Arquipélago dos Bijagós
Bubaque: visiting the local school
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Dan bu mon, mininu
Abo ku ka ten rostu Bin no bai No badai ianda mundo di palabra No ba discubri Storia di pon Bonitascu di amor Sabura di kariño Ku turpasa di paixão |
Come with me, child
The one who do not have face Walk with me into this adventure in the world of words We will discover The story of bread The beauty of love The taste of tenderness The imbroglios of passion Odete Costa Semedo
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Certainly it was a painful trip. Perhaps more than expected. I knew Guinea-Bissau tainted with nostalgia, as it was in the remembrance of those who lived in Portugal. They presented the islands to me as a place of milk and honey, where nature feeds men with no need of work and trouble. But to see the true thing with my own eyes was quite a different experience.
In Bubaque there was a school.
I entered, and saw, and exchanged a few words with the kids, and cried. Even if I know this is their world and they knew no other, and were happier in it than I could possibly be in my own existence.
I imagine one of those kids might become one day a post-post-colonial writer, remembering o dia em que a branku entrou na sala de aula, olhou pra os desenhos colados na parede, que por acaso eram muito perfeitinhos, e desatou a chorar a chorar, parecendo que não e fixando muito a outra parede pra a malta não ver como tinha os olhos cheios. E limpou disfarçando com o cubre que trazia. Perversity and violence of the white woman crying over Africa.
I did stare to the blue-green paint on the wall, and the color was lacerating, tearing my soul apart. And those prophetic words were coming to me: padrões materiais sam e pode-los o tempo gastar mas não gastara a linguagem e a doutrina que os portugueses nessas terras leixarem. And I was staring to those kids e a tão fraca doutrina que os portugueses nessas terras leixaram, and I was crying.
There was a paper on the blue-green wall telling Horario de Linpesa and there were names of the kids that should clean the classroom each day of the week. Some had a proper name and a family name, and others had only a proper name. Some had lined notebooks and ball-pens, but no manual or printed book of any kind was to be seen.
In Bubaque there was a school.
I entered, and saw, and exchanged a few words with the kids, and cried. Even if I know this is their world and they knew no other, and were happier in it than I could possibly be in my own existence.
I imagine one of those kids might become one day a post-post-colonial writer, remembering o dia em que a branku entrou na sala de aula, olhou pra os desenhos colados na parede, que por acaso eram muito perfeitinhos, e desatou a chorar a chorar, parecendo que não e fixando muito a outra parede pra a malta não ver como tinha os olhos cheios. E limpou disfarçando com o cubre que trazia. Perversity and violence of the white woman crying over Africa.
I did stare to the blue-green paint on the wall, and the color was lacerating, tearing my soul apart. And those prophetic words were coming to me: padrões materiais sam e pode-los o tempo gastar mas não gastara a linguagem e a doutrina que os portugueses nessas terras leixarem. And I was staring to those kids e a tão fraca doutrina que os portugueses nessas terras leixaram, and I was crying.
There was a paper on the blue-green wall telling Horario de Linpesa and there were names of the kids that should clean the classroom each day of the week. Some had a proper name and a family name, and others had only a proper name. Some had lined notebooks and ball-pens, but no manual or printed book of any kind was to be seen.
On the island of Rubane, there was no well in the village. Not a proper, drilled well, just a shallow, unconfined dug well, little more than a hole in the ground. People asked me clothes, and medicines, and caneta, and, to their slight amazement, I immediately produced a ball-pen out of my backpack; I felt like some kind of conjurer. As for clothes, at the moment of leaving, I left them everything I could spare, including a couple of used pants. Perhaps this charity was overflowing the measure just a little bit, but who knows what exactly the measure is in this context. What is solidarity and what is just affectation, and the white man's taste for poverty and taking pictures.
I don't.
I don't.
Traditional ways of life (Islands of Rubane and Canhabaque)
Island of Canhabaque. A "house of the spirits". The hut is protected with corrugated sheets against the penetration of the tourists visiting the village, namely the groups brought by the Polish agency "Rainbow Tours" operating in the region through Banjul in the Gambia.
Roof of the "house of spirits" (detail).
Island of Canhabaque. Inhabited hut (detail).
Island of Canhabaque. Inhabited hut.
Island of Canhabaque. Inhabited hut.
Island of Canhabaque. Inhabited hut.
Island of Rubane. Plastic canisters used for transporting the water from the well are prized possessions.
Island of Rubane. Inhabited hut.
Island of Canhabaque. Inhabited hut.
Island of Rubane. Hut dedicated to female initiation.
Island of Rubane. Unconfined dug well. Several shallow wells like this one serve as the only water supply for the village.
Island of Rubane. "Dry" culture of rice. (Some yellowed rice plants are visible among the overgrowing vegetation; this is a view taken after the harvest, during the dry season).
Island of Rubane. Vegetable garden (some leguminous plants and cassava).
Bubaque
Island of Bubaque. Traditional embarkation used as the main means of transport between the islands of the Archipelago of Bijagós.
The strait between the Ilha de Rubane and Bubaque is the frontier between the Fourth and the Third World. On Rubane, people live a very traditional life, based on the "dry" culture of rice (in roughly cleaned patches of bush having very little in common with the worked-out rice fields of Asia; those incipient cultures are under water only during the wet season). Nonetheless their settlements give the impression of quiet and relatively ordered existence. On the other side of the strait, the chaos reigns. Wells are confined, and one can buy many sorts of global merchandise, such as Chinese-made shoes and clothing, but the heaps of litter are everywhere. The ruins of some Portuguese buildings give the city a singularly ghostly look.
I believe it's not by chance that back in Rubane, I was interviewed by a local young man about what I did actually think about it. I felt he wanted to form his own opinion about the apparent progress achieved across the strait. In measured words, I tried to leave him in no doubt. The Third World is not the target. There are things beyond. And I explained to them how they can apply directly to the Portuguese institutions through the Internet, above the local networks of power and influence.
Bubaque. A "ferry" that might go as far as Bolama or Bissau.
The local port of Bubaque. Assortment of global merchandise.
Bubaque. Ruins of the Portuguese prefecture building.
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Nature
In spite of its multiple problems, the Archipelago of Bijagós conserves much of an unspoiled paradise. Endemic instability along the past decades preserved it from touristic exploitation, that is just incipient right now. The waters are smooth and warm, and the stingrays not as common as to become a real nuisance; the spitting cobras (Naja nigricollis) on land are probably much more dangerous. Their venom is not lethal if it bites you, but the problem is that the snake tries to spit right into your eyes, and it causes blindness. In any case, summer stays are excluded because of the wet season and malaria. But such cautious winters as mine are just great.
 Island of Canhabaque. Primeval forest.
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Yellow-billed kite.
Baobab fruits.
Island of Rubane. Palm tree with tailor bird's nests.
One of the smaller islands of the archipelago of Bijagós. Mangroves.
Trying to understand
Guinea-Bissau puzzled me for many years as a Lusitanist, and that's not only for the unfulfilled dream of João de Barros. The region is extremely interesting for anyone reflecting on cultural complexity. I wonder if it would be legitimate to treat Guinea-Bissau as an example of van Schendel's Zomia, a "refuge zone" in the confines of the continent. Its extreme ethnic and linguistic diversity (22 languages attested in such as small territory) might justify the hypothesis; it might be produced by subsequent layers of refugees settling down in the region across the history.
On the other hand, the cultural outcome of this process, as I see it and as far as I could ever understand the Guinean problem, appears as one of the highest peaks of human alienation. Certainly I do not entirely blame the Portuguese for the state of the country that, having completed forty years of independence, is slowly drifting down the UN's list of the poorest among the poor. The dysfunctional roots of the Guinean reality unfortunately seem to lay in its traditional cultures and its non-colonial history. The Portuguese claimed the control over this territory since 1440s, yet hardly managed to administrate it for less than a century. They merely used to maintain a slave emporium at the coast. In the interior, the Mandinga state of Kaabu was thriving, waging more or less incessant war against its neighbors in order to provide the Portuguese with what they were coming for. Significantly, in the 19th c., the state of Kaabu seems to have found its end due to African conflicts, not the victory of the Portuguese colonial order, that had never been complete. No wonder that it was here that the serious imperial trouble began, with the revolt of the dockers in the port of Bissau. After more than a decade of warfare in which the Portuguese did not spare on napalm for the tabancas (the traditional villages), the whole colonial system came to its final breakdown in 1975. But it was the beginning of yet another long way towards stability and democracy, the very word tasting bitter in many a Guinean poet's mouth.
Nonetheless, away from Bissau, the political turmoil is hardly the greatest of worries. The local animism, as diversified and complex as the whole human landscape, tends to produce an extreme fear of witchcraft. The nasty aspect of this belief is that people treat witchcraft as the revenge of the weakest, this is why women and even children are often accused in the first place. A mother may be easily and promptly made responsible for having magically caused the death of her baby... especially if it's not the first baby that dies to her. And at the beginning of the new millennium, nearly a quarter, or a fifth, of all the babies in those villages still don't make it to their 5th anniversary...
Nonetheless, what people fear the most is the witchcraft out of envy. Gladness and contentment are thus not to be displayed. Gifts are accepted surreptitiously, with scarce eye contact, with tiny thanks at best; such things, including welcome drinks or foods, are often just left aside to be taken by the receiver, no ceremony is made about it; it is normal that hosts don't share those aliments with the guests; those are given and taken as just some kind of due, without much space for gratitude. The idiosyncratic conceptualization of envy seems to form the core of the whole axiological system. The individuals are thus very egocentric and very cautious, first about sharing any project or ambition with other people, and then about their eventual success stories. Contrary to what happens in many migrant communities, those who found opportunities in Europe (mostly in their Portuguese ex-metropolis) are the least likely to share their knowledge and experience with whoever, including the closest relatives; mostly they try to cut down all the links with their old country. The crucial information doesn't circulate; they simply don't share their winning strategies. This is why the young man with whom I talked about the possible educational perspectives he might find in Portugal seemed deeply surprised when I told him I had met many Guinean people at the University of Lisbon. Clearly, those guys are not celebrated as heroes, no legends about them circulate among the local people. And they hardly ever return to their communities after their studies in Portugal; this is what makes any help and positive change for the country so difficult to bring about. And I doubt if the young guy to whom I spoke would put into practice any piece of advice I gave him. Among many obstacles on the way, his fear will certainly be one of the greatest.
These are the things I say because I've had a long experience of those people in Lisbon, and I've read the bibliography. But none of these would be obvious in a mere tourist's eye. The tourists tend to admire the elegance of slim bodies where malnutrition is the hidden reality (one of the local guides introduced me to his elderly mother; I would say she must have been around 45 kg). Apparently, people smile just as large and dance just as energetically as everywhere else. But I do believe those Guinean guys have a pronounced difficulty in forming their biographical projects, sinking in the immobilism that contrasts sharply even with the neighboring African countries, such as Cape Verde, another ex-Portuguese colony a bit further north. Anomie, atomization, solitude of the individual are not exclusive traits of the modernity; they also happen in the traditional societies.
***
During my desolate wandering through the unpaved streets of Bubaque city, I spotted a torn and ripped sheet of paper, and I collected it from the ground. Soon I discovered it was a school test in geography, written in good Portuguese, with only minor orthographic mistakes, and the child who made it received maximum grades in many of the tasks. Clearly, there was a tiny success story behind. But why did this excellent exam paper lay despised, torn and ripped in the middle of the muddy street?
I shall never know. But I sense violence.
On the other hand, the cultural outcome of this process, as I see it and as far as I could ever understand the Guinean problem, appears as one of the highest peaks of human alienation. Certainly I do not entirely blame the Portuguese for the state of the country that, having completed forty years of independence, is slowly drifting down the UN's list of the poorest among the poor. The dysfunctional roots of the Guinean reality unfortunately seem to lay in its traditional cultures and its non-colonial history. The Portuguese claimed the control over this territory since 1440s, yet hardly managed to administrate it for less than a century. They merely used to maintain a slave emporium at the coast. In the interior, the Mandinga state of Kaabu was thriving, waging more or less incessant war against its neighbors in order to provide the Portuguese with what they were coming for. Significantly, in the 19th c., the state of Kaabu seems to have found its end due to African conflicts, not the victory of the Portuguese colonial order, that had never been complete. No wonder that it was here that the serious imperial trouble began, with the revolt of the dockers in the port of Bissau. After more than a decade of warfare in which the Portuguese did not spare on napalm for the tabancas (the traditional villages), the whole colonial system came to its final breakdown in 1975. But it was the beginning of yet another long way towards stability and democracy, the very word tasting bitter in many a Guinean poet's mouth.
Nonetheless, away from Bissau, the political turmoil is hardly the greatest of worries. The local animism, as diversified and complex as the whole human landscape, tends to produce an extreme fear of witchcraft. The nasty aspect of this belief is that people treat witchcraft as the revenge of the weakest, this is why women and even children are often accused in the first place. A mother may be easily and promptly made responsible for having magically caused the death of her baby... especially if it's not the first baby that dies to her. And at the beginning of the new millennium, nearly a quarter, or a fifth, of all the babies in those villages still don't make it to their 5th anniversary...
Nonetheless, what people fear the most is the witchcraft out of envy. Gladness and contentment are thus not to be displayed. Gifts are accepted surreptitiously, with scarce eye contact, with tiny thanks at best; such things, including welcome drinks or foods, are often just left aside to be taken by the receiver, no ceremony is made about it; it is normal that hosts don't share those aliments with the guests; those are given and taken as just some kind of due, without much space for gratitude. The idiosyncratic conceptualization of envy seems to form the core of the whole axiological system. The individuals are thus very egocentric and very cautious, first about sharing any project or ambition with other people, and then about their eventual success stories. Contrary to what happens in many migrant communities, those who found opportunities in Europe (mostly in their Portuguese ex-metropolis) are the least likely to share their knowledge and experience with whoever, including the closest relatives; mostly they try to cut down all the links with their old country. The crucial information doesn't circulate; they simply don't share their winning strategies. This is why the young man with whom I talked about the possible educational perspectives he might find in Portugal seemed deeply surprised when I told him I had met many Guinean people at the University of Lisbon. Clearly, those guys are not celebrated as heroes, no legends about them circulate among the local people. And they hardly ever return to their communities after their studies in Portugal; this is what makes any help and positive change for the country so difficult to bring about. And I doubt if the young guy to whom I spoke would put into practice any piece of advice I gave him. Among many obstacles on the way, his fear will certainly be one of the greatest.
These are the things I say because I've had a long experience of those people in Lisbon, and I've read the bibliography. But none of these would be obvious in a mere tourist's eye. The tourists tend to admire the elegance of slim bodies where malnutrition is the hidden reality (one of the local guides introduced me to his elderly mother; I would say she must have been around 45 kg). Apparently, people smile just as large and dance just as energetically as everywhere else. But I do believe those Guinean guys have a pronounced difficulty in forming their biographical projects, sinking in the immobilism that contrasts sharply even with the neighboring African countries, such as Cape Verde, another ex-Portuguese colony a bit further north. Anomie, atomization, solitude of the individual are not exclusive traits of the modernity; they also happen in the traditional societies.
***
During my desolate wandering through the unpaved streets of Bubaque city, I spotted a torn and ripped sheet of paper, and I collected it from the ground. Soon I discovered it was a school test in geography, written in good Portuguese, with only minor orthographic mistakes, and the child who made it received maximum grades in many of the tasks. Clearly, there was a tiny success story behind. But why did this excellent exam paper lay despised, torn and ripped in the middle of the muddy street?
I shall never know. But I sense violence.
