We have checked out from our rooms and are waiting for the last carnival day to start. Around noon it is too hot to do anything outside.

The last two weeks were an unforgettable experience (I fell in love with the people of sub-saharan Africa again), a tough challenge (I can’t remember to ever have slept that little, except perhaps during some crazy training sessions in Belgium in 2007), and I found one of the still existing real banana republics in the world: Guinea-Bissau. It is all about corruption here, everybody is trying to rip you off, you are constantly at the mercy of the many shady officials (or would-be officials, everybody is a minister or a former minister or a relative of a minister or at least a friend of a minister here and they all derive special privileges and rights from their “status”).

Despotism at its best. Nice to experience firsthand, but even nicer to leave behind. 12 hours until departure …