Pria Piscina

On Sunday, Laura, Polly, Jared and I all went to the most southern tip of the island to visit a beach that is said to be THE best beach on the island. One way took us 4 hours. (4 hours for a 65 kilometer drive – if that lets you understand how horrible the road is!) The road simply disappeared at times and we were driving over rock pits, or the road was there, but there were huge chunks and holes missing out of it. After the way there and back, we all were so sore! Beast, our car, is a champ – but with no power steering, and no shocks, the trip was painful. Good thing the scenery was beautiful! The road to the south travels along the coast of the island, so there is ocean on one side and tropical jungle on the other. We went through lots of districts of the island that are way different than the city and we got to see how life for most São Tomeans really is. Most of the houses are on stilts and there are several ideas of why this originated. The top three are the heat – its cooler with air-flow under the floors, mosquitos – I guess they don’t fly that high, and rats. What the real reason is no one really knows, it has just always been done like this.

About 3 hours into our trip to the beach, we started questioning whether a beach could really be worth the bumpy way. I mean, we were passing tons of beaches that looked fine to me, so I was wondering what was so great about Pria Piscina. Well, it was worth it! The water was blue and green and completely clear! The sand was perfectly white! And, it was secluded for the first half of the time we were there. (Later, a group from the church we go to showed up.) The beach is bookended by black volcanic rocks, which just make the sand look even whiter, and there are shallow rocks pools along the left side, which break a lot of the dangerous waves. The only thing that could be bad about this beach is the sea urchins – and of course, with our luck, Jared stepped on one and got a spine stuck in his foot. Luckily, it was a small urchin and not a big one, so he did not get much venom and is not sick at all. The large sea urchins can cause a fever and the spines need to be removed by a doctor. The only way to stop the pain is to inactivate the venom by heat – so soaking your foot in very hot (but not boiling) water for about 30 minutes. With us being 4 hours from home, we were very lucky that it was a small urchin and that he is fine!

We took a ton of pictures! This was one of the most amazing places we have been and it was totally worth the 8 hour round trip drive! Click here to see our photo album.

Saturday with Polly and Laura

Today, Saturday, Jared and I had the opportunity to get out of the city and into the interior of the island a bit. Click here to see all the photos from our day.

The bat researchers from Cambridge that we met had a friend, Laura, fly in on Friday morning to give them more equipment and then they left that afternoon for Equatorial Guinea. Anyway, Laura is stuck here for a week because the TAP flight to Lisbon only leaves once a week. So, we all decided to explore the island together. (She has a rented car and can drive a stick-shift!) We also invited Polly, another American who is here in ST until July working with the NGP Step-Up to start a micro-finance program. Did you get all that?!

Anyway, the four of us went to the center of the island to the second largest city, Trindade (which is actually quite small!). Trindade is really important to the history of ST because it was the place of refuge when pirates raided the main city, and because two of the biggest revolutions/revolts started in Trindade and came down the mountain to the main city. The ride to Trindade was beautiful and much cooler temperature-wise that down the mountain in the main city. The tropical forests were amazing! Anyway, after Trindade, we went to Cascata São Nicolau, a waterfall further up the mountain. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! We took a ton of pictures! We all had our bathing suits, but it was so cold there that only Jared dared to wade into the pool at the bottom. The road to the waterfall was horrible! Rocky and bumpy – and the car we were in is the worst car in the world! Nothing works on it, except the engine! We named it Beast, because it is one! Poor Laura! – It had no power steering, so she had to crank Beast around every turn!

After the waterfall, we stopped into the Rossa, Monte Café. A Rossa is an old plantation. The island had several of them and now they are little villages all of their own. The people who live on the Rossa’s were born there and their families have always lived there. This Rossa was really busy with lots of people. All the old colonial building are still there along with several newer ones. Every Rossa has a school and a hospital, and this one had a soccer fields, homes, and restaurants/café-type places. Everyone was very nice to us and let us take all the pictures we wanted. A really nice man gave us a guided tour – which I do not think is normal, but Laura bought some São Tomean coffee from him, so this might be why we got the special treatment. The Rossa was amazing! It was like stepping into another world! Some of the Rossa date back 150 years or so, but I am not sure how old this one was.

It was such a wonderful day! The interior of the island is all jungle and volcanic mountains, and I had never seen anything like it! I can’t wait to get back out of the city some more! Tomorrow (Sunday), the four of us are going to a beach at the most southern tip of the island! (A 3 hour drive over horrible, bumpy roads – inside Beast to boot!) Should be a blast!

One Million Dollars for Cooking Fuel!

So, I don’t know if you have heard, but we had a visitor for a while in our kitchen at night. Not a welcome visitor, if you know what I mean. Anyway, this little guy decided it would be fun to chew our gas hose one night, which made our gas tank leak out most of the gas in it. (Grrrr) So not only did we need to replace the hose, but we need to buy a new tank of gas. Fuel tanks run about 650,000 dobras. A tank lasts for about 6 weeks, but we use so little gas, that one tank will last us about 2 months. Anyway, just when we needed more gas, people in Gabon (in West Africa – were the island gets its gas from) went on strike. So, gas was scarce. One night, Jared and I hauled our empty tank out to the street to find a taxi and go get some gas at Ubaga – Tela, a store near ADRA that had gas earlier in the day for 750,000 dobars. (100,000 more than usual - supply and demand, my friend) Anyway, for some reason, no taxi came by, but a motorcycle did. Umm, we really didn’t want to ride on a motorcycle with a big tank of gas, so we said no thanks and a few minutes later, the guy drove up with a friend in a car and said, “Get in!” So, we paid the guy 150,000 dobras to take us not very far at all (a lot of money for a ride!) and low and behold, the store was out of gas. So the guy took us somewhere else and they were out of gas too! The island was having a shortage just when we needed some! Anyway, we were brought home with the same empty can and decided to try again the next day. So the next morning, we were out walking, buying groceries, going to the bank and the bakery – bla bla bla – and ran into our friend Kristi. She could not find gas either. Later in the day, Kristi called and she had found gas but it was far from our place and since we do not have a car, Adam, Kristi’s husband, picked Jared up and took him to get some gas. Since Jared is white and since the island is low on stove fuel, Jared had to pay 850,000 dorbas for the can! So all in all, with the ride and the over priced tank, we paid 1,000,000 dobras for our cooking fuel. Sounds crazy right?! Paying a million dollars for cooking gas! But 1,000,000 dobras is equal to about 57 US dollars. So I guess its not too bad.

Maracuja

Maracuja is passion fruit. There are 3 kinds here on the island. One is tiny, red and wrinkled, one is small, yellow and smooth and one is large, light yellow and a bit bumpy. You eat them all in the same way – cut them in half and scoop out the inside with a spoon. So far, we have only tried the little yellow maracujas. They are very tangy. (Jared says bitter.) They make good juice though if you have a juicer and want to add some tang to your orange/banana juice. This type of maracuja goes for 20,000 dobras for 7 fruits. So just over a US dollar; not too bad! To see photos of a yellow passion fruit, click here!

Movin on Up

Michelle and I have moved into our lovely new apartment!! It has two verandas, one on the front and one in back. The one in front is screened in and faces the city park. We like to sit in that one and listen to the sounds of people playing soccer, basketball, or local music from a grill/ice cream stand. The back veranda isn’t screened in but it does have a washing machine (which has come in handy since we couldn’t wash our clothes for the first two weeks in the other place…). Inside there are two bedrooms, but we only use the master bedroom. The other one was previously owned by a pre-teen girl and there are pictures of Zac Efron and the Jonas Brothers on the walls, haha. The bathroom is large and includes a shower that is: 1. set up like a US shower where the water sprays down over your head (as opposed to the Portuguese style of having to hold a hand unit while you shower) and 2. has hot water (as opposed to our last apartment). The living room is equipped with leather furniture and a flatscreen tv. The kitchen is a good size and has a gas stove (we will have to buy gas tanks for it) so that you can cook during a power outage. Basically, this place is really nice. We don’t have to run the air conditioner constantly because we can open windows and get airflow. See pics here. (Blogger takes a long time to upload photos and the internet connection is really slow here, so hopefully we can post pictures directly to the blog at some point!)

We are renting the apartment from a very nice woman named Placida who will be in Lisbon for about 7 months. She got her undergrad from South Carolina University and works for the Voice of America US military radio station based here in São Tomé. The street we are on is really pretty and quiet, other than the sounds from the park. Finally the name of our street is technically Rua Carlos Palmeira, but the name was changed about two years ago and everyone still calls it by the old name Rua Gago Coutinho. In fact, Placida wrote down the address for us she wrote “ex-Rua Gago Coutinho,” which reminds me of “Old 33” in Fort Wayne, and cab drivers totally know what we’re talking about when we say ex-rua Gago Coutinho. Overall moving into this place has improved our moods quite a bit as the last place was ok, but it was really tiny and the road that it was on was really dirty and noisy.

Sao Tome Update!

We move into our new place tomorrow and I am soooooo happy! We are going to move early in the morning and then run to the store, and then come back and unpack. Its Good Friday and the island is 85% Catholic so everything is going to close around noon.

So yesterday it rained really hard - it is the rainy season here, but it hasn't really rained that much. Anyway, ADRA's office is right near the bay and the storm came from the sea. It was really wild! The wind was crazy and then, a ton of rain just dumped for like 30 minutes, then it stopped! It was awesome! It happened again this morning around 4:30, but the rain lasted for a few hours and it wasn't as hard of a rain. Still, the heat has broken a little because of it, which is totally nice! But, the ground is all mud now. (There really aren't many nice sidewalks here and most of the roads are badly paved) And, now the mosquitos are out during the day! When I was outside in the afternoon yesterday playing with the kids, I got eaten up by bugs. I think I got like 6 bits in one afternoon, which is not alright with me! I had only gotten like 6 total so far, so now I know to be very careful after the rain.

Everyone says that the end of May, beginning of June until late August is the most beautiful time of the year here. It is the dry season, but the coolest weather wise. Apparently you do not need AC and there is always a wonderful breeze. I am just waiting for that!!! I am such a nasty mess here! And my hair....you have no idea! You will not see me in any photos for a long time, let me just tell you that now!

So as far as illness on the island, malaria is really not that prevalent in adults. The worst we may get is diarrea, but oh well, we have medicine for that. The thing to worry about is injury. There are not good clinics here and if something really bad happened, we would have to be transported to Guinea by a private plane (1500 Euros) and treated there. So, Jared and I bought a flash light and use it when we walk at night. There are crazy tree roots, broken side walks, sticks, holes and all other things to worry about when walking. I can just see one of us braking a leg and having to go to Guinea to be treated! That would suck, majorly! So we are being very careful and learning where the best sidewalks are and taking long ways just to be safe. As far as people, there really is no crime here. Its an island. If you do something, where are you going to go? Everyone knows everyone and is practically related, so its pretty safe. Since we are on the equator, the days are exactly 12 hours long. Sun up is 6:00 and sun down is 6:00. Its gets dark here really early, so the flash light is needed and its a good thing we feel safe walking at night. The area of town we live in is really nice too, so that's good.

Love you all!

Michelle