20 Niño’s, Super Mario & delicious seafood – Guinea Bissau 17th Dec 2009
Date: Thursday 17th December, 2009 | Country: Guinea Bissau | 3 Comments »After getting through the Senegalese border it was getting late and it didn’t look like we would be able to make it to Bissau the capital until the next day, we drove until we got to a place called Ingore and it seemed pretty chilled and relaxed but we couldn’t find anywhere (quiet) to stop our vehicle and rest for the night, so we tried to drive a little further from the small town to see if we could park off the main road, this was actually quite difficult and before it was pitch black we spotted what looked like a school that maybe we could park overnight in, opposite the school we asked this guy who introduced himself as Camara Jean-Louis, he told us we could park outside his house, don’t forget that that language now is Portuguese and Creole, Reka’s Spanish was helping in conversing and in return for Camara’s hospitality we gave him some fresh sardines that we had bought on near a river that we were going to have for our dinner. It became obvious that Camara has a big family as his Nino’s (children) started coming to introduce themselves, eldest first, it was like the scene from the King and I where children kept coming out to say hello, it was incredible.
Camara Jean-Louis (centre right) with his ever expanding beautiful family
Reka: Jean-Louise explained us that he couldn’t feed all his family from his teacher salary, so left the school and the capital to do farming. He is now a well respected member of the Agricultural Society of Guinea Bissau and has a 500 acres field where his family grows mangos, lemons, cashews and manioc.
The next day on our way to Bissau we were stopped by the people of the Transport Ministry, because we gave a lift to an old guy who was heading to the capital as well. As Maggie is a 2 seater he was sitting on the roof. Well, in Guinea Bissau “It is not possible” we were told by officials who held Noel’s laminated colour-copy driving license whilst explaining the rules (these spare documents are quite handy, especially when local authorities have no idea how the originals look like 
Based on what I’ve seen so far, Bissau definitely deserves the “capital of the worst roads” title, I mean 4×4s should be mandatory here. To give Maggie a rest we decided to walk around and find the Guinea Embassy, and as we parked up we were greeted by El Hadj Mohamed who offered his help. The embassy was very close to his house and we were promised to have our visas by the afternoon (2 visas in 2 days… not bad, huh?!)
Left: El Hadj Mohammed Right: Rice and fish Bissau style
Noel: Bissau is a bustling city, maybe it was the fact that it is leading upto Christmas in this very catholic country but people and cars were everywhere. Many stalls sell fruit (Mainly banana’s, melons, lemons and oranges), chickens, fish, peanuts and it all looks fresh and locally grown. After obtaining our 2 week visa’s for Guinea Conakry, we went to a nearby cafe for a rest from the hot sunshine. There I had the most amazing empanada’s, they were slightly different to what I have eaten before in that they looked like mini pork pies but the filling was chicken and a type of cheddar cheese, the pastry was light and man, they were scrumptious! We then wanted to see what kind of accommodation was available in Bissau as we had read that in general it was very expensive for poor quality hotels and that there is no camping places. Every hotel that we checked out was charging £40-50 a night per room and that was out of our budget so we kept on looking. After stopping at a local restaurant for a cold beer we met the owner who spoke good English and said that we could camp in his grounds which surrounded a university on the outskirts of Bissau. It was kind of him and we took the address to check it out later. By this point our local friend El Hadj Mohammed was still following us as we walked round the city, we both were a bit sceptical as to what his motives were for spending all this time with us, he invited us back to his home which was an empty shell of a place, according to him it would be finished shortly. He wanted us to eat with him and brought a lovely rice and fish dish that we all shared together which seems to be the African way, while eating we realised that he had quite a pessimistic view of Guinea Bissau and pretty much the whole of West Africa. It was just the way he was, everything was a “Big Problem” and most countries were “Kaput” but he seemed eccentric and so you just had to laugh no matter how many times he said this. We said our goodbyes and headed to the area we could camp in, by the time we reached there we realised the university grounds were closed to us but the grounds man took us next door to a place that was used for large warehouses which had enough grounds for us to camp without disturbing anyone.
Super Mario
While I was trying to park up, Reka started to talk to a few guys that were busy in one of the nearby warehouses and they were chatting for sometime, when Reka returned she told me that the guy was called Mario and if we wanted we could stay at his place which is a 30 min drive away where we could get access to water and come and meet his family for dinner. When he introduced himself he said he was busy transporting a new engine back to his family’s sugarcane plantation and if we didn’t mind waiting he’d show us the way. He seemed a genuine guy and the thought of a shower after the blistering heat was too tempting to refuse.
The views from where we camped in the Sugar cane factory
When we arrived in Quinahamel, Mario took us straight to his families factory, showed us where we could park and camp and then took us for a tour of the factory.
The process of making sugar cane alcohol, bottom left: Manuel, Mario’s father and founder of this factory 40 years ago.
What was very clear was the fact that this place had a pulse, there were around 180 workers here, many from the village that surrounds the plantation, and between Mario and his father Manuel they seem to make things work. The demand for the alcohol that is produced by this factory is in so high demand that Mario said it is difficult to keep any spare stock, it is sold to a number of partners in nearby villages and in Bissau.
The factory had a few hundred trucks, vans, tractors and cars dotted around the grounds and Mario explained that these are simply used for their spare parts either to replace engines or parts for working vehicles, it felt like I was in an outdoor museum for the automobile! After giving us a key that was for the bathroom we had everything we needed to stay for a few days in Bissau, he then introduced us to his family. His home was literally a km away from the factory (orta) and it seemed in Quinhamel that everyone liked to socialise as the streets were full of locals both adults and kids alike.
When we walked into his families courtyard we were greeted by many men, women and children, later we discovered that many people from the village sometimes come inside to say hello, drink some filtered water and then leave. We met Mario’s mother Romana and his father Manuel and his sister Salome and her daughter Zainab. They made us feel very welcome as soon as we entered their house and we never wanted for anything. We were given a couple of cold beers and were fed the most amazing lobster I have had in a very long time. Mario explained that seafood in general is very cheap in Bissau, I was beginning to like Bissau a lot! Mario’s English was good as he had spent some time in Germany however the rest of the family spoke Portuguese and Creole so conversation was somewhat limited, Salome could speak a little English but it seemed that with Reka’s Spanish they were able to get by and have a conversation. It was times like these that I wished I had a grasp of Spanish and in other countries French, something I need to address before I go on another major trip!
Zainab’s Birthday
Left to right: Zainab, Salome and Mario
We also met Abbas the night of Zainab’s birthday (the day after mine), he is married to Salome and is Zainab’s father. He is Lebanese and he explained that there are many Lebanese people in Senegal and Guinea Bissau working in the car or food industry. His company like many others brought in Mercedes 190 engines from Europe (mainly Germany) and imported them through to Bissau. He has been doing this for 10 years now and explained how tiring this job can be when you are dealing with numerous officials who want a cut here or a bribe there to let his engines come through, he was easy to get along with and helped me at a later date get hold of a new air filter and oil filter. We spent a few days on and off with him in his garage in Bissau, he always looked after us there and we had a few Sharwama’s (meat wraps) with him there which was always a pleasure.
Zainab and her school’s Christmas Nativity Play
Mario was a busy man as he showed us a nightclub that he has been working on this year and his plans were to get it open by Christmas eve, it seemed unlikely that this would happen as every time he took us round to his club there always seemed to be many guys sitting around doing nothing but he had an air of confidence that seemed to tell us otherwise.
Mario and his nightclub
Mario was kind enough to help me to a full service on Maggie something that we were planning to do seeing as we have travelled over 5000km to get here. One of the first things we checked was the air filter and after opening it up I could see a residue of oil which didn’t look too good, we later found out that this is probably due to the fact that we were putting 15-40 into the engine oil rather than the 80-90 we should have been putting. We emptied the engine oil as well, replaced the oil filter and Mesiad who was the head mechanic here also managed to tighten one of the belts which then stopped the screeching that we had experienced before when turning the wheel hard left or right. Mario also helped me by cleaning out the back of Maggie as she was covered inside and out with sand, he blasted the sand away and I did the same with the roof tent (which also had gathered enough sand by now) and then we gave Maggie a good old jet wash to remove the mud that was starting to clog the underneath of Maggie. After we had all finished, I gave a little money to the guys that had been helping me the whole day and it was good to see Maggie looking refreshed again.
Mesiad the top mechanic
Mealtimes
During the time that we have stayed with Mario and his family (almost 2 weeks) we have been treated to some exceptional cooking, in some ways it was almost as good as my mum’s cooking (if that’s possible!), it reminded me of being in Sri Lanka where the process of getting food to the table sometimes took 3 or 4 people starting early in the morning to start the cooking process. Many meals consisted of local ingredients, lemons were used as the main part to a lemon chicken curry/stew that took a long time to cook but the results were amazing and well worth it. We had many types of fish, one evening we were treated to fillet of fish that made your mouth tingle with joy it was so good, we were given some lovely prawns as well that were 5 or 6 times the size of any prawn we get in general in the UK, the taste was gorgeous. On a few occasions for lunch we were served trays of Oysters that were messy but very tasty, we were told a kilo of these cost £1 which you wouldn’t find in many other countries I’m sure, these were usually dipped into a lemon chilli oil that went well with the oysters.
Oyster time
Everything to do with food in this family was a social experience, everyone ate together and I realised it was the only times that people had time to sit down as all other times everyone was busy with their own jobs but food brought everyone back. One day we met some of Mario’s friends that were earning money from him washing some of the families many cars as well as some guy that wanted to do business with him, when we were served lunch, it was a giant pot of rice and chicken that everyone would take from as you sat in circles round the pot.
That same day we decided to wash all our clothes using a few buckets and soap, what was amazing was that the friends of Mario (most seemed to come from wealthy families) started laughing at the fact that we were cleaning our own clothes……..cultural differences!
All meals were always ended by bowl’s of fresh fruit, we tasted some amazing watermelon’s and oranges that were always great and on the odd occasion, Salome would bake a cake which was hard to refuse, sometimes it would appear freshly baked for breakfast and with a scoop of nutella on a slice of warm cake straight out of the oven surely I don’t need to describe how nice that is!
I have to say that during the last 2 weeks it is the most food I have ever eaten for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner (not that I am complaining).
Fabio + Enzo + Zainab = Trouble
The rest of the family we heard we arriving for Christmas, the 2 other sisters Claudia and Ana Sonia who live in Senegal and Germany respectively come every year to spend time with the family during this period. Claudia and her husband Hamoude have 2 lovely kids Enzo and Fabio and by all the stories that Mario had told us we were expecting noise and things to become manic, we were not disappointed, as soon as they arrived the dogs (4) disappeared, the delicate items put away and the toys came out. Claudia walked in and immediately set about planning what decorations would be where and what walls needed painting, I could see it was a yearly thing that Mother and Father accepted their daughter will do every time she visits! Claudia has experience in interior design and you could tell.
Between Reka and I we played with Fabio, Enzo and Zainab on most days, for some reason they loved to be thrown in the air and that is fine but the amount of times that each one wanted to jump into your arms to be flown was very very tiring especially in the hot sticky humid weather. Fabio and Enzo are smart loveable kids, Zainab a cheeky monkey and these kids were great to be around (when they weren’t crying!).
My daily exercise routine, carry 3 kids around until exhaustion kicks in
United colours of Bissau
25th December
On Christmas eve we met Ana Sonia and her boyfriend Eduardo, they currently live in Hamburg and again as with the rest of the family they were nice to be around. I could see that Romana and Manuel were happy to see al their kids under one roof. It was nice of both of them to ask Reka and myself to stay with them over Christmas, it was an easy decision to make as their whole family had been amazing to be with, slightly crazy but when everyone is like that, no one stands out!
The Santos Family enjoying their xmas dinner
The night before we had gone to the opening night of Mario’s nightclub, he managed to turn everything around so that all the lights and sound system was in working order. The club is literally the other side to where his family lives and Mario’s plans are to have themed nights, some for adults, some during the day for kids etc and he seems to have a good business head and so I’m sure the club will be a success. I started to feel rundown and by the time I woke up on the 25th I could tell that I had some kind of flu, my temperature was high, I was sweating buckets but feeling cold and it felt really bad to be ill over xmas. I remember Mario’s mum Romana sitting down near where I was lying down and she said that I was missing my family and that I had the blues, she sang a song which was very touching saying that I would be reunited with them soon. By the next day I was really quite ill, also Eduardo was also suffering from something similar (although he mentioned I could have Malaria), so Ana Sonja drove us to see a doctor in Bissau. A few hours later we had both been diagnosed with the Grip a form of African flu and given similar medication. For the next week, beers and fags were off my menu!
Balloons
We had bought some Balloons, footballs and toys as we were told that throughout the day many children from the village come to ask for a present. In the morning we gave some footballs away and a few toys but there wasn’t the amount of kids or people visiting that I was used to on most other days. In the late afternoon Ana Sonia wanted to hand out some sweets but within a few minutes there were literally a hundred kids outside the house. Reka brought out the balloons and between Ana Sonia and Abilio (her cousin), they brought in 10 kids at a time and gave them a balloon each, it was quite a sight as all the kids with balloons had to stay in the courtyard to avoid them rejoining the queue again!
Top Right: Abilio, Bottom Left: Ana Sonia Bottom Right: Romana
It was quite a noisy affair and amazing to see how many kids live in the nearby area, eventually the balloons and sweets ran out and chaotically all the kids steamed outside, it looked dangerous for some of the little guys but there was nothing you could do to stop that.
Pigeon Hunt
For many days Mario had mentioned how much he likes to shoot, I could tell this by the amount of guns he had in his room, more than a dozen or so rifles/shotguns. He was in the army and excelled as a sniper so hitting targets was what he was good at. A few days before, both Reka and I shot from a shotgun aiming at a few lemons 50 metres away but we were both hopeless. On the 27th even though I was feeling really rough I wanted to at least see Mario and Abbas hunt and see how they do it in Bissau. I was given my own shotgun with 25 rounds and by the time we got out into the jungle it was hot and sticky, Mario before we had reached the place we were meant to go had already shot a few rock pigeons in some roadside trees. As we walked into a clearing, a couple of Mario’s friends went up ahead to point out the places for these birds, the rule was only shoot what you can eat, it meant nothing to me as I had no idea what birds were edible, but we went through the jungle and Abbas who had sunk a few beers by this point shot a few birds and Mario tripled his. I had several good shots at a few pigeons and no matter how straight my aim looked the bang kept missing the bugger, after my rounds had finished I was glad just to watch the pro’s how its done, and after a few hours they had bagged enough birds to stick on a bbq the next day and feed the whole family. In amongst the pigeons were a few grouses that Mario had also bagged.
It was an experience, not sure If I’d do it again but maybe my aim might have been better if I hadn’t have been so ill that day (yeah right!).
Miscellaneous Photos of Guinea Bissau
For me, Guinea Bissau was totally unexpected, planning only to be there for a few days turned into spending 2 amazing weeks with one of the most amazing families I have ever met, what is special is the fact that although they have a successful business, they do not differentiate themselves from the people that live in the same town/village as them, their house is open to anyone and it feels like their house is part of the community, as strangers to the Santos family I feel as if they adopted us immediately as if we were part of their family, that is something that is rare. I’d like to thank Manuel, Romana, Mario, Salome, Claudia, Ana Sonia, Abbas, Abilio, Hamoude, Eduardo, Ko, Gina, Nyla, Nyangi and the rest of all the lovely people we met through the Santos Family for letting us stay with you, it was a pleasure and if anyone needs some accommodation or some home cooking in London, please get in contact with Reka or I.
