Guinea-Bissau - 17 Feb 08 to 27 Feb 08

Hello and welcome to Guinea-Bissau. One of the world's smallest countries, smaller than most US states, but still packed with 30-something languages and plenty of interesting history and culture. Having served in the Peace Corps in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, I was really curious to see what Guinea-Bissau, another former Portuguese colony, was like. I tried not to have any expectations or make too many comparisons. Of course I made some.

Guinea-Bissau is very much a part of West Africa. Its eastern region was once a part of the Mandeng Empire and its coastal peoples are basically the same people as next door in Guinea-Conakry and Casamance. But the popular culture and especially the popular music is part of the larger Lusophone African culture I'd experienced in Mozambique. Music from Cape Verde, Angola and local Batida, essentially the same as the Passada heard in Mozambique, filled the air and there wasn't a hint of any Mandeng music to be found.

Guinea-Bissau's name is a source of endless confusion. It sits right next to the country of Guinea, much more well-known to the outside world and part of Francophone West Africa. People of Guinea-Bissau differentiate the two by referring to their neighbor as Guinea-Conakry, which works out pretty well except that when someone tells you they are going to Guinea-Conakry, they don't necessarily mean the capital city; you have to remember that they could be going anywhere in Guinea.

I arrived in Guinea-Bissau very excited to speak Portuguese, my favorite foreign language. But when I launched into my first attempts at complete sentences with the border officials and other people around, I found a huge hitch in my speaking ability. My intensive study of French over the past few months had messed with my Portuguese and things were coming out all mixed up!! I tried not to panic. I slowed down and said each word carefully. After about a day and a half in the country and a few long conversations with people, my Portuguese was back as if it had never left. All the time I heard "new" old words that I'd temporarily forgotten or had been supplanted by their French counterparts and my vocabulary and flow slowly returned. It was quite an interesting experience.

Speaking of languages, not everyone in Guinea-Bissau speaks Porguguese, even though it is the official language. Most people speak Crioulo, the unofficial national language, which is a mixture of medieval Portuguese with several different African languages. If I listened hard, I could understand about half of it.

OK. Here are some pictures. Below is the border town of Buruntuma. It sits right at the eastern tip of Guinea-Bissau. There was a serious shortage of onward transport when I got there so I had to wait for about 5 hours to leave, watching several carloads of passengers depart that were ahead of me in line.

I had some time to kill in Buruntuma so I walked around a little. This picture is of a ruined memorial built by the Portuguese commemorating their dead soldiers from Guinea-Bissau's war of independence.

Like I was saying, it took a very long time to get onward transport out of Buruntuma. When I finally left it was in a huge van that was like a broken metal box jampacked full with about 30 people. Every bump in the road we went over it would flex at the seems almost to the breaking point and then come back. It soon got dark and I stared out at the moonlit countryside and talked with my fellow passengers.

We finally got to the first major town of Guinea-Bissau, called Gabu. It was getting on for midnight and I was tired but didn't want to splurge on an expensive hotel. A guy I met, who was from Guinea-Conakry, was helping me out and he finally said, "well, you can sleep in the Magasine". Magasines are the little shops that line the roadsides all over West Africa and there were a couple right there in the station. In the back of the store was a big storeroom and about half of the bus I'd come with was already crashed out on the floor. So I slept that night in the Magasine. My friend invited me to go out and see Gabu a little bit, so I left my bag and we went to the local club where an international hip-hop star called Masta P was performing. We checked it out for awhile then came back to the Magasine to sleep.

Here is the inside of the Magasine.

The next day I walked around Gabu town a little bit before departing for Bafata, the next major town in Guinea-Bissau. Here is a street scene from Gabu.

My next stop was Bafata, the birthplace of Amilcar Cabral, the father of Guinea-Bissau's (and Cape Verde's) independence movement and a worldwide respected leader of progressive revolt and Marxist thinker. Like many of Africa's great architects of independence, he is dead now but his legacy lives on. Here is a picture of the memorial to him in the main square in Bafata.

Some graffiti art around Bafata.

A street scene in Bafata.

A view across the river in Bafata.

A bus imported from Lisbon, Portugal.

Another statue of Cabral with a local goat taking advantage of a little shade to take a break.

After a day in Bafata, I continued on the next day to the capital city of Bissau. After searching fruitlessly for a couple of hours for budget accommodation, I finally found this place and it became my home away from home in Bissau. Corson de Bande means "The Heart of Bande" [the local neighborhood] in Crioulo and the people there were really cool and looked out for me the whole time I stayed in Bissau.

My first day in Bissau, I went for a walk to orient myself a little bit and also look for a cash machine. Below is the Praça da Independência.

As I was approaching the Praça da Independência, I saw a huge crowd gathered and stuck around to see what was happening. All of a sudden a huge police motorcade drove up the main drag, accompanying about 30 people on motorcycles all decked out in leather. They were of European descent so I knew they weren't Bissau-Guinean. What in the world could they be doing?

The crew parked their motorcycles and approached a waiting welcome party in the praça.

After a few media interviews and a speech by the mayor (or somebody important) of Bissau, I finally got the story: they were a group of French Harley-Davidson enthusiasts who were doing a grand tour from Dakar all the way down to Bissau and out to the islands then back to Dakar. Certainly the last thing I'd expected to see that day in Bissau.

The Harley people were nice enough to let all of the locals who were interested pose for photos with their bikes. This guy looked especially psyched to be fantasizing about riding in the wind.

A poster detailing the grand Harley tour. These posters were plastered all over Guinea-Bissau everywhere I went.

Walking around downtown Bissau.

I didn't find out what this ruined structure used to be, but it was sitting right in the middle of downtown.

I went down to the port to check out boats going to the islands. It turned out to be the wrong port, but I got some interesting pictures of old boats and mudflats at low tide.

A crew of guys were working on this shipwreck, salvaging raw materials from the interior.

About a third of the public transportation in Guinea-Bissau had these twin Madonna stickers on the back window. Whether it denotes membership in a secret club or they just really like Madonna there remains a mystery to me to this day.

Anyone who's been to Mozambique will appreciate this picture.

One thing I didn't find my first day walking around Bissau was a cash machine. I found one bank where they were actually in the process of installing one, but it wouldn't be ready for another few weeks. Apparently it was the first one in the country since the war 9 years before. Although only 11 months in duration, the war seemed to have made an indelible mark on the consciousness of the people. It kept coming up in conversations I had. People seemed to have been really affected by it, and kept referring to its lingering aftereffects on development in the country and general happiness and wellbeing.

Back to the topic of cash machines; I was in dire need of one. I'd had the remaining backup cash I'd saved stolen on public transport in Guinea when I'd fallen asleep and I was out of money. Everyone said the only way to get money was to go the next day to Ziguinchor, the capital of the Casamance region across the border in Senegal. The people at the Corson de Bande floated my stay there on credit and the next day I got up before dawn to begin my journey.

Everything started off well. I got a car to Ziguinchor and by 9 am we were on the south side of the river which must be crossed before reaching the border. We were 2 cars short of making it on the first run of the ferry (below).

We waited for the ferry to come back. It came back but they weren't loading any cars. We waited and waited. After a few hours I found out that there was a problem with the ramp on to the ferry and they wanted to fix it. There was a crack in the ramp from all the big trucks driving on to the ferry. Everyone was very angry that they stopped the ferry in the middle of the day to work on the ramp instead of waiting until nighttime when the ferry runs were over.

Cars in line waiting for the ferry.

A welder working on the ferry ramp. We waited 7 and a half hours while they worked on it, took a two-hour lunch break and then worked on it some more. Finally, around 4 pm, we loaded up and crossed to the other side.

Actual proof that I was briefly in the town of Ziguinchor. I got a taxi to take me straight to the ATM then back to the bus station.

I got back to the station around 6 pm and the guys there said there weren't enough passengers for the car to go to Bissau that evening (transport doesn't leave on a schedule; cars go when they're full). I said OK, but come get me if enough people show up and then I left with a local guy who was going to show me a cheap hotel. We'd been walking for about 5 minutes when the car for Bissau drove up behind us; some more passengers had showed up. We cruised out of Ziguinchor as the sun set and made it to the border around dark.

For some reason, they'd closed the border two hours early that day and we were stuck. We had nowhere to go so we all slept in the little roadside mosque at the border that night.

The roadside mosque we slept in.

The next day I was really ready to be done with this cash machine adventure. We got to the ferry and miraculously crossed quickly and without incident. I felt like we were home-free....until the rear tire blew out on our van. The jack we had didn't lift the van up high enough to change the tire, so we had to wait until some other people drove by who could help us.

After we changed the tire and were on our way I figured nothing else could possibly go wrong. All of a sudden there were police motioning us to pull over. What could it be this time? I got out and looked down the road. Who was that coming?? Of course!! It was the French Harley-Davidson tour on their way back out of town. I had to laugh.

Finally I made it back to Bissau and paid my debts to the Corson de Bande owner. I chilled for a couple more days in town, then decided to head out to the Bijagos Islands for a few days. The Bijagos are a large arquipelago unique in West Africa that lie off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. Because of their remoteness, they resisted colonization and outside influence from the Portuguese and other European powers until the 1930's. They remain a remote locale with a strongly preserved traditional way of life.

Below is a view of the port where boats called "canoas" (canoe in Portuguese) depart for the various islands.

Late afternoon cruising through the islands. It was very hazy that day due to the Harmattan. I don't know if I mentioned them before, but the Harmattan winds are seasonal winds that blow during the dry season in West Africa. They carry dust and sand from the Sahara Desert into the upper atmosphere and create hazy conditions all over the region.

Arrival at Bubaque. Bubaque is both the name of the island and its capital town. It is the center of administration for the islands and also the transportation hub. You can go from Bissau to Bubaque and back a few times a week on regularly scheduled boats. The other islands, however, are very remote and you might have to wait a month to find a boat going or charter one yourself.

A big tree in Bubaque town, next to the market.

As I said, there is much traditional culture left on the islands. One day I heard drumming and went to see what was going on. This group of women was going around town drumming, dancing and drinking palm wine. I talked to them about seeing some dancing, so in exchange for some money (they said it was going toward more palm wine), they did an impromptu performance for me and allowed me to take some pictures.

Another day a group of friends went out to a beautiful beach to have a picnic. I was invited to come along. Here is the beach.

Here is the crew. There were a brother and sister from Senegal who owned the local discotech, a couple of local people, a woman from Spain who had also been at the Festival in the Desert and me. We had some of the best chicken, freshly caught fish we bought from some fishermen there and an awesome salad.

Fishermen at work.

As we were relaxing for our picnic, a bunch of kids from the local school came down for their PE class (PE is Physical Education, incase you're not from the States).

My PE classes were never this nice!! Knee rotations in paradise.

Another day I rented a bicycle and crossed the island to see some of the forest in the middle and a beautiful beach on the far side. I met some local kids when I stopped for lunch halfway.

An amazing tree I saw along the way.

Here is the beach on the other side of the island. It was very beautiful. I did not do much swimming, however, as I was warned that there are many stingrays living in the sand here.

Another beach I checked out on the way back. There were many beautiful mangrove plants here, whose tough roots hold the soil in place and prevent erosion and damage during storms.

Mangrove plants.

An empty turtle shell.

My friend Lazaro. A very cool guy. Here he is pictured out front of the bar that he owns. Like many people I've met in different African countries, he spent time in Cuba getting training during Africa's Socialist period after independence. While there, he played a lot of baseball and loved talking about the game.

Loading up for the boat ride back to Bissau after my few days on Bubaque were up.

Cruising out of Bubaque town.

Another boat that we passed, also headed back to Bissau.

Me with my friend Marcelino and his wife. Marcelino is the owner of the Corson de Bande bar where I stayed in Bissau and kept my stuff for me at his house while I was away in the islands. He also invited me to dinner several times at his house and showed me around his neighborhood. A very cool guy and an understanding person when I needed credit to live on until I could find a cash machine.

My last evening in Bissau, I went to the internet cafe and called my father. I learned that my grandmother, who had been very sick, had recently revived from a hallucinatory state and was now at death's door. So instead of heading the next day back to Guinea as I'd planned, I immediately dropped everything and headed the next day up to Dakar , Senegal to try and get a flight home. This sudden return trip to the US will be the subject of a future posting.