Last August when I came to Soyo I learned that the only manatee hunter for the area, Mr. Domingos, had died a week before I arrived. I visited his village on that trip and found four manatee harpoons there. Since then I’ve been working to try to find a way to get them “off the street” so that no one else in this area will take up manatee hunting. Angola LNG generously agreed to trade supplies to the Domingos family for the harpoons and a specialized net Mr. Domingos used for catching manatees. On Wednesday Joao and I met with Mr. Domingos’ widow and youngest son Lando to discuss the terms of the exchange. In return for the manatee harpoons and net, Angola LNG has offered them 6 bags of cement, 4 fishing nets, line and floats for the nets, 8 boxes of hooks and a large cooler. This is all very valuable, especially since the son is a fisherman. They presented us with 2 very old, rusted harpoon tips and the son agreed to go upriver with us the following day to collect the rest at a village. Mrs. Domingos said a third harpoon was locked in a neighbor’s house, but they could give it to us later.
Joao, Mrs. Domingos, me and Lando Domingos meeting at their village near Soyo
On Thursday we dropped Lando off at the village of Pendi to gather the rest of the harpoons and the net while we did our river surveys. When we returned to Pendi I had hoped to see him waiting on shore with lots of equipment, and was sadly surprised to find him standing there with one more very old rusted harpoon tip and nothing else. When we asked him where the rest was, he said his cousin had deployed the manatee net in the river to try to catch a manatee, and it had disappeared. He claimed a manatee or “big fish” had probably swum off with it. He didn’t volunteer anything about additional harpoons and when we asked him, he only referenced the one his mother had mentioned. Joao explained to Lando that the deal for the trade is that he turn over all the equipment, so we cannot give him anything until he does. It was pretty obvious he had hoped to give us a few old, unusable harpoons and then we would just turn over all the goods to him, but he began to realize on the trip home that we meant to give him nothing until he turned over the rest. He says he’ll try to get the net back. What Lando doesn’t realize yet is that I photographed all the harpoons last summer just after Mr. Domingos died. Each tip has a unique design since they were all hand made, and the ones I photographed are in much better condition. So it’s very easy to tell whether or not we’re being given the ones that are still usable. So far I believe Lando has turned over one of the four I photographed. Even though I had to leave Angola, Joao and Mary (the socio-economic advisor and Joao’s boss) will continue to work with the Domingos family to recover all the gear. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t happen while I was there, since I’ve been working to broker this deal for a year, but in the end I hope it will still mean the end of manatee hunting in this area. And we definitely made some progress! I just have to remind myself that nothing happens quickly in Africa.
These are the three harpoon tips we have received so far. Their hunting days are over, and hopefully we'll find a place in Angola to display them as part of a cultural heritage exhibit.
The newest Angola LNG boat was named the Manatee! So maybe I've managed to raise some awareness on the base :-) 
Back at Nzadi Caca. The village continues to grow as they add more clam shells and then build their houses on top of them.
We interviewed the guys in Nzadi Caca while they skewered clams to sell
View from the new village we visited
Woman making thatch roof panels at Kibaka 
We released the baby python while we were upriver
On Thursday we went upriver again, and this time Joao accompanied me as translator. We didn’t go as far upriver, but explored some new tributaries I had not been to before. It still amazes me how many hundreds of miles of tributaries there are here, and that there are very few people living along them. We interviewed several fishermen and stopped at a manioc plantation (manioc is a root vegetable, also known as cassava). Although there is plenty of good habitat and favored food plants in the area we went, people there said they don’t see manatees very often. There were no hunters in this area; they only knew of Mr. Domingos, who died last year.
Watching the GPS map as we travel the new rivers.
One of the fishermen we interviewed as we explored several new tributaries. 
This woman at the manioc plantation proudly showed me her fish. She and her husband said they don't see manatees frequently there, but occasionally they (and hippos) travel by in the river.
Young guinon that was a pet at the manoic plantation, tied to a tree. Beautiful little monkey, I felt sorry for it.
Nice skink I saw at the manioc plantation. (this one's for you Tess!)
Coming in to Soyo we flew over the Congo River and this village. I've been here by boat before to check out the large grassy area (ie manatee salad bar) 
Soyo Airport
On Monday I sampled 36 new manatee bones that were brought to the base by the deceased manatee hunter’s wife since my last trip. These bones were fresher than most of the previous ones we found at the hunter’s village last August, which is hopefully good news for DNA extraction. Tim, the wildlife advisor on base, enthusiastically cut all the samples with a hacksaw as I labeled them. He also showed me some of the cool animals he’s recently found on the base (which will be relocated back to the wild off base).
Tim cutting samples- we take about a 3 inch sample of bone from each. 
Puff Adder, quite a dangerous snake... I was not actually this close!
Pelusios castaneus, a local species of freshwater turtle
Baby python as wrist accessory
