| Submitted by: David Pugh, United States |
| Submission Date: 27 November 2007 |
|
 |
|
Lucas had the nerve to ask me which room shall we get; to which I had to point out that we were on a tight budget and that he shouldn’t have to ask. I was more than a little touchy at this point, still mourning my ruined watch. The only difference between the rooms was that the cheapest room had its own toilet but it was in the corridor, with its own key. This was hardly much of an inconvenience, more so was the fact that the ensuite shower was electrically powered, so due to the power cut we had to use buckets in the very small space. A room like this in the Gambia would be quarter the price; things were not looking too great for the Gambia to Guinea-Bissau excursion business.
Having changed into yet another evening ensemble, Lucas was ready to hit the town but first he wanted to find out the times of the boat over to Bubaque, the main island of the Arquipelegos dos Bijagos. Having read that it took four to six hors to get there, I didn’t think we had enough time for the trip and visit Cassalol village but Lucas said we shouldn’t miss it. It turned out that the only ship leaving for the islands, that weekend, was about to embark in an hour. Lucas rushed back to the hotel to try and get a refund on the night’s accommodation, like a Jonah I repeated that there was no chance. I was right, as the only guests in the hotel there was no way we could have our money back and I wasn’t prepared to lose CFA25,000. I helpfully suggested they keep the money and we re-occupy the room on the Sunday night, when the boat was due to return, the management’s reply was, “No chance!” but in Portuguese. Lucas had to watch the boat go; it was his turn to be tearful. I found out, from some soldiers that evening, that the island girls were supposed to be the hottest women in West Africa and that Lucas had been hoping to sample their delights. Lucas wasn’t deterred and assured me that we find a canoe to take us over in the morning. If it took four to six hours on the steamer, I didn’t want to imagine the trip by paddle power and a strong libido.
Bissau is very, very expensive, we found the main hotel charged from CFA100,000 per night and the cities tourist restaurants match those prices. We settled for fish and rice in the local market, some imported Sagres dark beer washed down with a lot of the very cheap local drink, kana, distilled from cashew nuts and very strong. After lots more to drink I helped guide Lucas back to our hotel, his knowledge of the city was a bit rusty, as he hadn’t been back there since he was ten; he’s now forty-six. It’s hard to know what brings tourists to Bissau, it seems like most Europeans are there on some business, probably something to do with the vast forests to the east of the country. There must be some good business to be had to claim the hotel bills in their expenses.
Saturday morning found no boats leaving for the islands; much to my relief. Despite bring a Christian country everyone was celebrating the Eide holiday at the end of Ramadan. I suggested we go to visit Lucas’s family as we planned to do and forget the island girls. He took one last, wistful look across the sea, blocked his ears to the sirens’ cry and got us a good taxi price to the Cacheau ferry.
11am found us back in Sao Domingos where we were to get some transport to Susana, then a four kilometre walk to Cassalol and then onto the beach resort of Varela; from here I was assured we get transport back to Senegal. Dear reader, you know that this is not going to be as easy as that, I have Lucas Jatta as a guide and optimism doesn’t power vehicles. My priority was to get something to eat, we’d had nothing but the very small fish with rice of the night before, Africans don’t have the same five-a-day fruit and vegetable needs as us Brits. Lucas’ priority was MORE KANA! Guinea-Bissau has the best kana in the world and he wanted to find some more!
Sao Domingos has two very good bars, the one near the Varela road provided us with some very fine kana, it also had a brown liquid sold in jam jars. I asked Lucas what was in the jars, “You want to try?” he asked, as there was nowhere to go just yet, I agreed to try cashew wine. This is the product of cashew nuts that have fermented in a dark place for about two weeks and has a very distinct cashew nut aftertaste, quite a pleasant first impression, very different to the stronger distilled cashew kana. After several glasses we went to find out if the lorry to Susana was filling up. We’d already left our bags in the driver’s cab, he was waiting for twenty people to climb aboard before he’d drive the 50 kilometre mud road, at this moment we had seven. Lucas spotted a young Rasta man, who could prove a likely source of ganja, he’d not had a hit for two days, so he badly needed a blow, to keep him in the holiday mood. I was more interested in buying some fruit and vegetables, Sao Domingos’ main street had only onion sellers and a French bread baker. We followed our Rasta guide to the edge of town and into a small grove, where a circle of Rasta men were puffing away, Lucas’ idea of paradise. After about an hour I thought it time to check on the lorry passengers, as our bags were still in the cabin and I foolishly thought it might leave with out us. Three more people had joined the queue, including a rather odd old man named Pappa Jigga, who only seemed to speak in English. He was complaining of the price of medicine to heal his heart disease, Lucas told him that he knew a herb that could cure his condition in one application. Naturally Pappa Jigga wanted the herb and he wanted it right now, I thought Lucas might have been exaggerating his bush medical qualifications somewhat. To pacify the very excited Mr. Jigga Lucas led me into the bush to find the herb; well it was actually someone’s garden. That someone got very agitated when he discovered a tall Rasta and a very ale white man digging at the root of one of his trees. Lucas warned the landowner and myself not to touch the rather evil looking fungus he’d dug up with a stick, which he rolled into a plastic bag, before asking the astonished landowner for some clean water to wash his hands, in case he may have inadvertently touched the thing. He then told me that he was going to put it into a fire and grind the ashen powder into an infusion for Pappa Jigga to put on his tongue. The old man was still game to try the potion, even though he told us that his brother had died from a wrongly administered dose of bush medicine. Lucas told him it would be fine but not to take until the chest pain was really bad and, as I thought, when we were miles away from here. I spotted that someone was cooking in a shack near the bus stand, so suggested we go eat. There was only one choice on the menu, fish and rice, with no sign of a vegetable, other than a small onion.
By 6pm nine people were waiting for the lorry to leave, so the driver announced that he wouldn’t be leaving today and to try again in the morning.
Someone suggested we might like to spend the night at the hotel, which was a surprise to us, we’d walked around the town seven or eight times that day and not seen one. There was indeed a four room hotel that had so little custom; it had no need to put a “Hotel” sign outside it. The rooms were very spacious and had a mosquito mesh on the windows, he owner even managed to find some clean sheets. Lucas changed into some fresh stepping out clothes and I went for a shower. The one bathroom which was shared by the owner’s family left a lot to be desired, two very large water butts which never got fully emptied, just continually topped up and one toilet bowl which had never been connected to a water supply. Bottled water was rather expensive in Sao Domingos, so I didn’t want to waste it on brushing my teeth and I certainly wasn’t going to put the contents of the water butts into my mouth, one night without brushing my teeth wouldn’t hurt. As I finished my bucket shower, the sound of disco blasted from outside the bathroom window, it seemed that our hotel was next to the town nightclub and it was Saturday night, Lucas would be ready for action. Sure enough, he was ready for the off, having covered himself in some perfume he’d asked me to by him in Ziguanchor and sprayed his bonnet with my anti-bacteria solution; he was feeling irresistible. After a few more kanas from the town’s other bar and a few beers to long lost relatives that had shown up, we hit the nightclub. As soon as I went through the door, I just wanted to turn around and leave, it was a pre-teen disco! With West Africa having a reputation for men of a certain age coming to look for intimate, juvenile companionship, I did not want to stay here. Lucas couldn’t see the problem and was happy to stay, I said I’d be happier back at the bar watching a West African version of MTV. Joy of joy, I found a woman selling deep fried cassava, a vegetable at last, washed down with some 500ml cans of Portuguese beer, they were actually cheaper than the bottled water. I later awoke wishing I had paid the extra for the water as I was getting pretty dehydrated. As soon as the shops opened the next morning I bought some water, I was beyond caring how expensive it was. We found someone selling coffee and French bread, with a choice of butter or mayonnaise and the use of his bedroom for Lucas to roll up a joint. We got to the bus stand to find that we did now have twenty people and could take the rugged road down to Susana.
I volunteered to sit in the back of the lorry while Lucas sat up front with the driver and a woman with tender bottom syndrome. My plan was to take some photos of the colourful women sat on the padded bench behind the cabin. As soon as I took out my camera all the women threw scarves over their heads and the guy who was the volunteer bus conductor threaten to throw me off unless I put my soul stealing equipment away. I was punished by a hellish five hour mud track drive, with potholes and craters better than anything the Gambia could offer. After being thrown a foot off the plank seat about twenty times, I sat on a cement sack which I moulded into the shape of my bottom. The road finally stopped on the outskirts of Susana village, it should have run a few kilometres more but the bridge had collapsed leaving an upturned lorry in the stream. As this was the also the road to Varela, Guinea-Bissau’s premier beach destination, all did not bode well for finding transport back to Senegal.
We crossed the broken bridge on foot, the dirt road stretched in a straight line to the horizon. “Cassalol is down there, by those tall trees, about four kilometres,” Lucas gestured. The road was very exposed, just some short bushes and rice fields making it feel like a scene from a war movie, just before the enemy planes come. I remember reading that the people’s army, the PAIGC (Partido Africano da Independence da Guine e Cabo Verde) had planted landmines in this area to keep out the MFDC ( Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance) who had backed General Mane’s coup of 1998. About two kilometres down the road I couldn’t fail to see a huge crucifix behind a fence, in the fields, I asked Lucas if it was a war memorial. He told me that it was a holy place where people gather once a year, I thought of the Cenotaph in most British towns where people gather on Remembrance Sunday. It was early afternoon, the sun very hot and I was out of water, so that concentrated my mind on getting to the village. There was a T-junction at the end of the road, one branch leading into Cassalol and the other going on to Varela. A mud hut was built near this stopping point, which remarkably turned out to be the village shop and even more remarkably sold bottled water. Apparently the odd 4x4 stopped here on the way to the beach. Just a short way down the village road we came to Lucas’ brother, Quamiso Ebeleie’s house, he was stunned to see his younger sibling in the company of a pale white man with a big bag. Quamiso greeted Lucas as, Ahuben, six years I’d known this guy but only now had I found out his given name. Quamiso’s wife dragged out a sponge mattress from their hut, Ahuben and I were asked to sit down and a bucket of cashew wine was brought for us to drink. |
|
| Copyright © - "David Pugh" |
|
|
|
