Ponto de Encontro (The Meeting Place)

In the first weeks, it was an entertaining activity to go around each night and find a new place to eat. However, the novelty of this game wore off quickly, as Bissau is what one would call in Portuguese an “ovo” (an egg), meaning, it is really very tiny. One of the more popular haunts is the “Ponto de Encontro,” or meeting place, which is a small café with a big screen television. During the European Cup, Ponto was the place to be, filled to the gills with Europeans, Guineans and the occasional Spanish-speaking miscreant, puffing on cigars and cigarettes until even the sandwiches tasted like tobacco leaves. Most of the time, I avoided Ponto unless for an occasional craving for a over-cooked mini pizza (ah, la gastronomie bissuaene) or a cold beer. One evening, we were sitting at one of the little tables outside, watching the hordes walking back from work when suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I noticed an enormous yellow apparition.

On an unpaved red dirt road in the country ranked 175th out of 177 in the Human Development Index, a brand-new, yellow Hummer with shiny silver rims rolled by. The driver was in his twenties. To give a perspective, most workers earn around $100 a month in a country where a sack of rice now costs $50 (21,000 CFA) and public employees have not been paid for 4 months. What baffles me is…if there is this intense international scrutiny, training and support against the drug trade, why is there a big banana hummer up in my face? It is so easy to spot these anomalies it is absurd. While we were gaping at the novelty of a car so large it can be seen on googlemaps, a little girl in rags with a plate of mangoes on her head walked by. Then a strange man holding up a rotting leopard skin dangled it in our faces. My boss chided him, saying that this was a illegal act. “No, no, no” he declared. I told him that even its not illegal, the next time he goes out to catch one, the leopard’s family would eat him. “Ha, ha ha” he laughed. “So, are you going to buy it or not?”

That is Bissau for you: a hummer, a child selling mangoes, and a skinned wildcat. Basically, it's just like Dupont Circle, except without the electricity and the white people.

The size of the city can be suffocating. Even in your work, you find yourself meeting with the same actors from civil society and government over and over again. If certain people are difficult, you have no choice but to continue working with them, unless you can work around them. I have heard many complaints of the “lack of political will” on the side of the Guinean government, which is certainly true in specific areas, especially those of a polemic nature (security sector reform in particular). However, it is evident that these reforms are taking place with little national consultation. Without local input, such reforms cannot be effective and may even worsen the situation. This lack of success is not surprising, because if you bring in consultants who cannot even speak the local language, how can you expect them to integrate a local perspective or even to minimally understand the complicated socio-political environment.

My favorite example of this incompetence occurred in the hotel, where a German consultant for an anti-trafficking agency was eating his breakfast. In town for a mere 2 weeks, he was charged with writing a long and influential report on the drug trafficking situation in Bissau. While he was munching his toast and tapping away at his laptop, our neighborhood Colombiano walked by cool as a cucumber to go jump into his gold car parked outside. The German guy was completely oblivious.

The activity here is “sem vergonha” , that is, there is no shame, there is no hiding the evidence. A policeman friend of mine who is here to consult with the national police said that this character came up to him one day and introduced himself as “the Colombian you are running after.” My friend said “actually, I’m not running after you, I am here to do trainings.” The Colombian gave him a wink, handed him a business card with his name and phone number, and said “Well, if you ever need to contact me, this is how you can find me.”