Food tasting

This Saturday I went to Mongomo with my Spanish-Salvador friends. (These guys are a fantastic couple that work for a supervising company at our camp. They are my age and we spend a lot of time together - watching movies, jogging, preparing food. My Spanish benefits a lot from this friendship.) We wanted to visit a local markets.


The first one was oriented mostly on food. There's a variety of vegetables and fruits available at reasonable prices. You can also buy different types of dresses and other garments and jewelry for women. The atmosphere at the market is typical for this part of the world - loud African music, strong odors, people talking loud, bargaining...I love it.


On the other market is a wider selection of clothes, shoes, CD's. This one is not as live as the first one.


After finishing our market tour, we've decided to try some of the Guinean cuisine. Finally I've found a person crazy enough to do this with me. My Serbian friends here don't like to experiment with food - they stick with a traditional Serbian/USA food. We've found a restaurant ran by our friend's mom - couldn't just eat at a random place, cos we had to be sure we won't end up with a food poisoning. The menu was, hm, lets say interesting. We could choose from a mountain cat, a turtle, a pangolin (scaly anteater) and one type of fish. The first item on the menu seemed a bit too much for the first time and the fish was to "mainstream", so the two of us (the female part of a couple didn't want to participate in our feast) decided to share a portion of a turtle and a pangolin. 

  


The first dish was the pangolin. It looks strange, maybe frightening as you can still see dents where the scales were. You only live once - I took a first bite and it tasted good. It reassembles a rooster meat but more gamy. The meat was in a spicy, hot sauce, typical for Guinea as they love their food very spicy. The only past of the pangolin that I didn't like was it's skin - it's just too gummy. The story here is that the meat of pangolin is some sort of aphrodisiac, but I didn't notice the effect :)

Pangolin

The second course of the day, the turtle, was surprisingly good. The look of the plate was, of course, discouraging (feet still had claws on them and all that), but the taste surprised me in a positive way. It was more or less like a chicken - tender and dry, but good. In both dishes meat consists only of muscles and bones, no fat, so it's healthy.

Turtle

In the end, we've agreed that the turtle wins and that we'll return here some other day to try something else, maybe a crocodile or a snake.


A part of me feels like Bear Grylls.

Bata, Rio Campo and beaches

After more than a month, I've spent a weekend outside the camp. Even though the trip was exhausting,  it was a "mental relief" seeing other people and places, doing something different.


A journey started on Saturday morning. I had to drive three workers to Bata, as they were going on a vacation. It was my first time driving to Bata, a bit of a challenge given I'm not an experienced driver and driving here is especially dangerous as other drive fast, do not follow the rules and have crappy cars. You have to be 100% concentrated all the time and always expect some foolish maneuver out of them. Fortunately, the trip went well, even the weather was on our side - didn't rain till Bata. 


I left my stuff at a friends flat and we decided to go to a beach after lunch. Then the weather changed in a matter of minutes - a shower that lasted half an hour. We decided to take a bit of rest and played a video game. 


Later that day we persuaded a friend to take us to his construction site and to see some buildings that are being build in a new residential part of town. Then he remembered that one of his workers told him there's a football game that afternoon at a nearby stadium. We've decided to give it a go. The stadium is newly-built, with one stand that can take up to 500 spectators. We arrived at the halftime and were told that the first half was scoreless. The game was between team San Pablo from Bata and others (few people we asked who the other team was didn't give us the answer). It would be a waste of words talking about the quality of football seen - two players were a bit better than the rest who were just punching a ball in the air. The interesting thing was that a first referee was a woman (female football is more popular here and the national team is current African champion). There were maybe one hundred spectators (we were, of course, the only ones not Africans).

After the game we went to a Spanish cultural center - there was a concert of young R&B singers. It was nice being in a place of culture, for a change, but the concert sucked so we haven't stayed long. Instead, we've grabbed a beer and watched some kids dancing on a boardwalk. Then we took a stroll down it, sat at one hotel for a refill (drank a draft beer after more than seven months - that day was exactly seven months since my arrival) and in the end, just after the midnight, we were to tired to go in one of the clubs, so headed back home.


The next day started early, around 6:30am. I had to pick up some spare parts from a warehouse and to wait a phone call from a friend so we can organize a trip to some secluded beaches.


We got together at his Argentino friend's house (I was the only one out of eight of us who's first language is not Spanish :D) and headed to Rio Campo. It's a small village lying on a mouth of a river into the Atlantic ocean. On the other riverbank is Cameroon. There's no beaches there, so we've returned a few kilometers back. The first beach that we've visited was more or less acceptable - the water was clear, it had a few easy chairs and sunbeds around and a table so we could even eat around it, but there was a lot of garbage around so we've decided to take a look at the other one.

Along the way, we've encountered a plane crashed by the road - who knows why and when it landed there. 

                


The other beach was much cleaner, so we've changed to our swim suits and enjoyed the water. But that didn't lasted very long, maybe half an hour. The waves were getting bigger and bigger and we could see a storm approaching from the sea. In a matter of ten minutes the storm started. We've found a shelter under a tent and stayed there until the rain stopped, more than an hour. 

  


When the shower was finally over, we've changed our clothes and decided it's time to go back to our camp. On our way back, we've visited an abandoned lighthouse dating from the period of Spanish colonization (I reckon it hadn't been used ever since). Couldn't climb up cos the grass around it was very high and who knows what's in it. 

   


The journey back was exhausting - I was alone it the car, that day we've covered more than 350km and it was pouring rain till we reached the camp.


All in all, I'm glad I've discovered another part of the country. 


The next time it's northeast and the boarder of Gabon, EG and Cameroon. 

Dark thoughts

Last month I haven't been anywhere on a weekends. We've celebrated two Easters, 1st of May and drank some more without a special cause. 


Nobody wanted to go out, visit something. I find the amusement in talking and hanging out with a Spanish-Salvador couple. They are my age, so we can relate pretty good (and hanging out with them benefits my Spanish greatly).


This lack of mobility affects my thoughts. They're all mixed up, a great confusion. When the Sundays over and working days start, I feel a kind of emptiness that I've never felt before. I've tried to fill my free time with certain activities (film, Spanish,   running and I even started learning to play a guitar), but nothing seems to satisfy me anymore. I'm constantly counting days till my vacation. People told me that this kind of crisis would struck me in 7-8th month, and it sure did. The good thing in all this is that my health is still serving me well.


Just wanna fast forward the time...

Mbini

When I "grow up", I wanna own a house on an island, or at least close to a seaside. I just wanna spent my days soaking up the sun, listening to the waves, not worrying about a single problem. Whoever lived on an island knows what kind of lifestyle I'm talking about.


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The previous weekend I went to Mbini, a little ocean-side place 80km south of Bata. It's a long journey from the camp - 250km/4h drive (parts of a road are under construction, thus it takes a long time). Once you get there you realize it was worth the effort. I love the smell of an ocean and to breathe that air. Everything is much more relaxed close to the sea. Oh, how much would I love to live there just so I can take a dip in the ocean after work. And their kitchen/mess is located on the seaside...




Spend the night at the discotheque and the next day by/in the pool.


It's hard to return to the jungle...

Bugs and plants

Centipede about 25cm long

Coconut

Coconut tree

This is where the pineapples grow

From dusk till dawn part 2

Sequel is almost never as good as the original, but still this one is worth mentioning.


It was the first time I went out on Saturday night in Mongomeyen, a village near our camp.


That night, after a football tournament, two guys were having a farewell party - just a bunch of drunken guys listening to a folk music. The booze is free but I don't like the atmosphere. So, after a few beers I proposed to a friend that we should go to some bar. As I mentioned, I've never been to any of them before and people told me that it's boring, not a lot of people (read:girls) to see and places to go. Me, curious as always, wanted to see it for myself. 


We'd headed to an only discotheque, but it was closed. Other bars in that (only) street were almost empty even though it was only 11pm. The driver told us that only one bar is somewhat full, so we went there. A few guys from the camp were already there, so we sat with them outside, on an unpaved porch. People were sitting at two more tables outside and around 30 more were inside, some standing at the bar, others dancing. 


That phenomena of a "village/country" DJ, as I like to call it, which is present in every small place in Serbia has apparently spread all the way here. The phenomena is that a DJ first plays popular, usually house, music followed by the transition to  Serbian pop/soft rock and climaxed with turbo-folk hits. When I heard Serbian music in a bar in Guinea, I almost puked. I was disgusted. Some wise guy wasn't lazy and had burned a CD so he could poison these people, too. Luckily for me, they played only 3-4 songs. The rest of the music that night I would describe as a mixture of MTV pop from 2008, Spanish pop and African hits. African music, the commercialized one, is full of beat which suits their mentality and the way they dance. 


And I couldn't get enough of the way they dance. The movements they're making are surreal. They are really enjoying themselves, having fun but at the same time trying to look at their best. The bar's got a huge mirror on one of the walls and the biggest crowd is in front of it, constantly checking out the way they look while dancing. One particular guy caught my attention. He was dressed similarly to a hipster (and had a red Chuck Taylors, same as me), looked like he's 14 (but told me he's 19, and told me that he wants me to find him a job in our company) and danced like crazy. He want to the dance-floor, danced for about a minute of two and than went out of the bar - and he repeated it at least 10 times. It looked to me that he only came to the dance-floor to show the rest of the people how good he is and than left them to practice. Apart from this "show-off" dancing, you always have that seductive one and they can move their bodies, yes they can. 


The atmosphere in the bar was hot as always, a blend of the weather, a lack of A/C and human sweat, a lot of alcohol and sex crave. Some told me that it used to be better, but most of the girls now go to Bata on weekends. Howsoever, I stayed there till 3:30, danced my ass of and my legs were weary the next day. 


Overall, it was an interesting night.      


       

A wooden bridge and a baptism

Interesting things only happen on Sundays (occasionally Saturday night).


I finally got my ID (well, it's not actually ID, just a paper saying the ID is in the process of making, but that's enough), so I can travel without a hassle on road blocks during the day. 


This is a small country and there's not much to see - two places on the seaside, one national park, a dam and a few villages (but they're all the same). Nevertheless, going out of the camp fills you with so much energy that it doesn't matter where you go, you just wanna breathe different air and see different part of the same jungle.


So this Sunday we decided to go to one wooden bridge nearby. The place is about 20km far from the camp. You go on the highway that our company's building than enter the part of the highway of another company, exit on the dirt track and you are there. You would never notice a bridge is there, except the fact the water runs under it. It is just a dirt-road. Probably some guys who went fishing discovered it. When you go through bushes and down a slippery path to the bank of a river, you realize how amazing the bridge actually is. It's built entirely of huge logs. They put'em in water, build it in height and than connected two banks. Chinese built it, what a smart nation.

While we were there, three hand built canoes went by and we've seen them later near our car - the people riding canoes, not canoes itself ;). We decided to make a picnic one time at this place.


Afterwards we went to see Oyala. It's the next presidential town. They are building it from scraps. I expected it to be a bit bigger, at least 2000 inhabitants, but there's only a maximum of 50 houses (out of which 15 are bars). When you go through Oyala you see the work-sites, highways and avenues being build, portions of land reserved for residential area etc. It's close to the same river we were earlier that day and tree bridges are being build over it.

Road through a rock

We've returned to Oyala for a drink in one of the bars. It was surprisingly live, given it was Sunday noon. The music was loud, disco ball was on and some 15 people were inside. This place was sure the place to be on Saturday night :). We've agreed to give it a go once.






Later that day some of us were invited to a baptism of a child of one of our worker. She was in a relationship with one Serbian guy, but it's not his kid, it's of some German dude. Anyway, we got there and it was really hot, the temperature was at it's high. Older women were chanting traditional songs inside the house and all the rest were under two tents. Unfortunately, we've missed all the ceremonies. The good thing was that I've tried a local food. It wasn't that different (fried chicken, something like russian salad and a tomato/lettuce/avocado salad). The exception was some spicy dip. They've warned me but it was stronger than me - I had to try it. And it was really hot, but I didn't embarrass myself and they were amazed that a Serbian can eat their spicy food - WIN.


Afterwards, the music started and the people danced. They are really born to dance. From the smallest child to the oldest granny, they all have incredible moves. That was definitely the highlight of the fiesta, as far as I'm concerned. 

My batteries have charged for another working week.