A LESSON OF DEMOCRACY

I was still in Poland when on 8 June 2009 Jandro skyped me at an unusal hour, long before our regular chat time. He told me not to be worried or afraid. Very much worried and afraid, I asked what was wrong. It turned out that the borders of the country had been sealed and curfew had been introduced. Omar Bongo Ondimba, Gabon's president and until that day world's longest serving head of government, died in Barcelona at the age of 73 (if interested, click here).

The country remained calm but the situation seemed rather tense. Well into July the election day was finally chosen. On 30 August Gabon was going to choose its brand new future. Two weeks before this day and two days after I came here the campaign started.

The most visible candidate was Omar Bongo's son, Ali Bongo. "Ali'9" is omnipresent (see article from Reuters), be it a T-shirt, a hoarding-board or a street lamp. Whole villages are turned into Ali camps, with people dressed from head to toe in "Ali'9" free gadgets. He's got the money. He's got the marketing specialists. He's got his dad's experience.

Even though there are 23 candidates altogether, only three of them are said to stand a chance. The first one is of course Ali Bongo. The other two are Andre Mba Obame (or AMO, as he called himself for campaign purposes, which also stands for his slogan: Action, Modernity, Openness), interior minister until July and an important piece in the Omar Bongo mechanism. The third one is Pierre Mamboundou, an oppositionist, who has no links to Omar Bongo's government and whose campaign, due to the lack of money, consisted in covering the country in red flags, his trademark. Apparently, all three of them can boast substantial support (more on the candidates here).

We decided that it would be better to just stay at home on the election day. Our Gabonese friends told us to keep low profile - in the end, the French are not very popular nowadays, being seen as the ones who want to impose their will when it comes to the presidential election. And what are we if not French? Thus we spent a quiet day at home, preparing our just-in-case-we-need-to-run-away backpacks and watching the strangely calm street from our terrace. No results were made public yesterday, land and see borders were sealed. It rained heavily for the first time since the wet season ended in June.

Today we've found out that all three main candidates proclaimed themselves winners (see here). The official results will be available in a few days (!). Since there are none yet, people suspect that Ali might have lost. There is talk of riots or even a coup but people are not very serious about any of that yet.

Before the elections one of our friends told us: "On the 30th Gabon will give you a lesson of democracy". Let's hope he knew what he was talking about.


PS. As I am no political analyst and my knowledge of Gabon is still scarce this is all I can offer you on the topic. However, I know a certain Galician guy who knows much more and will answer all the questions on ethnic vote and oil you might have. ;)

THE WHEELS OF THE CAR GO ROUND AND ROUND

In Africa, going on a trip by car is no simple matter. Even so, we decided to do nearly a thousand kilometres in five days. The car is a Toyota Prado, with four-wheel drive and whatnot. My "and whatnot" accidentally characterises rather accurately our knowledge of the car and its insides: we don't even know how to use the four-wheel drive thing yet. We went anyway.

We bought some tools and car appliances which might come in handy: screwdrivers, triangles, a funnel... We borrowed a jack which for some reason Spanish people call gato - "cat". We put some air into the spare wheel. We put some air into the regular wheels. We bought sixty litres of gas to take with us. We set off.

The roads are diffcult most of the time. Either there is no asphalt (in the dry season the amounts of dust are incredible) or it is full of holes and you have to jump from one side of the road to the other. Or both. There isn't very much traffic but there are extremely many grumiere trucks (see picture on the right) which trasport huge tree trunks. Most of them were quite nice to us and we had polite car conversations:

Us: Honk honk? ("Can we pass?")
Truck: Honk honk. ("Yes, go.")
Us: Honk honk! ("Thank you!")
Truck: Honk honk! ("You're welcome!")

Others would drive in the middle of the road so that nobody could overtake.

The trip was quite all right (though very tiring for Jandro, as I don't drive) and it was only the night before our departure that we noticed something strange. An indicator in the car lit up and we found ourselves facing a dreadfully orange "T-BELT" sign. After figuring out what on Earth a T-BELT might be (transmission belt or whatever, we thought), we got a bit nervous. 400 kilometres ahead of us and the car says we should change the transmission belt NOW. Oh my.

We went to the guy responsible for our lodgings and asked if there were any mechanics in the Lope village. "I will call". He called. No luck, user unavailable. "We will go to the mechanic's house." Ok, let's. From a beautiful woman who opened the mechanic's door we found out that he was travelling but he would come back the next day. If we were willing to wait. We weren't. We called another person. The guy agreed to see us but couldn't promise anything.

"The transmission belt looks fine," we found out (we had changed it about a month ago!). "Maybe it's a little loose, I can fix it, just give me some tools." We took out our sad little set of tools which of course proved to be useless. The man offered to take us to his friend who had the tools. All four of us went to the village bar/shop where the tool guy was expected to appear. We waited for half an hour and had some sodas, watching the village life while the village life was watching us. The man came and said he wouldn't give our "mechanic" his tools, as the problem was not the transmission belt but something else and we could talk to him about it if we want to. He was very unfriendly. The "mechanic" tried to persuade him but was unsuccessful.

By that time the situation was as follows: our landlord, who was still tagging along, couldn't fix the problem and had no tools; the "mechanic" could fix the problem but had no tools; we couldn't fix anything and to top it all off had no tools; and the guy who had the tools wouldn't help. Seems hopeless but we didn't have many options. Our guy told us we shouldn't let the other man touch our car because he just wanted our money. Relucantly, we agreed and just drove him home. He told us we should be able to get to Libreville. And he wouldn't accept money from us claming he hadn't done anything. Good guy, in the end.

What scared us most was that the car would break in the middle of nowhere. There is no road assistance in Africa and if you get stuck in a place you might be stuck there for days. Nothing of the kind happened, though, and we safely reached Libreville the next day. The car did start making funny noises after around 100 kilometres and it turned out the air filter had a substantial hole. There was nobody we could call so we just put some masking tape round it. It worked. We're the official car fixers from now on.

ITINERARY

Yesterday we got back from our five-day trip into the wild, or, in other words, to Lopé National Park in the centre of Gabon. We decided to drive there, even though it's almost 400 kilometres, because we really felt like travelling a bit on our own, seeing the country, enjoying the freedom that a car inevitably gives you.

The plan was to spend five days travelling: on Saturday we arrived in Lopé village, we spend Sunday wondering around the area, on Monday morning we left for Mikongo (a camp in the jungle) and spend the night there, Tuesday afternoon we came back to Lopé and Wednesday morning we set off for Libreville again.

The itinerary was as follows:
- from Libreville to Ntoum (bumpy asphalted road, full of holes, drive carefully);
- from Ntoum to Bifoun, driving through the Equator and through the villages of Oyane 2, Oyane 1, Oyan, Oyane 4 in this order, I believe; the road is very good and asphalted;
- in Bifoun we turned left and continued towards Ndjolé;
- the bit right outside of Ndjolé was the worst part of the whole trip: the road was not asphalted, and it was made up of holes, dust was everywhere and there was a lot of traffic; we continued until Alembé;
- in Alembé we turned right and on to the dusty dusty road (most of it full of holes as well) which took us to the village of Lopé and the park itself (100 kilometres of very bumpy ride).

We left home at 6:15 am and reached our destination at 4: 45 pm.

Our provisions consisted of:
- clothes: including warm clothes (which proved to be very important, later I'll explain why) and linen and breathable clothes in khaki, beige and black to use in the jungle (long sleaves essential!) and boots of course;
- thin sleeping bags and pillows (you never know what sleeps in your bed with you);
- 60 litres of gas;
- 15 litres of tap water (to wash our teeth, hands and plates - you never know what swims in the tap water outside of Libreville and you certainly don't want to swallow it);
- 30 litres of bottled drinking water;
- foods and fruits;
- lots of plastic bags, napkins, scotch tape and the like;
- torches and binoculars;
- all kinds of medicines, including a lot of mosquito spray;
- tools for the car (which proved to be completely useless in the face of car damage).

What we forgot was a mosquito net and this was a big mistake. Always travel with a mosquito net in Africa!

The trip was great and we had a wonderful time. I'll keep on writing so stay tuned. :) While waiting for new posts you might want to take a look at my new picasa.

CEDOC 1 : KASIA+JANDRO 0

We got up at 6 am today, put on our best clothes and left home before 7 on a mission to find the infamous CEDOC (hope I spelled it correctly), the immigration office. We found it ok (road and sidewalk full of dust dust dust and me in my pretty delicate sandals) and took our place in one of the lines. It was 7:05 am and we were under the impression that the office would open its far-from-friendly gates at 8. There were already a lot of people queuing for different things (visas, passports and so on) and we confirmed with several of them that we were in the carte de sejour line. They were all African people from outside of Gabon and we were the only whites. Ladies in beautiful gowns mixed with smelly men in old T-shirts and rubber flip-flops mixed with gentlemen in European clothes mixed with women with babies clinging on to their backs. Mixed with two completely lost white people in their fancy clothes.

A man came out of the building and Jandro went up to talk to him. All he found out was that the Carte de Sejour Department was closed today and we may as well go home, thank you very much. The other people in the queue stayed, though, and we decided to hang about a bit more. A policeman in sunglasses (which are completely useless during the grey dry season) shouted and bossed people around. Jandro tried talking to another guy. This time he was asked if he had an appointment. Obviously, we'd had no idea that such an appointment was possible, not to metion essential.

- Do you have an appointment?
- No.
- I can't help you today.
- How do I get an appointment?
- You must come early.
- I've been here since 6:30 am! (A little lie but the official didn't know, right?)
- You must come earlier. People have been here since last afternoon. If you don't have an appointment, I can't help you.
- But how do I get an appointment?
- Must come earlier.

Right. It was 8 am. We called Jandro's co-worker who might know something about the procedure and she said that yes, we needed an appointment. The European Commission CAN get an appointment (apparently, not everybody can). So we left the queue, went back to the car and bitterly laughed at our naivety. We'll try to get an appointment for tomorrow. My visa expires in three weeks.

The only good thing we got out of it was a pretty picture of the sunrise as seen from our kitchen window. Oh dear, it's so grey today... I'm going to make some tea.

LANDED

I'm in Libreville, sitting in the huge white African living-room, overlooking the calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I can see the beach full of men in colourful T-shirts, playing football and bathing in the see. Tall palm trees, Toyota cars and posters of candidates for presidency. Grey, cloudy sky.

My trip from Poland was eventless, I made it in time to catch both planes, watched two films and there I was, in Africa again. I got off the plane and dutifully put myself in the "no-visa" line. In front of me some French people, behind a group of Scots. You see, the only visa I could've got outside of Gabon was a tourist one, useless if
I wanted to stay here. The procedure is thus as follows:

1) Long before my arrival, Jandro applies for a special paper ("Authorisation of Entry") and waits for it for a month. It costs money.

2) With a copy of this paper I present myself at the airport and queue in the "no-visa" line. I talk to one airport officer, who, through continuous use of the word "two" ("two two two"), informs me that I only gave him the first part of the paper and he wants the second one. I talk to another officer, who kindly ignores my question about the price of the visa and walks away. After an hour (I was third in the line), a photograph of my tired face is taken and, having left my fingerprints, I obtain my one-month visa. It costs money.

3) With my brand new visa I must now head for immigrants office (or something of the kind), where I will need to queue for God knows how long ("Remember to take a picnic basket. People get there at 4 am"), in order to exchange it for a very much desired "Carte de Séjour" (a sort of a residence permit), which lets me stay here legally for a longer period of time. This costs A LOT of money.

Ah, the things you do when you're young and in love... ;)

PROS AND CONS

Well, here it is. A bit later than planned but finally the moment has come: I'm going to Libreville again, and the big day is 13 August, this Thursday. Of course, I'm terrified. People keep asking me why on Earth I want to do this. I try to explain but, well, let's settle this in writing.

The cons are obvious and many. I don't speak French. The political situation is of the very attractive "you-never-know" kind. The sea breeze reminds you of an open oven. I can't possibly get a good job out there. There's no MTV and no Supersweet Sixteen. I'm really far away from my family and friends. I'm probably gonna miss my flight and get stranded on Charles de Gaulle. And it seems like I'm simply going after a guy. And then there are the diseases. Yup, believe it or not, I'm aware of all this.

Why am I going then? I don't speak French but I will learn. And I like languages, you know that. The work situation is problematic but I do already have a job there and even though it's teaching again (and this bugs me a little) I really want to give it a go. To live in that country, to live the culture and get to know the people, to learn learn learn, it's very exciting. And if teaching is the means to do this, teaching it is! I don't think I'm ready to settle just yet. Being away from Poland does hurt me a bit - after all I've just got back. But maybe that's the way it has to be? I learned to appreciate Poland while I was in Galicia and this new-found patriotism is very exciting, too. I think it will grow stronger still in Africa and I'm looking forward to it. And yes, of course I'm going after a guy (check out the cute cute picture) but not entirely. It's Gabon because he's there, clearly, but I'm also going after my personal need for adventure, travelling, seeing the world and just being out there. And sharing it with the person I love.

So, here I come, Libreville! Hope these kids are ready for their new English teacher!

Oh, and I will keep you posted! :)