Senegal: The Chinese battery

You only have small batteries but your torch needs a large battery: we have the solution!

Chinese engineering.

Mali: Só eu sei porque não fico em casa!

I am a fan of the team on the other side of the road, but I am surprised to find some Sporting fans in Mali!!

Perhaps they are the only ones that don’t know about Sporting latest results!

Mali: The 24 to 1 Ratio

In the recently opened road between Senegal and Mali we were driving fairly fast, but it was getting late. Sweet Potato spotted a nice looking village and we stopped. In our broken French: “Bonjour, ça va?” “Nous peux a rester ici?” Five minutes later, the tent was open, close to some little houses.

Next morning, while preparing to leave, we noticed that only kids and women were around. No sign of men.

Where are they?! From my analytical background, I started to join the pieces:
- We were informed the village had about 300 inhabitants;
- Each man has up to 4 wifes;
- The women get married at the age of 15;

If each lady has 5 kids (trust me, this is not an aggressive assumption!!), then, for each man, there are 24 women and kids around! In other words, a village with 300 people has… 12 men. It is not that surprising we didn’t see many men around!!

 

Mali: If they can reduce it once, they can reduce it twice!!

Entering countries is always fun! At the Malian customs, I showed the Carnet de Passage and they replied "Ce bon, ce bon!"... but they didn't have the stamp... I should go to the next city to get it stamped. After the Customs, I went to Immigration. Their answer "You need to do it at the next village. We don't have ink!" Mali was not starting well…

It took us 25 km of driving and another 20 minutes looking for the police station, but we finally found it. Surprised on how we got there without a stamp, they stamped the passports. It costed us 15000 CFA each, no bargaining (we found out later it could have been cheaper if we had done the visa in advance…). 

Next, the customs. After a careful inspection of the Carnet, he said "It is not valid in Mali. You need to pay for a laissez passez. It costs 15000 CFA". We had just paid 30000 CFA for the visas so we tried to save some money. "Oh my GOD! We don't have that money!! We can't afford it". It took us 10 minutes of begging and he reduced it to 10000 CFA. We understood we could go further and offered 5000 CFA... Upset, he left the office and wished us a safe journey.

This time the carnet didn't "save" us

Perhaps we had gone too far… We went back to the motorbike and, when we were almost ready to go… he called me. “Give me your documents!” Ten minutes later we were ready to go!!

We had been warned before: If they can reduce it once, they can reduce it twice!

Guinea Bissau: The bloody slaughter

Pedro, one of the people working for the Portuguese military in Bissau, had a pig to sell. Rui had a store selling meat. Both reached an agreement and it was time to transform the pig into pork!!

We headed to Pedro's house in Bissau, where the pig was tied outside, happily together with the family.

A corn and some violence convinced the pig to get inside the jeep. The pig screamed, but its destiny was decided.

With several people on top, the pig didn't survive a big knife in its throat and it didn't take long to get it clean.

A vulture waiting (unsuccessfully) for its share

The rest, the rest is pork. Pork and boiled blood, traditional Portuguese style in Bissau.