I stayed two nights in Bolama. I was told that the next truck back towards the junction village of Nova Sintra (from where you can turn left towards Enxudé and ferry to Bissau or continue straight towards Funacunda and Buba and the world) will leave on Saturday at 8-9am. Even though you can see the whole of colonial Bolama in 40 minutes I didn’t mind staying longer. I had job interview on phone planned for Friday at 11am.
Even though I told the recruter that I may not have good network, I might be on the road and between villages there is no mobile coverage they agreed that we’d at least try. Fair enough.
On my way to São João and Bolama in the villages that we passed (in one village we lost a tyre and we spend an hour waiting for it to be replaced) there was network and it seemed quite good (for the geeks out there: HSDPA+). I thought Bolama being a town will have the same. And there is a mobile tower right in the middle of it. But it only broadcasts EDGE (2nd slowest data connection that you can have on mobile network). And the interview was to take place using Hangouts. The H+ signal was available only at the edge of the water. I thought of taking the pirogue across to the mainland and do the interview there but I ended up just sitting on the pier above the boats. It went well, I got disconnected only once.
The rest of the day couldn’t be lazier. I walked around town and it’s really in ruins. Buildings abandoned, roads fallen apart, goats roaming, bats shrieking in the trees. In the evening it was quite a spectacle when the bats fly out of the trees and you can see them swarming around.
It starts getting hot around here. I walked in the morning and in the evening. Midday I spent indoors waiting over the heat. I found a shop that allowed me to take beer out at a promise of bringing back the bottles. I made friends with young boys: Eugenio, Mourinho and Samba. They liked to talk, pity I don’t speak Portuguese, they also asked me to buy them a ball to play. Now it’s a difficult thing with children asking for something. They may be begging and they may be truly begging or they might have been sent here by their parents. Or they just see a rich white man (and no matter what you think of your financial status, you are rich to them). I know the general rule is not to give anything to children so that we don’t encourage them (or even teach them this way) to keep begging. But it’s also true that seeing those kids is a heartbreaker and tearjerker. One can only cry. And then I thought that I still shouldn’t be buying them anything coz they probably have parents and those parents are most likely proud people and not happy with their own financial situation and seeing a white man showing up and showing off his/her money would just cause deeper embarrassment to really anyone. So we were just chatting with Eugenio, Mourinho and Samba as much as we could with our limited language capabilities.
I did walk out of the village – the Rough Guide mentioned a gothic cementary – but I couldn’t find it. When I started asking around, I was pointed to even further behind the village but then I didn’t even feel like going there again.
Coming back to Maman 