Yesterday we had an election day. The legislative (i.e. I understand parliamentary) elections that were due to be held in November 2018 but were postponed till now. Guinea Bissau is only getting at peace with itself now.
I found about it from my Spanish cycler friend David who texted me from the Senegalese border informing me that… he’s there and the border is closed. Already in Ziguinchor David claimed the border would be closed during weekend but I dismissed him because which two countries close their border for two days just because “it’s weekend”?
I was surprised that Sunday the border is closed but David said it’s because elections.
Then I realised that if the border is closed, it may as well be that transport will be shut down, too. I remember Cameroon closes transport between provinces during its elections. I went out, asked Christina the cook in my guesthouse, she said yes transport is shut. I decided to double confirm and walked all the way to the toca toca station. It was devoid of cars. I walked up to some young men hanging around and yes, of course, transport will resume tomorrow.
Ah, I had the whole day in beautiful São Domingos! I walked around, saw a polling station, several queues lining up in front of it and returned to the guesthouse. It’s a day I’ll finish “Water music”. It’s a beautifully written and very entertaining book and it speaks to me, the parts where the explorer, Mungo Stark, cannot bear life at home and is called by the Niger River, its water music calling him relentlessly.
I may not even see Niger River. It’s a troubled river, flowing through Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and let me not ever start talking about Niger Delta in Nigeria. My only chance is really Bamako, if I manage to reach it.
I didn’t finish the book, yet I spent the whole day reading and lazying around. Called up my parents – they already asked me what about my return, and I have not yet even started!
In the late afternoon I went for a walk again. Snapped a few pictures (I think no-one minded) and saw a bar. Luis, Nueva Estrella, a new star. It was full of people and it had what looked like draught beer. Indeed Luis had a tap machine (no idea what it’s called), producing cold beer, in proper beer glasses (that are also used to drink hot tea and coffee and milk chocolate from) for 250cfa. He only spoke Portuguese and he called the whole beer setup bazooka.
I had three bazookas, a lady in a bar inquired about my burnt wound/scar and I learned a new word in Portuguese: a queimadura. Une brûlure. Poparzenie. I still don’t know how to say nice to meet you in Portuguese.
Evening ended with the standard Octavio’s meal: chicken chips rice and salad. There was fish for lunch. That night I didn’t see any bats in Octavio’s courtyard, the previous night there were many. Next move: beach!
Coming back to Maman 