Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Re-post from Daks In The City - My Favourite Things About Malabo

23634371




So I've been in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea now for exactly three weeks...feels way longer though and in this short time I've become pretty familiar with the city. Its really small and you can go from one end of Malabo to the other in about two hours so familiarizing myself hasn't been too difficult.

Before I moved here I researched the country massively but couldn't find any first hand information about it. Most of the details I could find on Malabo were written by foreign nationals, who are not usually the most reliable sources of information.

I mean, Trip Advisor has Metisse as the best Thai restaurant in Lagos...imagine. This information was of course got first-hand from expats.

So I didn't trust a lot of what I read for obvious reasons and wanted to come experience it for myself.

Three weeks down I've gotten very fond of my new city...


The Views and The Architecture

cropped-equatorial-guinea-012

Malabo is situated on a natural crater shaped harbor at the base of Pico BasilĂ© (Basile Mountain) in a volcanic zone, so you can see the mountain from everywhere in the city.
It is stunning!

Every morning I wake up to see a mountain wreathed in clouds, its just so different from what I'm used to. I haven't even done that much exploring but there are tons of natural sites to visit; white sand beaches, black sand beaches, rain forests, nature reserves, mountain hikes, waterfalls...I mean. I'm not the most outdoorsy person yet I'm raring to go. The potential for tourism in this country is limitless.

The city itself is very picturesque and has retained most of its Spanish colonial architecture. So many areas could have been transplanted in entirety from some Mediterranean city, so beautiful.

L2F-Dec-15-pic-Africa-Equatorial-Guinea-Malabo-cathedral-Ruta-47


IMG_8920
IMG_8920.PNG This is an Instagram photo by Bayo Omoboriowo, President Buhari's official photographer. The President was in EG in March and Bayo shot this picture on their descent into Malabo. Love it!

IMG_9127



24 Hour Electricity

I forgot to mention in my last post but Malabo has 24/7/365 electricity, running at full current ALL the time. Before I got here I'd actually read something about its intermittent power supply and how most of its citizens relied on generators, which of course turned out to be fa-fa-fa-foul. I can't even remember where I read that now but if I find it I'm going to message the writer and tell him/her that he/she is a big fat liar.

Last week there was some sort of glitch somewhere and power at the office went out for a couple of hours. Everybody was so frantic, running around like Chicken Little, shouting that they hadn't had a power outage in over a year. I got a lot of hard stares when people passed my desk. Its common knowledge that I come from a country where the government couldn't give a toss if your meat spoils because your freezer hasn't had power in a week. There were low mutterings about me bringing them bad luck. Had to excuse myself and go home for about an hour to allow tempers cool off, which brings me to my next favorite thing...



Afternoon Siestas

So business hours in Malabo are 8am-1pm and 4pm-7pm.

Basically the entire town shuts down at 1pm and re-opens at 4pm. In this time everybody goes home, picks kids from school, has long leisurely lunches, maybe even nap for a bit. 

After this you're energized and you go back to work at 4pm brimming with vim and vigour. This is usually the case for stores, public buildings, most businesses really. For companies like mine, we have a shorter siesta period because we close on the dot of 5, so ours lasts just an hour. My house is so close to the office though that if I have a light work load most of the time I go home, eat, nap and come back to the office later.

Its like a dream to be honest.


Picante

picante

This is regular ass red peppers, but they turn it into a sauce and do something to it here that makes it taste phenomenal. Its so amazing, you get a bowl of picante at any restaurant you go to with every meal. As a pepper loving Igbo girl, trust and believe that I'm on that tip daily. Even the finest of dining restaurants serve you picante with everything.

I don't think I'm portraying the awesomeness properly here even, you have to taste it to understand.

Its so popular that the Heinz ketchup with picante is sold here. I've only ever seen Heinz with chili and that was in the UK, not even in Nigeria. This is only the 2nd time in my life I'm seeing it.

IMG_8934

and in keeping with the food theme....



Fried Plantain

images

There's plantain in Nigeria I know, but the plantain consumption here is on a different level. Fried plantain is to EG what jollof rice is to Nigeria, its pretty much the staple food here.

Like in Nigeria you can't get plantain at regular fast food places or really nice restaurants, but here its EVERYWHERE. Hotels, the best restaurants, roadside koro's, fast food joints, as bar snacks, always accompanied by a bowl of picante of course.

Platano es vida


Its Easygoing Nature

I don't know if its because everywhere is so close and there's only 300,00 people in the whole city so they don't have to struggle with traffic or because they get to sleep for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but everybody is so languid and easy going and things just get done a little slower. Its very unlike me to like a milder pace of things, what with being a typical Lagos girl with my love of its frenetic nature. But since I've been here I've become a little less angry, definitely calmer, less stressed and I guess its due to the fact that no one here is in a rush. I've come to appreciate a more languid pace in life. If I keep this up I might not be able to drive properly in Lagos anymore since you need to be Mad Max to survive on our streets.



The Languages

Coming to Malabo I was really excited to learn Spanish, still am, even though I'm now learning from the school of life and not Duolingo anymore, but I didn't realize that I might pick up some other languages too.

Malabo has a massive expat population, people from all over the world speaking several languages. Equatorial Guinea itself has 3 official languages; Spanish, French and Portuguese...with Spanish being the official language. Most people can speak all three, plus a bit of English.

So you can have conversations taking place with people speaking up to 3,4 languages at once, any one you understand you'd just be responding to. Most of the time I conduct entire convos with people who speak a bit of everything and with my broken Spanish and French and their broken English we can honestly yap away for ages. Its helped me pick up a bit more French, very minimal Portuguese and surprisingly Hebrew.

Its a real life Tower of Babel and I love it.



My Friends

I was VERY fortunate to land smack bang in the midst of super friendly people. I'm not the friendliest person and having to initiate new attachments or conversations are not very easy for me. I think this is probably why 99% of my friends are very gregarious and every outgoing people, therefore they were able to bring me out of my shell and basically impose friendship on me. If I met someone else like me...no poss. We'd just side-eye ourselves and keep it moving. But I seem to attract pretty insane, lovely people and Malabo is no exception.

IMG_9153

IMG_9220


IMG_9221

IMG_9223

Literally from Day 1 I fell in with a great crowd of people and I'd be lying if I said they hadn't helped to make my transition much easier.


photo credits: www.enjoyequatorialguinea.com, www.bbc.co.uk, www.love2fly.iberia.com

Share:

18 comments

  1. We could really use that break in the Afternoon thing in Nigeria!
    But on second thought, people will probably be stuck in traffic and won't make it back to work in time
    Sigh.

    Enjoy your time in Malabo
    Best Wishes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It definitely can't work in Nigeria, by the time you get home so much time would have passed that you'd just have to stay there.

      Thank you :)

      Delete
  2. I am going to have to visit, Daks! Thank God for Uncle Sam's P o! :-p You make is sound so delicious. We can trade visits, but I am in Abidjan so it will be like going to Lagos, but with 24/7 electricity also! LOL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ugh! Hatechu and my green passport. You're in Abidjan? I've always wanted to visit, my friend is from Ivory Coast and she keeps inviting me. I will definitely stop by someday. If you ever wanna come this way just let me know.

      Delete
  3. LOVE LOVE LOVE this post. Malabo looks so picturesque! Girl, you better get your outdoor game on! It looks like an amazing place to live in.

    I'm happy you found new friends quickly. You know how us women can be.

    Berry Dakara Blog

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is, every time I look around I'm just like DAMN. I will, I'm just always too knackered at the end of the week to start forming wakajugbe. I definitely will soon though.

      I don't usually get the bitch thing from girls o. I get along with most people, and if I don't and you're beefing unilaterally, I'm so unobservant I never even notice. Lol.

      Totally don't have that issue

      Yeah I lucked out with this bunch

      Delete
  4. I definitely agree with you on the views, I'm still sad that I never got a shot of the view while in the plane. As for the siesta, I initially found it quite weird and annoying, especially when I was new and went to the supermarket only to find it closed but I eventually got used to it. Now, the plantains are one of the things I miss about Malabo, I've never eaten so much plantain in my life, it got to a point that I was eating it almost three times a day. Anyways, I do hope to visit again and this time get the chance to really explore the city.
    Princess Audu

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Siesta was waaayyy annoying for like the first 2 weeks then I got used to it, its just become a matter of scheduling for me now. I think the most annoying thing about it is not that they shut down but how full it gets once they open up. Martinez is always like a market place in the evenings, hate that.

      I'm a plantain connoisseur and I honestly haven't eaten it as much as I have this past month, not a word of complaint though.

      I hope you do while I'm still here :)

      Delete
  5. hmmn... this gehl, are you trying to make me move to EQ with all of this??... I never knew EQ is so beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Replies
    1. You commented on this post earlier? Didn't see it o. Checked spam too, not there. Ndo nne

      Delete
  7. Todo se ve tan lindo alli!! Estoy feliz que has encontrado buenos amigos y estas gozando la vida en un lugar tan diferente de Lagos. Dejame saber cuando puedo venir a visitarte, y me voy corriendo :) Happy deciphering, lol! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Malabo looks so gorgeous!! I'm really happy I get to see it vicariously, through you!

    LOL @ your office people giving you attitude when the power went out. Ordinary power outage? For how many hours? Bahahahaha!

    The 3 hour break in the work day truly is a dream! I can imagine they are very chill people, and work-life balance should be on some kind of fleek in EG!

    I look forward to more Malabo stories. How is your Portuguese/Spanish, by the way? :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Glad to see you are settling in nicely. Malabo sounds like an amazing city.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lmao at the Nigerian girl brininging them bad luck in electricity supply.
    Afternoon siesta?? My fantasy! My fantasy is your reality?? How??
    "I'm not the friendliest person..." Honest self review
    I'm just thinking, maybe Malabo is this beautiful to us because of you. Someone else narrating their experience may not have conveyed their thoughts/feelings clearly.
    Thank you for sharing.
    'Fre

    ReplyDelete
  11. BEST WORKING CONDITIONS! Also, so happy for you that you have settled so nicely.

    ReplyDelete

© THIRD WORLD PROFASHIONAL . com | All rights reserved.
Blogger Template Designed by pipdig