THE END

And there it is, I'm back in Santiago, rainy, grey Santiago, as it happens. My last day in Africa was also rainy (not as cold though, naturally), as if the weather suddenly decided to reflect my feelings. I was sad to leave, you've no idea how sad.

We got to the airport and a security guy didn't want to let Jandro in with me for check-in. In the end he did, after enquiring, insightfully, if I was Jandro's daughter. I guess the tropical climate really DOES wonders for your skin...

Then 7 hours on the plane and at 5:35 am I got to Paris. My next flight was scheduled for 9:45 and it was a bit late because of "ground crew strike thank you for your understanding" and I landed in Vigo at 12:20. As I was getting my suitcase, a customs officer approached me. I was barely awake as he asked me where I was coming from. "Libreville", I said. "Where?" "Libreville." "Where is that?" "Libreville in Gabon." "Gabon? Wow, and what's it like?" Jesus Christ, I thought. And said: "Great. Hot. Nothing to declare, thank you." A taxi took me to the train station and two hours later I got off the train in my beloved Santiago, which welcomed me with 10 degrees and a disgusting rain. I gave up the plan of going home by bus (good luck going up the Hórreo with a suitcase the size of your armario, wearing zapatillas and with no paraugas) and took another taxi. All in all, I spent nearly 20 hours in different means of transport. Libreville is damn far away.

And that's it. The end of my African adventure, for now.
In the picture me after my African makeover. What do you think? :)

Come back in two months. I will. To Libreville.

THE SUPERMARKET

Today for the first time I went by taxi all alone. And here's how it happened.

I had to go to the dentist's today (long story, let's just say thank God I bought travel insurance) and thus Jandro took me there after lunch. Then he had to go back to work and I decided to go to the M'Bolo supermarket all by myself. He told the taxi driver where to take me, I paid, mumbled "merciaurevoir" and went shopping. That was the easy part, of course.

I successfully asked for some cheese ("Bon soir, I'd like a piece of fromage du chèvre, s'il vous plaît") and then went on to buy some ham:

- I'd like 300 gramms of this ham, s'il vous plaît.
- ?
- This ham?
- (the lady takes the ham, puts it on the cutting thing and calls another lady)
- I'd like 300 grams of that ham, s'il vous plaît.
- ?
- 300 gramms? Three oh oh?
- Ahh, oui. C'est tout?
- Oui, c'est tout, merci.

I paid and then I proceeded to the special check-out place, where a gentleman has to put a stamp on your receipt. He is supposed to check if you paid for everything you have in your basket but in the end he just looks at you and stamps the receipt (I've already mentioned how good they are out here in creating unnecessary jobs, haven't I?). This gentleman (quite good-looking, I proudly admit) started flirting with me a little bit ("You first time M'Bolo? I don't see you early... My English very bad. You like Gabon?") but was not very successful.

And then the moment of truth came. I had to stop a taxi and say where I wanted to go and for how much. In French. As soon as I left the supermarket I saw an empty taxi approaching. I waved and he stopped. I said the thing I'd rehearsed millions of times in my head, employing my best French pronunciation: "Mille francs la course lycée Leon M'Ba". It worked. He said "Oui, madame" (I was flattered, they hardly ever say anything to you) and drove me home. I told him to stop in front of my building ("Ici c'est bon, merci.") and happily greeted the guard outside of our building. For the first time I felt like I was a tiny little bit from here. And I hadn't been this proud of myself in a looong time.

Of course, I was so concentrated on getting a taxi, that I forgot to get some bananas at the fruit stall outside of the supermarket. :)

The picture is of our fridge which I successfully filled with food.

THE MATERIAL

Apart from the church we also went to the Momboue market yesterday. The objective was simple: buy some material for my African dress (I'm having an African dress made for me!:). Sounds simple enough. The problems started when we saw how many different designs there were to choose from (see second picture).

You see, few women out here wear Western clothes and when they do, they are not nice clothes mostly. However, it is extremely common (and cheap) to buy the material you like and just have a dress or an outfit made to measure. And the ladies look amazing! The frocks are great and usually accompanied by a headscarf which makes them look graceful and even more beautiful. We thus went to the market and entered a couple of stalls, until in one of them (a very big one) we narrowed the choice down to three. The effect you can see in the picture.

Some of the materials are really out there, I must admit. It is common to have a dress with the pattern of Virgin Mary, Jesus or President Bongo. Not to mention maps of Africa or Gabon. Some of them had wise statements printed on them ("Every day brings a problem") and other ones just hearts and romatic inscriptions such as "Toi et moi". I went for a very mundane design, didn´t I?

After we bought the material, we asked the shop owner if we could take a picture of his lovely shop. He said yes and, after I took a couple of pictures, he demanded: "Moi aussi!". So he posed for me and I took his picture as well.

There was one more very interesting thing we saw in that shop. Apparently, when a couple gets married out here, they choose a material and all guests are supposed to wear outfits made of that material. So all shops are full of material samples with couple's names pinned to them. You just go and get a few yards of the material chosen and use it the way you like. Solves the "I have nothing to wear to Dagmara's wedding" problem, doesn´t it?

THE CHURCH

Yesterday was Sunday and for the first time in a VERY long time I went to church without the motivation of a wedding or a funeral. We went to a big church called Saint Michel de Kembo, where the Christ is black and the pillars beautifully carved. It's huge, enormous, and yesterday it was absolutely full. We were a bit late and we couldn't even enter but we did experience African Catholicism anyway. The songs (in French and... Spanish, maybe because of Equatorial Guinea?) were amazing: African rhythm (live music and drums) and lively, energetic songs performed by a choir and basically everybody around us... people were dancing, clapping, there was atmosphere of general cheerfulness and joy. And at the moment of "passing on the sign of peace", ALL the people around us shook our hands. They would even come up to us and poke us on the back, so that we would let them take our hands into theirs. I was overwhelmed, since I had not experienced that kind of happy curiousity towards me before. (I'd rather had the experience of being an unwelcome white person, I guess). And even though it didn't make me believe in God, I am going to come back to that church. It's a lovely spectacle and I want more.

THE WAVES

Yesterday we had some drinks (local beer!:) with a friend from here, from Libreville. We told him that we wanted to go the beach on the other side of the bay and, surprisingly, he advised us not to. When we asked why, he said that the waves were enourmous. We agreed but promised to be very careful (we really are awfully careful out here, probably too careful most of the time) but he insisted on the waves being very dangerous. "Why so?", we asked. He explaied that here in Gabon people believe that the spirits of the dead appear to the living and when they come back, they come back on the waves. Normally, they are rather benign but at some point they need to take some living souls with them to survive. And right now is the time of their wrongdoing. The thing is, they don´t usually hunt black people. They prefer the whites and that´s why we should be extra-careful at the beach. And then he told us how various people died or went missing at sea. I don´t really believe all that but you never know. Extra-careful it is, then.

THE ADVICE

On our way to the pharmacy we met a cleaning lady from Jandro´s office. She´s from Equatorial Guinea, which is a former Spanish colony, and she speaks Spanish (or something that kind of sounds like Spanish). She was very excited to see me and gave Jandro two important pieces of advice:

1) No la dejes (Don´t leave her) - well said, I support that 100%;

2) and the slightly more obscure Tienes que casarla. Now the meaning of this remains unclear. Was it Tienes que casarte con ella (You have to marry her) or maybe Tienes que cazarla (You have to hunt her), pronounced with seseo? Let´s leave the question unanswered, for the time being. ;)

THE PHARMACY

We went to the pharmacy. It was big and full of people, who keep moving about so there´s no way of knowing where the queue is. We went up to one of the numerous shop assistants and asked for suncream. She brought us one (rarely is there choice out here), we said ok and took out the money to pay for it. That would´ve been too simple, however, and I have already learned that nothing is simple in Gabon. Thus, the lady showed us to another queue and handed our product to a security girl who demagnetized it or whatever (so that it wouldn´t beep). Then she kindly showed us yet another queue, and left our demagnetized (is that really a word? Karen?) suncream with yet another lady, who turned out to be the teller. We paid. The security guy at the entrance looked at us suspiciously and we left the pharmacy. How about getting rid of half of those people and working on efficiency? These little things make you see how different the African logic is...

In the picture Libreville centre. Quite close to the pharmacy, actually. :)

THE TRIP

Last year I spent Easter in Andalucía and had a fantastic time with Dana. I didn´t think anything could beat that. This year, however, was even better. Safari in Sette Cama was an amazing experience. Let´s start from the beginning then.

The flight

On Friday we packed our things (two small backpacks) and went to the Libreville airport. There, after enquiring three times with three different people, we ended up in a small building on the airport grounds, which was the "terminal" of AirService, the company we were to fly with. There we went through very elaborate security control ("Put bag on table. Open bag. Thank you.") and waited with a bunch of people for our small plane (37 places). By the way, this company, as most African companies, is on Europe´s "black list" and cannot fly outside of Africa. Reassuring, isn´t it? The plane was late, obviously, but we got on it and took off. The views were great (see my picasa). The funny thing was that the plane stopped in Port Gentil (just as a train pulls in at the station) and we waited while some people got off and some boarded. Then we continued to Gamba, our final destination, a place practically built by the oil company Shell, who basically own everything and have great privilages (later you will see that this is a very important piece of information). In Gamba we were picked up by an employee of Sette Cama Safari, the place we were heading for.

The sunset

A jeep took us from the airport into the town (typical African image, people in ugly wooden houses), where we got on a motorboat. The National Park of Loango is made up of huge lakes separated from the ocean by the ground and 365 little islands, thickly covered with jungle. The boat ride took more than an hour but we got to see a stunning sunset, the most beautiful sunset we have ever seen, which made the whole world golden for twenty minutes or so. Neither of us had ever seen anything like that. We then got off the boat and got to see our bungalow, nice wooden house with a bathroom. We were also informed that the elephants come to the little village at night. We said "yeah, right" and ten minutes later we heard an elephant in the forest (we didn´t see it that day though). From that moment we were pretty careful not to wander off at night.

The jungle
Our first day was the jungle day. At 10 am we got on a traditional boat and sailed off into the park with two guides ("we" means Jandro and me plus a French soldier and his daughter). As soon as we entered the park (our eyes fixed on the fantastically shaped mangroves) the guides stopped the boat and... we saw five or six hippos right in front of us. Hippos! We were elated, and that was only the beginning.

The boat left us on the shore and one of the guides took us into the forest. The jungle was just as I imagined it: the plants are agressive, they fight for light, they are everywhere. There were lianas and awfully big trees, and mangroves, and marshes... We spent around two hours in the jungle and we saw a bunch of monkeys (crossing the marsh was just great, by the way, I was wet up to my knees of course) and then we had lunch on a clearing by the beach, watching some buffalos doing the same thing nearby.

We walked on along the beach and rested in the shade of some palm trees. We got quite bored there, actually, and asked the guides when we were going to move but they only said: "Wait, we´re waiting for the elephants." And at that point we got excited. ;) Soon enough we saw the first elephant, a big one, walking out of the forest and onto the beach. It smelled us quite quickly and ran away but OH MY GOD! An elephant! A real elephant in the wild! It was amazing. We still had around 5 kilometres to go along the beach and we soon set off. On the way we saw various elephants, including a smaller jungle elephant with a baby. We stood there, very close to them, enchanted by the view. They were beautiful. On our way back by boat we saw three elephants on a small island. They walked slowly and the scenery could not have been better, the sun was just setting. The elephant picture you can see is not a postcard. Jandro took it, while I stared, trying to freeze the moment. The day ended and we both agreed that it had been magnificent.

The village
Our second day in Sette Cama was very different. This time the guide took us to a little village (five buildings? six maybe?) where, since the death of the village chief in 2006, only one family remains (a man, his four wives and the children). The guide told us they spoke their own dialect. We went on a walk around their plantation (manioca, potatoes, pumpkins, corn, peanuts... oh yes, peanuts, by the way!:) and got to see a Special Elephant Protection Alarm System (this is the name they should register it under!!), designed by the village chief (coke cans on a string - very efficient, apparently). We also saw bones of an elephant that had the idea of messing about the plantation. We find elephants pretty, they find elephants a pest. Cultural differences per excellence. After a long walk around the forest (we heard monkeys on the way!), we had lunch at the village. The guide provided the food and also entertainment, as he played music (three songs specifically, for an hour) from his mobile, proudly deposited on a specially made mobile phone stand, where the signal was tolerable.

We chatted to the guide and he told us about the village and how those people lived. We observed two girls (the older one couldn´t have been more than three) who played with huge knives. Later on I played with these two and got to look into their huge adult eyes. They were dirty and they spoke nothing but the local language. They insisted on my lifting them up up up. The took my hands and made me walk around with them. As any child in the world, they wanted attention. It felt horrible to be the white lady who kindly sacrificed half an hour of her safari trip to play with them. And I didn´t like the way they looked at me when I was leaving. Bitter-sweet experience I suppose. But still worth it.

Later on we ended up in a tree house, built by the BBC to make a documentary about monkeys. We even spotted some of them but they were too far away to take pictures. We insisted on staying there for a long time (Jandro more then me, I think I´d never seen him this excited:) and the guide was bored. But that´s his job I guess.

The flight back
We had an amazing time and it was not even a problem to get up 5:30 Monday morning to catch the boat to Gamba and then the plane to Libreville. But of course that would have been too simple. We got on the boat all right and were at the airport on time. Our guide was sorting out the check-in and we waited. After a while, he came up to us and said: "I´m sorry but the plane is full. There are no seats for you, as the Shell company booked 20 tickets". As I said at the beginning, Shell has great privilages here. Thus, if they say "We want 20 seats", they get what the want, even if other paying customers must stay on the ground. There is no customer service here and no complaint forms. TIA, this is Africa. I got really mad but the guide said that we had to wait until all the Shell people arrived because they hardly ever used up all their reservations. At some point I did want to go and shout at those people but Jandro stopped me and was right, of course. It´s better for the native to argue with the natives. In the end we got on the plane. Next time we might not be as lucky.


And that's all, folks. You´ve no idea how much I enjoyed it!

THE RESTAURANT

On Great Thursday we decided to have lunch in an African restaurant (a grand idea of "taking me out" after three days of cooking at home:). Some Gabonese ladies from Jandro´s office recommended him a place and we set off to find it.

In the street they mentioned we could only see one place though and, to be honest, we felt quite sceptical about it. Even though the picture on the left does not show the actual restaurant, it does give you an idea of what the place looked like. It was an open-air grill which boasted dirty tables and a great deal of flies, but it also had a lot of people and, as the place had been recommended to us, we plucked up the courage and sat down. We had chicken and fried banana (instead of potatoes) and the local grapefruit drink D´jino, which I´ll soon become addicted to. The food was ok but it contained some mayo sauce, which we decided not to eat (you should not have raw food round here and uncooked eggs are especially dangerous because of salmonella).

We paid and left and felt rather proud of ourselves (oh wow, we´re almost natives!) and chatted cheerfully as we strolled down the street on our way back. All that cheerfulness evaporated, however, when just a few metres away, hidden behind a big car, we saw the actual restaurant that the ladies had spoken of. It looked much better than the place we´d just left and the risk of getting a disease seemed much smaller there. We got panicky about our stomachs and we both developed a stomach-ache almost immediately but, luckily, nothing happened. We survived the hard-core African food. Good. Almost natives.

Yesterday we did go to the second place, though. I had... CROCODILE, accompanied by a plate of manioca. Crocodile had scales and very delicate meat. The sauce was spicy but all in all the meal was ok. Crocodile. Check out the pic.

THE MARKET (AGAIN)

Today we went to a different market, one of the few places in Libreville designed for tourists. There you can buy all types of typical African thingies: clothes, figures, masks, jewellery, furniture... Obviously, no native will go there.

Once you enter the market, you cannot stop in front of any of the stalls. If you do, you´re in trouble - the seller will not let you go until you buy something ("Good morning, madam! Good morning, friends! You must buy these beatiful bottle openers!"). Of course, the price must be negotiated. I´m lucky: my man, even though terribly stressed, proved to be very successful in the delicate art of haggling. By the way, it was not a joke, we did get three bottle openers (see photo), the kind we had seen before at a friend´s house and loved. We had also been informed that they should not cost more than 2000 franks each (around 3 euros).

The seller sees we´re interested. He shows us every single design of the thing. The lady (ekhm, that would be yours truly) chooses the ones she likes (3 pieces). The gentleman (sweating, but it´s hot, obviously) enquires about the price. 7000 franks, that would be 21000 in total. We start laughing and it takes us around 7 minutes to get down to 6000 franks for the three of them (a dramatic scene of us leaving the stall included). I proudly grab my African bottle openers with one hand and my Galician boyfriend with the other, as I am impressed with his negotiation.

Next time it´s my turn. Even if I have to use all the French words I know, including fromage.

THE COLOUR

The easiest thing would probably be not to talk about this. But let me, for a little while, forget about political correctness and say out loud what has been bothering me ever since I came here. Well, I´m white. I´m the whitest shade of white. And I can´t believe I had never noticed it before.

Gabon is not a popular tourist destination and, even though there is a substantial white community, most people are black (that is what they are - just as I´m white - and if I´m not supposed to call them that, give me a better word). Their faces are different and so are their clothes and so is their language. And I feel a bit uncomfortable around them. I hadn´t expected this, I had always been positive I was as open as one can be and I´m mad at myself for those feelings. I must get used to these people, just as they must get used to me. And I think this getting used to bit might be a little difficult.

Being white in Africa classifies you as a rich person, who will always be charged more than the natives. Ok, but we do that in Poland too. Try taking a taxi from Dworzec Centralny if you´re a foreigner. Good, so that´s normal.

Being white in Africa makes you visible and self-consciouos. But that´s normal as well. Try getting on a bus in Warsaw if you´re black. People stare because they´re not used to you. Ok.

Being white in Africa provokes people. We cannot go to a place without being called out to ("Hello white people! How´s it going white people?" are the neutral nice ones) and if I go out alone it gets worse. Up till now I have gone on three walks on my own and every time a man would appear who would shout to me in French and follow me a little bit and enjoy my cluelessness (after all, I can only walk on). My not speaking French does not help.

This kind of behaviour is socially accepted here and that is the main difference between the European and the African attitudes to skin colour. The Western world condemns (at least officially) any verbal expression of racism (in fact, we are so careful that we have become ridiculous with our political correctness). Here these kinds of comments (racist or not but referring to your colour) are part of your reality and the only thing you can do is leave. It is not possible to become less white (and believe me, after only a week, I wish I could).

I think this experience might be the most important one as far as my stay here is concerned. I know already that I will never stare again. It´s too cruel.


PS: The picture is Jandro´s, taken from our terrace last Sunday.

THE TAXI

One of the interesting things about Libreville is that there is no public transport. This means that if you´re not a great walker you need to get into a taxi. And here´s how it works.

The taxis are all shabby red-and-white Toyotas (most cars out here are Toyotas; for some mysterious reason the Gabonese took special liking to Toyotas). Forget seatbelts or, in some cases, door handles. If the windows are open, they stay open, there is no way of regulating them. Most of the windscreens are broken. And they go 100 km per hour as a rule. But that´s ok because there are no speed limits.

If, in spite of all this, you decide to get into one of them, you should stand on the sidewalk (if there is any) and wait for the taxi-driver to announce the fact that he´s coming by loud hooting. If this doesn´t scare you away, the driver will stop by you and give you a quick glance. You´re supposed to tell him where you want to go and what amount of money you have to offer. If he approves of what you say, he will nod his head slightly, which probably translates as "get your ass into my cab now". If your ass does not want to share the taxi with other people, you must inform your driver as well (it´s more expensive, of course). Otherwise, he will pick up up to three more people on the way. Oh, and one more thing: if the driver does not feel like taking you to your destination, he will just drive on, without a word. No point wasting your breath if there´s no cash in it.

THE LIFE

We wake up together, at 6:40 am, the sun is already high up. Morning kiss and it’s time to get up. We have our breakfast (yoghurt, toast and the lovely pineapple and mangos) in the living room overlooking the Gulf of Guinea and we chat about unimportant things. We laugh and enjoy every bit of being in love.

We leave together a few minutes before eight and meet the other couple, our neighbours, downstairs. The men work together (how handsome they look in their smart clothes!) and we, the girls, drive them to the office. When they get out of the car (they sit in the back, of course), they give us a goodbye kiss through the open windows and we leave.

We get to the gym at quarter past and prepare for the class. My neighbour chats to the other ladies, they all know each other, of course. I wish I could speak French. The class goes very well, I enjoy the work-out, even though I sweat like never before (no air-conditioning can battle this humidity).

Everybody looks at me curiously: “She’s so white she must be new”. Even the blonde Russian lady looks like Naomi Campbell when compared to me. My neighbour informs some of her friends where I’m from and whose girlfriend I am.

After the class the ladies chat some more and I feel left out because of the language. But I’ll learn, it’s only a matter of time. And suntan.

We get into the car again (it must be fifty degrees inside but outside is no better) and we drive on to the supermarket (the green Geant, as it’s more French than Mbolo, apparently). We have a nice talk on the way, she tells me about the beginnings of her African life. We do our grocery shopping (I get two leeks and a local grapefruit beverage) and she keeps bumping into people she knows, having friendly chats with all of them, always smiling. We pay with the funny banknotes and I try to figure out if I overpaid. I soon give up. I need a calculator.

I get home at eleven and take a quick shower. I rest a bit and start cooking (chicken with leek and garlic plus rice). Punctually, at one, my man gets home and finds his lunch ready. He goes back to work and I wash up, even though he offered to do it.

I go out for a little walk. I read a book. I watch an episode of “Friends”. I check my email. I start a blog. I fill my silences with small pleasures. I constantly choose a life for myself and discard the choice.

At six he comes back and we spend the evening together. He’s right in time for the sunset, an amazing spectacle, which we watch, hugging tightly, from our terrace and it somehow seems magical. I brush my teeth thinking of the life I’ll choose tomorrow.

DISCLAIMER: this is only "inspired by" and NOT not "based on".

THE WEATHER

Let´s face it, it´s hot. It´s around 30 degrees but it feels much hotter. The angle between the sunrays and the ground is a stunning 90 degrees (we´re basically on the equator), and even though it´s nearly always cloudy, you can feel the sun on your neck THE WHOLE TIME (especially if your neck is sunburnt, like mine). If I ever told you that Galician humidity was killing me, I take it back. Here the humidity is surprising. It´s enough to get up from the chair and take two steps to start sweating like crazy. Sometimes even with the air-conditioning on. I think I´d never showered this much in my whole life.

The sunsets are amazing. Every night nature offers a breathtaking spectacle which we admire from the terrace. The picture you can see was taken by Jandro from our very living room. I haven´t taken one myself yet because yesterday I spent the whole time watching. I didn´t want to give up any minute of it to look for my camera.

Every night you can see lightenings in the sky. Even if there´s no storm round here, the lightenings light up our bedroom while we fall asleep.

THE MARKET

On Sunday morning we went to an African market (there are no pictures, as I did not have the courage to take out my camera, maybe next time). It was huge, dirty and very loud. People running, people selling, people buying, children walking all about the place, no shoes on, and the smells, the smells of Africa.

You can buy everything there but you ALWAYS have to haggle, even more so if you´re white (at some point Jandro gave up and I guess overpaid but can you blame him in this heat?). Oh, have I mentioned we´re white, by the way? Very distinctive feature in a place like this. Among hundreds of people, we only saw three others whose skin was not the beautiful colour of pure dark chocolate (I´m not trying to be poetic, I just find those people truly beautiful).

We were looking for some things for the bathroom and at one point we went into a shop (a big stall really) which was full of little children, 3-year-olds maybe. When we were walking out they blocked our way and one of them looked at us boldly and stretched out his hand in the international gesture of "pay if you want to cross". They learn quickly here.

As we wanted to buy bed linen, we stopped in front of one of the stalls that offered some. Immediately a man appeared and offered to show us the best bed linen ever. We agreed (when I say "we", I mean Jandro, as I´m unable to communicate out here - unless you count my helpless smiles) and followed him. He led us through the market ("Oh my God, we´re going to get completely lost!") and down some stairs into a dark alley, where black men were impassively sitting by their goods, smoking ("Oh my God, this is how we die!"). We started feeling uncomfortable, so Jandro said something about lumière and we turned back. The man did not give up, however, until we took a look at his fantastic, American (he assured us), bed linen. I think we left him thinking that it was a good argument, because after he repeated "American" a dozen times, we paid him.

We also bought a local treat there, manioca (see photo). It´s the basic food here, like potato for us. They cook it, make a kind of very thick paste and wrap it in the leaves. Then you eat it (cold) as sidedish but it doesn´t have much taste I´m afraid. Nevertheless, that´s what "God has given them to eat", as the seller informed us.

Anyway, I loved the market (in spite of the complete lack of hygiene and in spite of being called "white" every five steps) and I hope to go back with my camera (or, more specifically, to pluck up the courage to take it out of my bag). And also to buy some material for my African dress. :)

FIRST OF ALL

I´ve never had a blog and I have no idea if I´m able to be consequent as far as the idea is concerned. The only diary I´ve ever written was when I was 12 or so and I was not very successful, I believe. Still, I´ve got so many things to tell that I decided to give it a try.

Here I am, in Libreville, Gabon, recién llegada, and I´m very white. This is how the story begins. I´ll write in English because most of you are fluent in this language. To those who are not, I offer my apologies and pictures, but I cannot write in three different languages at a time.

Here we go then. Hope somebody will find it interesting.