouagadougou, Berkina Faso.  That African country hosts an International  Arts and Crafts Fair every other year and this is the year.  The fair is better known by its French name, Le Salon International de Ouagadougou, SIAO for short.  The 2010 fair will be held October 29-November 10.

Nearly anything you can think and a few things you didn't think of will be displayed at this show.   Major products will be calabash products, jewelry, bronze and iron products, textiles and apparel products, musical instruments, toys, leather goods, furniture and home decor products, painting and batik, pottery and ceramics. Recycled crafts will be shown and Africans are masters at recycling.  Sculptures and carvings will be displayed in stone and wood and anything else they can find to carve.

The art of the calabash is growing in popularity.  A calabash is a gourd-like fruit grown on vines and some big one grow on a tree.  Working with gourds requires dexterity and finesse because they are breakable.  Craftsmen compete with regard to creativity and the finished products arouse the admiration of everyone. And they sell for a good price! African jewelry is growing in popularity, too.  Gold, bronze, silver, amber and other materials are used to make jewelry that is increasingly refined and elegant.  Today this jewelry is reaching shops and home in the Western World.  Making pottery and ceramics is one of the oldest trades in the world but with new tools and technology the craftsmen are able to create a variety of useful objects with unique designs.  Today they also have new cooking methods plus better coloring and molding techniques.

Calabash fruit on a tree in Burkina Faso

Two gorgeous flower corsages made from pink flamingo feathers are displayed on a  guest room wall in two blue shadow boxes. They have a story to tell.  Back in 1965 missionaries David and Helen Kellog entered the town of Nakuru, Kenya to establish a Christian Bookshop.  Bethany Bookshop stocked Bibles in 28 languages.  The Bookshop also served as a place of training for Africans who wanted to learn how to manage their own bookstores.  Meanwhile, Helen was finding a fascination with feathers that led to a handcraft that became one of the most popular souvenirs in Nakuru.  In Lake Nakuru, which borders the town of Nakuru, millions of flamingos breed and feed.  The alkaline lake is relatively shallow and muddy but the flamingos flourish there and molt, leaving feathers in the muddy water or along the shore.

Helen Kellog had a  hobby of salvaging feathers and making flowers out of the feathers the birds had molted into the water.  She started selling her creations as a means of financing the new bookshop.  Sales were so brisk that she soon needed help to produce enough to meet the demand.  Helen hired African women to make the corsages.  The feathers were  gathered from the mud along the shore and cleaned in a special way before there were fashioned into flowers of exquisite beauty. The birds were not affected in any way.  Later Helen trained physically disabled people to make the flowers. 

These creations were sold in Nairobi and other towns in Kenya.  Their fame spread in Kenya and a good many of them found their way to the United States. One of mine was purchased in Nairobi when I was vacationing there and the other was a door prize at a World Gospel Mission Rally.

Six Black Rhinos will be airlifted from South Africa to the Serengeti Park in Tanzania on Friday. By 1991 only two Eastern Black Rhinos remained in the park. These Eastern Black Rhinos will, for the first time live in their native habitat in Tanzania.

Forty six years ago, their ancestors were evacuated from Tanzania to save them from poachers in the 1960's and 1970's that almost wiped them out in East Africa.  Scientists, believing that this black rhino sub-species would become extinct, flew seven rhinos to South Africa for their safety in 1964.  These young rhinos, between the ages of 4 and 17, are all descendants of the original seven. For this homecoming, three male and three female Eastern Black Rhinoceroses will be airlifted to the Serengeti National Reserve in Tanzania.  The project's focus has been on ensuring that the new home for these six rhinos will be safe from poachers, and on training 24 rangers to guard them.  Over the next couple of years, 26 more Eastern Black Rhinos will be moved from South Africa to the Serengeti National Park.

Since the rhinos were caught, they have been kept in large fenced pens to familiarize them with being in enclosed spaces.  On Thursday night they will be put into put crates, mildly sedated and  loaded onto a chartered Hercules C-130 cargo plane for the five-hour flight to the unpaved airstrip at Seronera in the Serengeti Park.  Conservationists calculate that there are fewer than 4,300 black rhinos left anywhere in the wild.  That is down from 65,000 in the middle of the last century.  Let's hope that these newcomers thrive and multiply.

America's Pull will host the twelfth annual 2-day National Champions tour of tractor pulling at the Marshall-Putnam Fair in Henry, Illinois on July 10 and 11, 2010.  The main events will take place at 6:30 on Saturday and 3:00 P.M. Sunday.  Both days will feature five classes of tractors.  This pull has been called the 4 time National Event of the Year.

These races are conducted on two parallel clay tracks designed for pulling.  Stadium seating on both sides of the tracks give the fans excellent visibility. Kids of all ages can visit the open pits both days at no charge. If you want a full day of pulling, come early Saturday morning to see 8 classes of farm stock tractors and street stock pickup pulling at 11:00 A.M.

This competition, America's Pull, offers one of the highest purse payouts in the country.  The pull not only offers big money but it also awards the Lucas Oil World Cup to the winner of each class.  The trophy is a 32-inch tall engraved lead crystal vase that is a coveted prize.  Limited advance reserved seating tickets go on sale June lst.  Excitement is building among tractor pulling fans!