Sao Tome III

How is it done?

How does one return to a certain monotony after having lived something like this?
I don’t know, I don’t know if I am more or less overwhelmed as the first day, but for other reasons, that’s for sure, because I don’t know how to leave this island, the truth.

I have been several days in what here are called districts, and there, we would call shantytowns, I have been eating with them, I have walked through the jungle looking for cocoa for breakfast, even our cab broke down, almost at night and until well into the early morning we were there, lost on a road, without light, without poles of breakdown, with nothing to do but wait for a cousin or a friend of the driver to come and pick us all up, I gave all the medication that I had brought for myself, because one of the girls was in pain because they had to amputate a finger, apparently from working with a machete, and they had not given her any painkillers, because among other things, they did not have any in the house. …they didn’t have any at the health center, that’s what they are called here.

I have taken their cabs, which would not pass the ITV even in dreams, with doors patched with duct tape, smooth wheels to drive on roads that only have the name because they are drawn like that on a map.

I have seen so much generosity with tourists, as well as an extreme indifference towards some elderly people, just because, according to them, they are crazy, and here we would say that they have Alzheimer’s disease.

How do you leave something like that behind?

Fuck …I’m sorry, but I’m just…I don’t know how the hell I am.

It pains me to see so much potential, so much power they could have to manage their future….
What the fuck can I complain about?

There have been many incredible moments, Luisa, who has kept me almost every day, when I passed by her candy stand, some in particular that I always bought, and when I told her that I was leaving soon, she put a half smile and told me that it was very nice to meet me… I have not cried by miracle!

Eusebio, one of the cab drivers that this week, as luck would have it, I have had to meet more times to take me around, tells me that it is very good, that I have met Sao Tome for real, not the tourist, but the people who work and live, because I laughed with them when they told me that I was 65 years old very well behaved, and instead of getting angry, I laughed and reminded them all the time. …or when some woman approached me and I said…no, no, no, no, I’ve already had four women and I don’t want any more…and they laughed.

How am I going to get home?

I have heard a thousand times about post-holiday syndrome, and believe me, I don’t remember ever having suffered from it, but now?

God!!!

I remember you used to tell me that I would come back changed, that if I truly submerged myself among them, I would see things…..

There is so much I have to see…touch…eat…drink…and yes, although that’s another story, kiss.
Just kissing….

I’m sorry for the rant, although I know you’re going to chew me out just for saying that, but, that’s the thing about you being someone so special.

I love you beautiful.

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