São Tomé, being a whole different country, does not use the Central-African francs (XFA) but its own currency: dobra. One euro amounts to 24 500 dobras, which means that the bills you pay in São Tomé are astronomical: a dinner might as well cost you a million!
Jandro has already visited São Tomé for work, and thus yesterday we started the impossible quest to find the dobras he had left, stashed away somewhere around the house, probably hiding from us on purpose. After a quarter of an hour of futile, frantic search, we remembered that one of the tupperware boxes in the kitchen did more than just keep our food dry: it was there that Jandro used to hide his cash. We proceeded to open the box and examine its contents (Hey! We still have some kisiel left!) but the money envelope was not there.
- I told you it wasn't there. A month ago or so I rearranged that shelf and all the boxes. - Kasia says helpfully. - Right. Did you throw anything away? - Jandro gives her a suspicious look. - Lot's of stuff. All the expired products you'd had there for months! - she cries thriumphantly. - An old box of bisquits that was in the tupperware, by any chance? - that suspicious look again. - Yeah. It'd been there for ages! - Right. That's where I used to keep the money before you came. That's where the dobras were. - Jandro is resigned to his fate.
And that's how I threw away all our dobras (could be around 50 euro) and God only knows how many francs XFA that were still in there, forgotten. This is the ultimate proof: nothing good can come from cleaning.
Today I would like to tell you a little something about the holiday that we've been planning for the past couple of weeks. We're going to a place I'd never thought I would visit: the São Tomé island. I think that most of you know little or nothing about this tiny country and I thought I'd give you some information, just for fun. So if you're not interested in São Tomé or the specifics of our journey, just skip this post please.
It's small, it's colonial, it's São Tomé! The country consists of two big islands: São Tomé (859 km2) and Principe (142 km2), which are surrounded by several minuscule islets. They are all of volcanic origin and thus rather hilly. The highest peak is Pico de São Tomé (guess which island it's on), with its 2024 metres and, apparently, rather stunning views of the island. The country boasts about 150 thousand inhabitants, who, due to the colonial past, speak Portuguese.
A wee bit of history The islands were uninhabited for a very long time, until discovered by Portuguese sailors, roaming around the Western coast of Africa, discovering how to take advantage. All this around 1470. These lovely European gentlemen brought some slaves with them (mainly from Angola, Mozambique and Cabo Verde), so that all the exploitation fun could start. While the African people mixed with the Portuguese, creating a Creole race that took over the islands, the colony as such lost its importance (Brasil was so much cooler!). Only in the XIXth century did it regain its appeal, quickly becoming the biggest exporter of cocoa in the world. It was at this time that huge plantations - roças - were created to cultivate both cocoa and coffee. Even though the workers officially weren't slaves (slavery was abolished in 1875), they were treated as such, which gave rise to independentist movements, and resulted in the revolution of 25 April 1974. A year afterwards, on 12 July 1975, the maps had to be updated to include the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Principe.
What to do or our tentative itinerary We've been doing some research into what São Tomé has to offer (mainly asking around) and we were recommended several beaches, diving, more beaches and expensive tourist resorts. That's all very well but we're just not the kind of people who wish to spend a week at the beach. We thus went through tons of poor quality webpages and guidebooks, which inform you, for instance, that regarding the landscape, the island is epmhasized by the exuberant green colour from the thick vegetation or that in such a irregular islands like São Tomé e Principe of volcanic origins, people couldn't help being invited and seduced for a walk. Well, the guidebook has me neither invited nor seduced, I must tell you.
Anyway, here's what we've come up with:
Day 1 (Sunday 21/02): arrive in São Tomé and visit the city (cathedral, museum, market, Claudio Corallo's chocolate shop). Rent a car.
Day 2 (Monday 22/02): drive south to Roça de San Joao dos Angolares (now you know what a roça is, right?). On the way visit Boca do Inferno (some pretty rocks and the ocean making a lot of noise together) and Roça Bombaim. Visit San Joao and sleep there.
Day 3 (Tuesday 23/02): drive south to Praia Jale and Praia Piscina. On way visit Ribeira Peixe waterfalls. Spend the day at the beach and go back to San Joao for the night.
Day 4 (Wedesday 24/02): go back to São Tomé city. Visit Roça Agostinho Neto and two beaches: Praia das Conchas and Lagoa Azul.
Day 5 (Thursday 25/02): visit Monte Café (the only coffee plantation that still works). Have lunch in the town of Neves and visit the Botanic Garden of Bom Sucesso (São Tomé is famous for its orchids).
Day 6&7 (Friday&Saturday 26-27/02): go hiking in the National Park of Obe. Climb the Pico de São Tomé: it takes two days with camping beneath the summit.
Day 8 (Sunday 28/02): a walk around the city of São Tomé, take a plane back to Gabon and get ready to go to work.
I'm very eager to tell you what parts of this plan we managed to realise. I'll post as soon as we get back!
One of the interesting things I discovered in Galicia was that Galician people made - just like in Poland! - a faworki-type dessert during the carnival. They call them orellas, which is the Galician word for ears, the name coming from the shape of the actual thing. Obviously, the superiority of Polish faworki is indisputable: not only is their shape sophisticated and sports a pretty hole, but also they lack anise, of which Galician orellas are full. Being so far away from home makes you miss these little things: the French have pancakes in the carnival season and I've tried some home-made ones and they were not great (nothing to do with their exquisite Galician counterpart, filloas!) and I'm not sure if the Gabonese prepare anything out of ordinary in this time of year. So, being as I am on holidays and with a lot of time on my hands, I decided to bring Poland to Africa and sent a quick e-mail to my Mom, the official culinary lifesaver, saying How on earth does one go about preparing faworki?! Up till two days ago, I had only assisted in their production, professionally sprinkling the icing sugar on top. Do not be distressed, my Mother answered, for it is but the easiest recipe in the world. Right she was. Takes up some time, you make a huge mess and you die of sweating if you happen to be in Africa, but they're not difficult to make. This lengthy introduction inevitably leads to another recipe: here come faworki aka orellas aka never-deep-fry-stuff-in-the-African-heat.
You make the dough out of merely three ingredients: eggs (yolks), beer and flour. You should take the same amount of beer as yolks (for example a cup of beer for a cup of yolks) and mix them with flour, until the dough is elastic and soft. It should be similar to pierogi dough. Roll it out until it's very very thin (it should be practically transparent). Cut it into stripes and make a hole in the middle of each stripe. Flip one end of the stripe through the hole and your faworek is ready!
Heat the oil in a frying pan (use vegetable oil rather then olive oil: it is too expensive and you will need a lot!). Deep fry your faworki until they turn gold and pretty. Leave them on some paper to get rid of the oil and sprinkle with icing sugar. They are ready to serve! Have a great carnival!
Gabon makes us discover new recipes. We are pretty tired of eating the same thing over and over again (chicken with rice chicken with rice and then a bit of rice with chicken), so we've started looking for tasty and not too elaborate new ideas. With this one the tasty part is definitely true. However, "not too elaborate" turns into three hours of cooking. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present Kasia and Jandro's Special Lasagne!
First make the sauce: we just put all the vegetables we have at home (last time: carrots, aubergine, mushrooms, pepper, onion and garlic) and we stew them with minced meat and canned tomatoes until the sauce smells and tastes fantastic. We add basil and other herbs, salt, pepper and the like. It's rather easy, if time-consuming.
Now the part that is a bit more tricky: bechamel sauce. We make it from 1/3 litre of milk, enough flour for it not to be liquid, 25 gramms of butter, nutmeg and pepper. You beat the the milk and flour first (always keeping it on low fire) and then add all the rest, always stirring. That is the most tiring part - it's too hot to make bechamel!
Clearly, to make a lasagne, you need pasta. Even if they say it's not necessary to put it in hot water before it goes in the oven, we do so with the very bottom layer. Otherwise it gets too hard.
Now you only need a dish. Put some butter on the bottom so that the pasta doesn't stick. Then, layer after layer, build your lasagne. Put as much bechamel inside as you can bare.
When you're done, cover the top layer of pasta with bechamel and Parmesan cheese. Cover your dish and put it in the oven for about twenty minutes. A few minutes before it's done, uncover the lasagne (otherwise it will have a lot of water).
And there it is - all done. Do your best to cut it nicely, so that it doesn't fall apart (tricky). Don't forget to enjoy it with a glass of red wine! We recommend the fantastic Ribera del Duero called Condado de Oriza.
Mmmm, lucky me! I still have a piece of lasagne in my fridge!
We decided that it was time to take a deep breath somewhere outside Libreville and remember how much we loved Gabonese nature. We packed a few things, called up a few people and set off to Lambaréné, famous for its lakes, fried carp and the mysterious doctor Schweitzer.
The road trip: two monkeys, a turtle and a crocodile All these animals were sold by the Lambaréné road and I missed each and every one of them on our way there, because I was too busy talking or reading the guidebook. Luckily, I made up for that completely when we were heading for Libreville again, and took pictures of all the local specialties on offer, with great help from Emily, who stopped the car or even turned back at appropiate moments to please me.
The best way to get to Lambaréné, our destination for the past weekend, is by car. It is a little less than 300 kilometres from Libreville, which amounts to a four-hour drive. It is very difficult to get out of Libreville because of the grumieres - trucks transporting huge logs I told you about when I described our visit to Lopé. Afterwards the road is mediocre for about 100 kilometres, just to get much much better for the rest of the trip. We left Libreville on Friday at about 2:15 pm, went through N'Toum, Kango and Bifoun, across the Equator and got safely to Lambaréné at 6:15.
The best place to stay is the Hospital Believe it or not, it's true. The best hotel in town is the Hospital of dr Albert Schweitzer, the greatest tourist attraction in the area, beautifully set on the Ogooué river bank. The Hospital was started in 1924 by the brave doctor, who created it from scratch and helped the local people until his death in 1965. He got the peace Nobel prize in 1952 and his work is continued by the Schweitzer Foundation. The hospital is still there, along with a sort of a hospital village, its buildings scattered among beautiful old trees. There are also a few hotel rooms with ensuite bathrooms and a Museum set in the old hospital, where you can see what dr Schweitzer's workplace originally looked like. The hotel serves cheap meals in the same Refectory where the doctor used to eat.
The boat trip: two lakes, a hippo and a mission It is vital to get in touch with a piroguier, a boat owner, who will take you on a trip in his pirogue. It is best to be a group of 6 - 8 people, as the boat costs 70 000 CFA (105 euros) for a day, regardless of the number of people (we had to split the price between the three of us). But it's definitely worth it: the lakes are amazing. We followed the majestic Ogooué river until we got to Lac Evaro, where for some reason we visited an abandoned hotel (which according to our guidebook was still happily open). We then continued the ride until we reached Lac Onangué, Gabon's biggest lake, covering the area of 160 square kilometres. On our way there we caught a glimpse of two hippos, very difficult to spot during the rainy season. We also visited the Ngomo mission: a school and a few houses, with a rather European church towering over the village, inhabited by as few as twenty people. The last attraction of the day was going under one of Lambaréné's bridges, which turned to be the home to thousands of bats.
The city (night) life
Lambaréné is small but pleasant. Of course, there are not many town activities to fill your day but we did our best to try them all. We visited the church (again, European architecture, not common in Gabon) and found it rather pretty. We strolled by the river. We had what our guidebook described as a real espresso at Patisserie de l'Ogooué (the espresso was fine but I asked for a coffee with milk and got... a mug, hot milk and a can of instant Nescafé). We visited both markets and the one in quartier Isaac, right by the river, proved to be rather exciting: hunters and fishermen sell monkeys, crocodiles, turtles and the famous carp - things not easily seen in Libreville. At night we had some drinks at the local maquis (shabby shabby bars) and a dinner consisting of grilled fish, prepared by an African mama, who, when the fish was ready, asked us how many pieces of banana and how many spoonfuls of rice we wanted (each piece and spoonful is paid separately). There are few white people in the area and thus we were as much of an attraction to the town as the town was to us.
All in all, the trip was interesting and diverse. It feels as if we were away for much longer than just two days. But now, alas, the need has announced itself to come back to reality. And upload some pictures on my picasa.
On 1st January 2010 Gabon learned a new phrase: la journée continuée. Until that date the country had followed the French work schedule: from 8 am to 12:45 pm and from 2:30 pm to 6 pm. At the school, I would start classes at 8 am and finish at 5:30, with a long 3-hour lunch break in the middle.
One of the first changes introduced by the new government was to change the working schedule. It is now compulsory to start at 7:30 and finish at 3:30pm, with no lunch break. More or less the Polish way, give or take thirty minutes. What pressing need led the government to act on the matter with such energy? Nobody knows but in general I can't say I mind. It means that I now have my first class as early as 7:30 but I finish at 12:45 and have the whole afternoon to myself (plus the school managed to squeeze my classes into three days and I have Monday off!). So, in general, the change is for better.
However, it wouldn't be Africa if the transition from one system to another didn't cause any chaos. On the one hand, the obligatory timetable change, experienced also by my school, does not in any way solve the parents' dilemma: who will pick their children up from school at 12:45, if all parents work until 3:30? On the other hand, some international insitutions, which in general work according to their headquarter's schedule (so, for instance, the EU Delegation will follow Brussels' timetables), must now face a ridiculous situation: all local employees (drivers, secretaries, etc.) are obliged to work in line with the new Gabonese regulation, while the international staff stick to the European working hours. In practice it means that your secretary will go home at 3:30 whether you need her or not, and you must work until 6pm. Moreover, your secretary will be at work at midday (hopefully catching up on some due tasks), while you have your lunch at home.
I'm Kasia, a Polish girl, who, after living in Galicia and Gabon, has decided to try her luck in the heart of Europe. Together with my Galician partner, we discover Belgium, sharing the experience with each other and whoever stumbles upon this blog.
São Tomé, being a whole different country, does not use the Central-African francs (XFA) but its own currency: dobra. One euro amounts to 24 500 dobras, which means that the bills you pay in São Tomé are astronomical: a dinner might as well cost you a million!
