The Race: Lunch On The Front Lines

The end of our first full week and today we had an alfresco lunch with Francisca. Francisca is the Director of the largest primary school on Sao Tome—she has over 2,000 students, and 57 teachers who work either a morning or an afternoon shift.  Very few supplies.. a big job. Lunch was set up in her front yard and despite the beginnings of rainstorm, we were protected (for a while) by huge trees overhead.

The menu began with an enormous bottle of White Horse scotch, and included sea snails, manioc, grilled fish of uncertain origin and other wondrous things.

The rain soon became untenable and we retired inside to discuss the use of images, posters, etc in her living room.  We gave her some images and some videos of local endemic critters to use in her school and anywhere else she wanted.  A delightful person and a typical representative of the devotion and enthusiasm of the Sao Tomean teachers we have met.  By later this afternoon the rain had flooded parts of the city; we drove past guys standing ankle-deep in the streets.

Tomorrow, we fly to the older island, Principe.  We greatly underestimated the number of biodiversity posters we would need here on the big island, so we have had to do some rationing.  In the meantime Andrew, our photographer, came up with a fabulous idea.  Here in town, we can cheaply print postcard-sized image collages to hand out to the kids.. about $60 for one hundred.. while these are not as flashy as the posters, the kids absolutely love them and it keeps our momentum going.. The ones we have done here say “Only on Sao Tome” in Portuguese, and this morning we printed another hundred for Principe with a similar message.

More from Principe.

Here’s the parting shot:

Carpe Diem! Poaching wireless from NGO offices down the hill.

all images © Andrew Stanbridge

PARTNERS
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund (GG I), Hagey Research Venture Fund (GG II) of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) and Africa’s Eden for logistics, ground transportation and lodging (GG III-V), STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/., Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bonfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Barbero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Zuntabawe and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George G. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami, Hon. Richard C. Livermore, Prof. & Mrs. Evan C. Evans III, Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Taylor, and Mrs. Sheila Farr Nielsen for helping make these expeditions possible. Tax-deductable donations in support of this work can be made to “CAS-Gulf of Guinea Fund.”