Boozy Bijagos
Hi BoBers,
The ferry to the Bijagos islands is the best nightclub in Guinea-Bissau. A cramped dancefloor, was carved out from the luggage covering most of the deck. Some pigs broke free and ate someone’s lunch and bags of charcoal. Music blaring, we drank and danced while cruising past palm-lined white beaches. Finally, everyone cheered on the soldiers standing at attention on the dock, there to deal with the chaos about to disembark.
The capital is Bubaque, powered by diesel generators that run only sporadically at night. We spent our afternoons marinating in sweat in the stale, humid air. Later, we had a wonderful dinner of home-cooked rigatoni and tiramisu to celebrate Klaus the Dane’s birthday. Definitely not on my Bubaque bingo card. The evening stretched until 3:30am, filled with toasts, good food and discussion about farming, technology and culture. The host, Angelo, a Italian/Guinean, is the son of an Italian agricultural engineer and a local queen. His father was a local legend and had massively helped Bijagos to develop. Big shoes to fill, but Angelo had many ideas about how to contribute.
We later crammed into a wooden boat to visit Canhabaque, where Angelo’s mother once ruled before emigrating to Italy. It is tradition to give a gift to the chief of the village, so we brought plenty of alcohol. We stayed a slightly-awkward two nights in a village. We spoke only a little Portuguese, they spoke only a little French. A lot of sitting in silence. We witnessed a dance relating to the Fanado, a coming-of-age ceremony, with drunk men dancing with carved sticks and packets of biscuits tied to their backs with plastic cord. Bijagans are notoriously secretive about the ceremony, but we couldn’t really ask any questions anyway.
In a fishing village we met the lovely Ibrahima who spoke great French, was the fittest 65-year-old I’ve ever met and was a wellspring of stories and information. Someone dropped some of the last night’s catch for us in the morning, which we grilled on the fire. But after 10 days I was ready for the mainland. Exhausted by the heat. Frustrated and often bored trying to communicate. I needed rest.
Merrily ferrily,
J&BoB
