Post 32: Waiting for Avgas. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for Africa.

March 23

Port Gentil, Gabon



 

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A congo serpent-eating eagle waiting. But not for
Avgas.

Third day without Avgas: The fuel we need to move on is still “ en route” from Cameroon or Libreville. Who knows. Reminds me of a story by the Polish foreign correspondent Riszard Kapucsinski who writes elegantly about Africa if not always reliably. But he does get the gist. In his anecdotal book Shadow of the Sun he tells how he boards a bus ( in Ghana if memory serves me). The bus is scheduled to leave at 3:00 pm. “ Will it be on time?” he asks the driver. “ Of course”.  At 4:30 the bus is still there. It finally leaves two hours late, nearly full.“I thought were leaving on time. What do you call this?” asks the Pole “ On time Sir” replies the driver “ On time means when the bus is full”. Makes sense. Have another beer.
UPDATE March 24: the Avgas has arrived in Libreville. But the man who will bring it here by boat has no..fuel. He also has no money.
More money changes hands. Who knows? Have yet another beer.

Fishwife with the catch of the day

 Gabon is a small, rich beautiful country. An ex-French colony. 1.5 million people. Relatively stable. Relatively corrupt. But some people are trying. Oil, timber, natural gas, gold, manganese, uranium, hydropower and fish.

Togolose fishermen on contract to the village

The Gabonese themselves don’t do fishing. Any more than oil-rich Gulf Arabs do manual labour. They employ Togolese ( another small country to the north: their team got shot up in Cabinda before last year's World Cup) The Togolese fishermen come here for 2-5 year stints. They fish in long pirogues with hand-made sky-blue nets close to shore. It’s good money. They seem content.

Jo and the Big Fish: 

The village boss is a large, jolly man who has an I-phone and makes a coconut-based spirit with a lethal root marinating in the bottle to give it extra kick. Would you like some he asks? " C'est pour les hommes. Si vous me comprenez?" Je vous comprends monsieur. Mais je suis trop vieux."  I pass. He laughs.

A guy we meet who works for the newly-elected President says he doesn’t understand why people complain against Gadaffi. The Gabonese governement, along with (some) other African nations has neverthless backed the attacks by the US, Britain and France on Libya. US power still holds sway. And autocrats, even benevolent, elected ones, are nervous of this unpredictable wind of change. So they hedge their bets. Our friend, whom we meet by chance, is a recent convert to Islam. But secular. Reasonable. One third of Gabon’s population is now muslim. The proportion relative to other religions is growing. I don’t pretend to understand Africa.

A beautiful, curious lizard. Answers on a postcard please

Pygmies are said to be Gabon's oiriginal inhabitants. Gabon has over 40 distinct ethnic groups.There are believed to be no more than 3000 pygmies left, scattered through its beautiful equatorial forests. The rainforests are full of rare and beautiful birds sch as the Congo Serpent eagle and the Booby.  

MY TWITCHER ( SORRY: ORNITHOLIGIST) COUSIN: I Google Gabon/trees. I find the following quote from my cousin Rhett Butler, a distinguished naturalist and a man who will go to any lengths to seek rare birds. He lives a short trip by dugout canoe ride from Gabon, on the other side of Africa, in Zimbabwe. Makes my day.

"This heavily forested nation has a tremendous amount of biological diversity and serves as an important sanctuary for many animal species. Gabon has numerous endemic species and vast tracts of pristine rainforest which make up almost 40% of the country's rainforests."

- Rhett A. Butler