F3LLOWSHIP

Bom dia F3llows. Como ku shta?

I hope you all had good weekends wherever you may be. I certainly had an eventful one. A few quick notes to start off.

A) The rainy season is here! After not seeing/feeling precipitation of any sort since last September when I arrived in Dakar, the rains started here in Bissau four nights ago and have fallen every night since. The cooler temperatures and overcast mornings are great to wake up to. We will see how enthused I am when the torrents really start coming down and the streets get muddy, but for now it reminds me of summers back home.

B) Remember those Commonwealthers I told you about the other week? Well Jenny, the British one, has come back to Sadio’s for an extended visit. She is going to help out for a few weeks before heading back home in early June to start work. We have been trading travel stories and comparing Britishisms/Americanisms, and it’s been nice to have an Anglophone friend around again.

Conveniently enough, the day Jenny returned we were invited to witness/participate in a traditional, Balanta ceremony celebrating Mala’s nephew who recently passed away. While the burial itself had already taken place a week ago, this ceremony seemed to be more of a celebration of life than a mourning of death as it was a very lively party with several animal sacrifices, plentiful drinking, traditional drumming and dancing, and endless music blasting throughout the night and well into the next morning.

Upon arriving in the village of Incheia after a tedious set of rides in transporte mixto (public transport), we were quickly absorbed into the festivities. Dozens of men and women from the village had gathered and were marching down to the riverside, singing and dancing along the way, with six cows in tow that were to be sacrificed in honor of the young man who had passed. It was later explained to us that the cows are given a final drink of water and painted with mud as an homage to their close relationship with the river before they must meet their fate. Mud is also painted on the faces of those participating in the ceremony, and it was within only a minute of getting to the riverbank that we had some face-paint of our own. From there we returned to the house of the father of the deceased, where a pack of mostly men danced/chanted around in a circle carrying the older brother of the deceased on their shoulders. Gifts of fabric and drink were bestowed upon the family including the sacrifice of all six cows right there in the front yard. Celebrating Tabaski back in Dakar had been a primer on animal sacrifice/butchering for me, but cows are much larger animals than sheep, and seeing six get slaughtered right in front of us was pretty strong stuff. Jenny and I were then handed some leafy boughs and pulled into the fray to dance around to the consistent beat that was being played out on two, massive, hollowed out logs. Eventually we were ushered out of the sweaty, dusty pack and offered a delicious dinner. As the sun set the traditional dancing and drumming made way for more contemporary music (you just can’t get away from Rihanna no matter how far you go) blasting out of huge speakers run off a generator. Plentiful drink was offered to us, including Carolais – a favorite, local brew. I think it could be best described as melted black-raspberry ice cream with alcohol in it. Apparently the actual ingredients include milk, red wine, sugar and cana – sugar cane alcohol. While I may be a fan of some good homemade egg-nog (another dairy-alc. mix), warm, purple milk with a kick seems like a bad idea so I generally take it easy on the stuff. We danced along with the other revelers well into the night but called it quits around 2AM and retired to our tent that had been set up in a “room” that had been made out of branches around a mango tree. The party, however, continued on, with music blaring throughout the night; it wasn’t until I finally conceded that I wasn’t going to get any more sleep at 7AM that the generator ran out and the music finally turned off. Exhausted from the previous day, we spent most of Sunday napping and eating beef (what else?), before packing up and heading back to Bissau in the afternoon.

The main takeaway from the weekend: when I die, throw a party for me.

Life comes and goes here frequently, in a way that can seem startling for someone coming from a “developed” country. Because of this however, I find that people here have a much more level perspective on the fragility of life and in turn look to celebrate it fully. With births and deaths occurring more commonly here, I think I have come to recognize them both as the phases of life that they are, as opposed to seeing death and the opposite of life.

Paz from Bissau,

Mbunde

N.B. One of the pictures from the weekend below shows a cow being slaughtered.

This past weekend was filled with visiting friends, some new, some old. As I think I mentioned earlier, it’s pretty rare that I see brancos around here in Bissau, particularly ones that aren’t Portuguese and driving a SUV around town. So it was quite the surprise when, sitting in the Cyber Café plugged in to my music and the World Wide Web, I looked up to find four, well-worn Commonwealthers surrounding me. Turns out the crew of two guys and two girls (3 Aussies, one Brit) were over-landing on motorcycles from Europe through West Africa. After chatting them up and learning of their various (mis)adventures I figured they might want a few nights rest here in Bissau so I invited them to come stay with us at Sadio’s compound. Though they had originally planned on continuing on to Bafata in western Bissau that day, they took me up on the offer of sleeping on real mattresses and taking bucket showers as they had just spent four days camping on a deserted beach in the Bijagos Archipelago. As I had expected, Sadio was more than happy to play host and we had two nights of delicious food, trading stories (lengthy conversation in English!), and, for them, doing some much needed laundry; turns out riding through the Sahel can leave one’s gear very dusty. After resting for two nights they moved on for a few more days touring Bissau with plans on arriving in Guinea Conakry early this week.

As it turned out, two of my friends from Dakar, Mark and Juan-Carlos, were also planning to come visit me this past weekend. Taking some inspiration from our new friends, we headed out to the Bijagos Archipelago for a two night stay. I invited Senghor along to make our group an even four, as he has been a great friend and as it never hurts to have a local to navigate ticket purchasing/finding food/negotiating etc. The Bijagos are situated several kilometers off the coast of Bissau and are known for their beauty, great fishing, and distinct, traditional culture. Here in Guinea-Bissau they are the center of the (fledgling) tourism industry, and I now know why. As you can see in the photos below, it’s a stunning place.

Our trip started on Friday morning when we took a taxi down to the port and bought tickets and some lunch supplies in the bustling market along the jetty. We were told the boat would leave at 11, and as expected, it left around noon. The ferry barge is the most affordable, safest and SLOWEST way to reach the island of Bubaque, the main center/town in the Bijagos. Private boats costs hundreds of dollars per person and the large pirogues are known to capsize and take lives fairly regularly. So it was a barge ride for us; one that took a mere 10 hours. Partly due to strong tides and currents, partly due to being laden with construction materials (dozens of bags of cement and several pallets of roofing tiles), two large cows and a couple hundred people, it was slow going. So slow that at one point we were stuck in the same spot off the coast of the island of Rubane for over an hour as the engines, on full blast, struggled against the ripping current. Apparently news of the boats trouble was phoned back to Bissau and broadcasted on national radio, as Senghor’s friends were calling to make sure we were all right. Finally, upon arrival we found a nice, basic auberge with bungalows, dug into a huge, shared plate of fish and caldo branco (an onion and citrus sauce) and went to bed exhausted.

The next morning we went about finding Jaime, “the little white man,” who had kayaks to rent according to the Aussies. As it turned out, it wasn’t too hard to find Jaime, a Spaniard from Mallorca, who now splits his time living between the Bubaque and his island of origin. After organizing the kayak rental, and visiting the local feira for some provisions (100CFA – 20 cents- for four mangos got Mark pretty excited), we crossed the channel from Bubaque to Ilha Rubane to pass the day on the deserted beach there. Well, it was deserted for the first few hours anyway, until a pirogue full of Bubaque youths came to join in the fun. If you were unaware (as I was previously) the 11^th of May is something of an international holiday as it marks Bob Marley’s birthday. As you can imagine, reggae, and Bob himself, are pretty big here in West Africa and thus the 11^th is widely celebrated. Swimming in the warm but refreshing waters, snacking on mangos and shucking fresh oysters with Senghor at low tide made for a great day in the sun.

Unfortunately, the barge/ferry only runs to/from Bubaque on Fridays/Sundays respectively so we had to return to Bissau after only spending one full day in the archipelago. As Mark and J.C. are currently making a tour of Senegal (with the trip to Bissau a small detour) they could really only stay the weekend anyway, but we all concluded that a return to the islands, either to visit, do research, or retire/live will be necessary. I certainly hope to get out there again but we will if it happens this trip. The ride back took a (somewhat) more reasonable 6.5 hours, though was not without its drama. After about 10 minutes of “cruising,” a woman on the lower deck fell off the boat and the resulting rescue mission, which took about 5-10 minutes, was fairly tense as she was not a very capable swimmer. With her safely back on board, it was clear sailing from there on out.

I only have a few more weeks here in Bissau (time flies right?) before heading back to Dakar and onto more adventures. I am hoping to visit a few more towns/regions here on the mainland so look out for those posts. 

Tay logo,

Mbunde