13/11/11 Bad Weather and Bad Lands

 

13 November, 2011

Well today has been a bit of a crap day, all-in-all. I got back to the hotel last night to discover the internet was down. Very uncool! And I was very motivated to get online. I found out the whole of Port Gentil was without internet. Being a weekend, the problem was unlikely to rectify itself until Monday, so I had to accept that I wouldn’t be causing any online mayhem.

Then last night it poured with rain. I mean POURED with rain. Sounded awesome, but when I got up this morning to fly to Banio 2 again and it was STILL raining I knew the day was not going to go to plan. My driver, Patrick, arrived and took me to the airport so I could get a weather report, which confirmed my fears. Low cloud and rain on and off all day. So the driver (who is a very excited and friendly guy) took me into town for an hour or so since we decided to wait a couple of hours before calling it off. I had two pax who were equally not delighted to have to wait another day to get going.

Outside the market looking inconspicuous	Mmm, what’s for dinner?

The driver clearly owns a local pub, because he took me into what I felt was the dodgy part of town (and for Port Gentil, that’s saying something!) but was clearly actually a social district. We parked next to an open-air market which, due to the rain, was fairly deserted. Apparently over the weekend it is usually heaving with people. At least it gave me an opportunity for a couple of pics. However, photographing a woman with a machete, hacking at a block of meat is not appreciated here and I was chastised “tres forte” and had to beat a hasty retreat.

Inside the market looking stupid	Anyone for steak? Hacked to your specifications…

Patrick’s little pub was down a small alleyway which contained a number of similar rooms, all individual businesses offering everything from hairdressing to tailoring, to arcade games and bars. He explained that in Gabon, all bars have to be closed at 22h00 every night. Nightclubs have no restrictions, but bars like his are carefully controlled, so we could only have a softdrink. Since we were essentially waiting for the rain to stop, I felt it was probably a good idea to stay off the Stroh Rum and local Witblitz.

Patrick’s “No Complex Bar” entrance	The alleyway of little shops

After the Coke, with the rain still not really letting up, I called it off and was taken back to the hotel. I had just gotten into a movie when the Logistics Manager (who decides on all my flights everyday) called to say that Banio2 was clear and would I give it another go. So I agreed, even though I knew the weather would be crap along the way; at least I was along the coastline.

Pretty much the extent of the bar	Not quite like the arcade I remember as a child. Playstations in padlocked boxes.

So we loaded up and took off, flying as quickly as possible and avoiding clouds as much as possible (the cloud base I shall keep to myself to spare my boss and my parents any extra stress). When we arrived at Banio2 it was raining hard, the mist was patchy and no-one was answering the radio on approach. I wanted to explain that I needed to refuel and get airborne as quickly as possible. No-one was around when I landed (which has never happened) and no-one came running as I shut down. The pax and I had to walk the gear up to the camp before we saw someone casually saunter out of a cabin. I was stressing about the weather getting worse, and a 2.5 hour flight back to Port Gentil, followed by me trying to get back to Onal tonight, when I asked where the hell everyone was. Blank stares. So I might have had a little bit of a wobbly….. And now my toys…. are……. just…..out…..of……reach……

One of the guys who turned up could speak English and explained that they were all told I wasn’t coming anymore and thus weren’t expecting me. The guy I was supposed to take back to Port Gentil had gone elsewhere to work, so everything was a bit of a cock up. And so it has come to pass that I will be sleeping in one of the cabins that I felt so sorry for the inmates of Banio2 having to live in.

This is smaller than my container in Onal, and has two bedrooms with a bunk bed in each AND communal shower and toilet!

The English speaking guy (who’s name is “Juvenile” because everyone says he looks so young) was so nice, and so apologetic about it all, explaining that they really weren’t expecting me, that he helped me gather my toys back up and resign myself to the fact that I was going to be sleeping here tonight. In compensation he took me to show me the oil well they’re busy pumping from. He explained that they pump it up, send it to a separator which separates the oil from the gas. The gas they either burn off or run a generator with it, while the crude oil is heated and then pumped along a pipe to a tanker offshore which is regularly replaced once filled with oil from a number of wells in the area. Its actually quite a simple setup once the well has been drilled and prepared.

Wingnut in a hardhat. This is the oil platform!	The separator taking the gas from the crude oil

Lets hope I get out of here tomorrow so I can reconnect with the outside world that I’m looking forward to seeing in 10 days…. ;-)

Addendum: I have got to be honest here and admit that I have had a complete turn around about having to stay in Banio2. It is pretty uncomfortable, dirty and smelly, but the guys are very friendly and I have just spent the evening having a very amusing conversation with Juvenile about children, families, studying and languages. He married his school sweetheart 10 years ago and now has 1 kid. He reckons at absolute most he’ll have 3 kids. “Because,” he says, “kids cost you money!” He says he doesn’t understand why some men don’t think about the future and only live in the now, but he wants a good life, and so doesn’t want many kids. Plus, apparently its Gabonese tradition that you “marry your wife’s parents too”. I laughed. He actually had me in hysterics explaining how you sometimes don’t like your wife’s parents, but they are around and you have to take care of them too. “First you get in trouble with your wife, then her parents, and then your parents are also giving you troubles!” I asked if, after 10 years with his wife, and marrying her straight after school, he still loves her and thinks she’s a good woman and he said, “Of course! She is my life!”

He spent some time in Cape Town learning English before coming back to Gabon. So everything bad is “kak”. He was in Cape Town during the Xenophobia violence that broke out and said that he stayed in his house for two weeks without leaving because he was scared of being identified as a foreigner. He even paid a lot more money to stay in a much nicer area than the local townships, purely from a safety point of view. He said a friend of his, who was trying to save as much money as possible, stayed in Kayalitsha, and was hunted down at one point and beaten and eventually died. Crazy stuff! He said when he had to go into town to his English class again, he used to travel in on the train, terrified that someone would try to talk to him. He eventually left South Africa earlier than planned because his wife said she was worrying about him too much and he must get out before something bad happened to him.

He told me I must stop saying French is hard, because if I say its hard it will be. Wise words. And all I have to do is put more effort in and I can learn French. (Jeez, think he’s been talking to MY parents!) He notes that Gabon doesn’t have aggression and violence because there are only 1.5 million people in the whole country. Which I think is pretty true. Many Gabonese are worse off than many SAns, but there’s no aggression and a high crime rate etc. And very little violence. They really are very friendly and open people. I’m glad I met Juvenile and was able to enjoy an evening chatting with him.