When the weather cycle is within normal limits June is always 100% a rainy season month. The reality being however that there are exceptions to many rules it must be noted that occasionally there will be a year when even the wet season months tend to act like dry season and vice versa. Since we’re assuming the full calendar of months in these posts falls within the normal cycle, June is 100% a rainy season month.
Generally speaking the further downstream you are, the later in the season the rivers will crest. Our school was located toward the upper reaches of the navigable section of the river so the river crested in June. Downstream, toward the river’s mouth, the river crested in July or August. June is usually when the last of the several species of fish make their run up the river. The fishermen are out paddling their little dugouts around in the backwashes where the migrating fish congregate before they hit the main current again on their way upstream to branch off in the smaller tributaries. These fishermen are angling for bocon, which eaten fresh cooked or slow smoked is right up there with the best tasting fish the river has to offer. Their gear consists of a strong yet bendable sapling with a stout line and medium hook baited with a big grasshopper. 18 inches would be an average size fish. Sometimes the fishermen will follow the migrating bocon all the way up the smaller streams where the fish congregate in the deeper pools where they catch them by the dozens if not hundreds. When that happens the fishermen will build a small shelter and smoke rack right there on site and smoke their catch. They have no other way to preserve the fish. Getting the catch back to the hungry folks in the village can be tricky however. More than one canoe load has been lost because either the boat was overloaded or the paddlers failed to negotiate the rapids properly on the way downstream. They would sink or capsize and lose the the entire catch.
June is also the month when those who live on the banks of the larger rivers set out balsa wood floats fitted with short, very strong lines and big hooks to catch catfish some of which can grow to a pretty significant size. The biggest I ever caught weighed (we estimated) over one hundred pounds. These catfish of which there are a couple of different species are about the best tasting fish in the river even better than bocon. Of course that’s a matter of opinion. To get your floats in place you steer your boat in as straight a line as possible for the opposite shore and toss the floats with their baited hooks at spaced intervals across the entire river. Now you motor or paddle to a spot above the floats and let the current sweep the floats and your boat (with you in it presumably) along downstream. When a float suddenly disappears you know you’ve got got what you came after and the longer it stays under before surfacing the bigger it is! If on the other hand you see a float bobbing around on the surface you know a piranha is stripping the bait off the hook which is what you didn’t want to see happening.
The sand bars and many of the rocks are under water and the river bed can no longer contain the surging volume of water. As the river banks disappear the flood spills over into the jungle. During most rainy seasons there remain small islands of land scattered throughout the flooded jungle where the land animals take refuge and manage to survive till the flood waters again drain out of the jungle and the dry season comes back.
For the next couple of months the rivers will be at their deepest and those who transport big heavy loads on these waterways will take advantage of running their boats while there is plenty of water between their keels along with their propellors and the bottom whether it may be sand bars or rocks. During the years when the missionaries operated their own supply boats, June, July and August were by far the preferred months to haul supplies. In August, toward the upper reaches of the rivers you may have to follow the dry season channel but there usually was enough water to get you through without connecting with the bottom.
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