African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1283 Deadly Climate

This is just like when the living standards in the previous life improve, people's desires will also increase accordingly. For example, if a person can eat meat and fish every day, what he may miss the most is the food he had eaten when he was living in hardship.

Kumoyev had previously faced shortages of supplies during the war in Ukraine, and later experienced a difficult life in the Basra refugee camp. It was these difficulties that made him cherish his current life even more.

……

the next day.

Betzdorf appeared in the classroom on time. He said, "Today, we will have our first practical class. Everyone follow me in order of number."

There are more than 60 students in Betzdorf's class, and Kumoyev and Leblia are also in this class.

Afterwards, the whole class, led by Betzdorff, came to the warehouse of the study camp.

"Everyone take an axe and a hatchet, and you two take this whetstone." Kumoyev and Leblia were chosen to carry the whetstone.

A whetstone is quite heavy. Judging from its appearance, it is probably equivalent to the size of three or four red bricks, and the density of a whetstone is much greater. At the same time, they also have to carry axes and machetes.

However, faced with Betzdorff's assignment, Kumoyev and Leblia did not dare to challenge him and could only blame themselves for their bad luck.

Afterwards, Betzdorf brought a group of people to the forest area next to the training camp. It took them nearly two kilometers to arrive.

In fact, the study camp was originally built on the edge of a forest area, but as the area of ​​Davao City expanded, the surrounding forest area decreased, leading to this result.

"You obviously know what we are going to do today! That's right, logging. Logging is the most basic job in Mindanao."

"You should also have a preliminary understanding of the environment of Mindanao, which is that there are many rainforests. The forest coverage rate here can be said to be more than 90%."

"And the land we need is obtained from this vast rainforest. The trees and rainforests in the South Seas are completely different from the forests you see in Europe."

"In addition to logging, we must also pay attention to threats such as poisonous snakes and insects. In Mindanao, many people have lost their lives due to bites from poisonous snakes or insects, so we must be extra careful when logging. Use sticks to drive away possible threats in the surrounding area, and also be careful of threats on the trees."

"There may be poisonous snakes entrenched in the trees, and their colors are not easy to detect. They are hard to find hiding in leaves and branches, so you have to pay attention next."

"At the same time, I also require each of you to master the maintenance of tools. The axes and hatchets here are public property and cannot be lost. At the same time, the blades must be kept sharp..."

Betzdorf talked eloquently and personally demonstrated how to properly maintain tools, how to deal with trees and vegetation in the rainforest, and how to avoid danger when encountering various dangerous creatures such as venomous snakes, lizards, and even crocodiles.

Afterwards, they began to lead the team to "learn" logging work, which was actually equivalent to taking advantage of their labor for free. It was through the "learning" of batches of students that the area of ​​Davao City continued to expand.

As Betzdorf said, all the available land in Mindanao was taken from the rainforest. In Mindanao, any village or town must first clear a piece of land and then expand day by day.

Machines don't work well here, so we can only expand the arable land and open space through manual means.

After all, the rainforest is complex, with dense vegetation and lots of water, which is not suitable for large machinery such as tractors to operate here.

Moreover, Mindanao has a large number of mountains and complex terrain, which to some extent explains the difficulty of East Africa in developing the South Pacific region.

Of course, there is a shortcut to speeding up the development of overseas colonies, which is to solve the population problem, including but not limited to introducing immigrants and increasing local fertility rates.

This is also the most troubling part of East Africa, which has now passed the best stage for obtaining immigrants, especially European immigrants. The First World War provided East Africa with a short window of opportunity, which is the main reason why East Africa unscrupulously introduced war refugees from Europe.

Even so, East Africa's demand for white immigrants is still a drop in the bucket compared to the current immigration rate.

Kumoyev and Leblia naturally chose to act together, each of them holding an axe and chopping at two nearby trees.

Lieblia said: "Many of the trees here look strange, with bare trunks and very large leaves. This leaf can be used as a cushion without any problems."

"I saw some houses here with roofs made of this kind of leaves. I guess they can be used to keep out the rain."

Kumoyev said: "This is the so-called rainforest. It is really hard to believe that it has not been developed for so many years. I heard that the East Africans took it over later."

"I can't believe how backward the indigenous civilization was before the East Africans arrived. I've always heard that Russia is a relatively backward country in Europe, far inferior to Britain, France and Germany. But after coming here, I feel that the indigenous people here must be worse than we imagined."

"No wonder European countries can easily grab so much land overseas."

Kumoyev does not believe that the rainforest here cannot be developed. The indigenous people here have lived and multiplied for thousands of years without any development of civilization. He cannot imagine how desolate Davao was in the past.

Lieblia said: "Faced with such a vast rainforest, only a country can develop it on a large scale. This requires strong organizational capabilities. Obviously, this is the difference between us and the indigenous people."

"I heard that many places outside of Europe don't have countries, but small tribes. East Africa was also like this."

"Although those primitive people are also developing, the speed is very slow. I didn't understand it before, but now seeing this huge rainforest, if there are not enough people, it is really difficult to develop here. I heard that tropical vegetation grows very fast. Without a certain population, I am afraid that the speed of felling will not be able to keep up with the speed of vegetation regeneration."

"As for tools, the tools of East Africans are of good quality. Without efficient tools, it would be much more difficult to develop this natural rainforest, and many indigenous people don't even know how to do metallurgy."

"Plus this terrible weather, it's very hot and muggy, and it's raining easily. I'm already soaked through. I used to hate the cold winter in Russia, but now I miss that kind of weather."

"After all, when it's cold, working can warm you up, but here, the harder you work, the more you sweat. It's like a small waterfall, and it makes you feel uncomfortable all over."

Bad weather is indeed one of the difficulties in developing the South China Sea. The development of East Africa was definitely not so difficult at the beginning. After all, it doesn’t rain in East Africa at any time and the temperature is relatively comfortable.

In Mindanao, it rains almost every short period of time, and while it rains, the temperature does not drop at all, just like a big steamer.

Not to mention that there are a lot of mosquitoes, dirt, plant leaves, and fluff here, which stick to your body for various reasons, making you feel hot and itchy and very uncomfortable.

For the Slavs living in Ukraine, where the climate tends to be cold for a long time, the climate in Mindanao is simply killing them.

Visible sweat flowed down their clothes onto the ground. After just a moment, everyone's mental state seemed very depressed, and they were chopping with axes and hatchets weakly.

Betzdorf had already expected this to happen, and he did not urge them. After all, these Slavs had just arrived here, and if they did too much work, big problems might arise.

It will not be too late to consider these issues after they arrive at the allocated areas, and by then these people will no longer be under our control.

Of course, not all Slavs are treated this way. For example, female Slavs are still very popular in places like Mindanao where bachelors are everywhere.

(End of this chapter)