23.09.2015: Bijagos Islands

Guinea-Bissau

We reached Guinea-Bissau at the end of the week. After we had registered on the island ob Bubaque, Arved and Brigitte arrived late Friday night and were given a warm greeting.
The reason for going to the Bijagos Islands is a travel documentation written by a German Hugo Bernatzki. His book "Im Reich der Bidiogo" tells of his expedition to the islands and describes, in a very empathetic way, the culture of the island inhabitants and the enslavement they experienced during Portugal's colonial power. We want to follow the traces of this widely unknown expedition and visit some of the original sites.

We sailed from Bubaque to the island of Orango where the legendary Queen Pampa once ruled. With the Bijogs the women had the say. They decided on their marital partners and could arrange for a divorce from these partners. Queen Pampa was a clever chief diplomat who even won herself large respect from the Portugese colonial rulers. After she died in 1927, her reign was passed on to another family member. We met the last person of this dynasty. His name ist Augusto Fernandez; he is over 90 years old and he remembers the "legendary queen".

It is like being in a sauna on board

Many things have changed here since the expedition took place. The conditions of the colonial times have fortunately disappeared. The village, the old houses - these all function as in the past. There is also a school, an infirmary, for which there is unfortunately neither a nurse or a doctor, and naturally there is still the old house which belonged to the queen. To this day it is not allowed to enter it. With the reigning queen we are able to visit the burial house, in which all of the queens including Queen Pampa are buried.
Everywhere in the village and along the paths hang fetishes to ward off disaster. This is an unbelievably exciting excursion into the history of this culture or rather of the small state of Guinea-Bissau, which is approximately the size of Lower Saxony. It is now the rainy season - temperatures are around 35° and the humidity is at 85%.

There are heavy rain showers daily. On board it is like being in a sauna. Other than this it is magnificient. Photos of our expedition will follow - there are transmission problems at the moment. Today we are sailing on to other islands in this archipelago..