Blogs from Guinea-Bissau, Africa - page 2

We have just returned after spending a week on the decently remote Bijagos, the archipelago islands off the coast of Guinea Bissau. We were told by one of our hotels that we were the first Americans they'd seen since 1998. Much traditional village culture still exists there, as it has for hundreds of years...except with a few additions like plastic buckets and oversized American T-shirts under the grass skirts. But they live well there, with a tight community, strong tradition, village elders and chiefs, and lots of good spontaneous singing and drumming. We arrived by pirogue, which is kind of like somewhere between a canoe and viking ship, at least in my interpretation. We got to the dock in Bissau early, as we had been instructed, and the boat was loading when we arrived. We were ... read more

We were lucky. Four days after we crossed the border at Sao Domingo into Guinea-Bissau (G-B), the border closed. The Senegalese army had chased the Jola separatist guerilla into the city. The guerilla -using mines as warfare- blew up a minibus with people coming from Varela beach, before they were captured/executed by the military. This is a region of tension and sporadic turmoil, one must not forget that. But except for some out-of-order tanks along the roadsides and the former presidential palace in debris, there are few signs of neither the 98-98 civil war, nor the last coup in 2003. Another employee of my aunt accommodated us and took us out cruising Bissau’s potholed avenues, accompanied by loud Cuban music and hot-blooded greetings in Portuguese. There's a perceptible Latin-American presence. The family father; a warm-hearted, pragmatic ... read more