Free The Bizarre Truth by Andrew Zimmern Page B

treated with permethrin, a powerful insecticide that you must soak your clothing in, and wear heavy-duty DEET repellant. Despite the fact that you’ve essentially bathed in these chemicals, the biting flies, some literally the size of cigar butts, continue to seek whatever purchase on you they can. At night, from the safety of our fire and wrapped tighter than Tutankhamen in fine cheesecloth, you could see the mosquitoes in cloudlike waves flying around our heads.
    On the day we arrived in Lwanika, we drove through the village and spotted a man sitting on the steps of one of the common buildings with a giant swollen arm. When I say swollen, I mean grotesquely swollen to the point that it was bigger than his body. He had elephantitis. When you see that kind of disease symptomology caused by insects, it makes you think about seventeen times before you run out into the jungle to take a leak at 4 A.M . Later that evening, I remember looking at the flap on my pathetic pup tent, seeing thousands of biting flies hovering outside. And let’s not forget about the elephants or lions that could stumble into camp at any given moment. I spent most of those nights lying sleepless in my tent, too terrified to venture outside to piss for fear of being devoured by
something
. Ziploc bags come in handy.
    I was quickly forced to face my fears on day two as I accompanied some of the tribesmen on a lungfish hunt. To be perfectlyhonest, I was really nervous about going lung-fishing from the first days of preproduction because of the horrific swamps in which they live. I was petrified of disappearing in a mud suck-hole or being devoured by snakes. I’m so thankful I never bothered to look at pictures of lungfish prior to this excursion. I never would have participated with such gusto had I known what was living just underneath the muddy water’s surface. Screw the bugs and mud, these lungfish are intimidating.
    Early that morning, eight of us marched from our tents through the jungle to the swampy rice paddies where the tribe farmed their grain. There were dozens of paddies, each a couple acres in size, all bordered by mud berms made of swamp detritus. Reeds, branches, and grasses are cut by hand and piled like dikes between the ponds to regulate the flow. These organic items decompose very rapidly, creating a mud topped by spongy grasslike mossy compost, which acts as pathways between ponds after years of being cut and piled and shaped. The waters here are filled with poisonous snakes—several of the most deadly varieties in the world, in fact—as well as some of the most infamous disease-carrying insects. Fabulous. The mud berms were so brutish to walk on, they actually sucked my Keens right off my feet. I went barefoot for most of the day after that, encouraged by local pals who reminded me that the only thing in the water was mud and plant life. A lot could happen to me out there, but stubbed toes and cut feet were essentially physical impossibilities. I had envisioned my body helplessly succumbing to the mud after accidentally stepping in a sinkhole, however, so I insisted on tying a rope around my waist—just in case.
    Catching a lungfish is nothing like any sort of fishing I’ve ever done. First, you take a giant stick outfitted with four or five metal barbs, which are typically just pieces of stiff wire lashed to the end of the poles. It resembles a supersize fondue fork, maybe six feet long. Next, you jab the pole into these grassy, muddy walls, trying to find hollow spots where the fish nest. Occasionally, you’ll spot afish as it surfaces, breaking the thick brown water for a breath of fresh air. The lungfish we found were about four feet long, weighed about twenty-five to forty pounds, and had ferociously large teeth sprouting from their powerful jaws. They are extremely ugly and angry animals, and, as it turns out, they don’t like to have their nests poked by mazungos. They like it even less when, upon finding their nest, you