On a hot Friday morning, I am off with my friends from the Bienvenue à Libreville group to visit Madame Léonie’s plantation, some 50 km away from Libreville. And so we hop in a brand new and shiny Toyota Hiace minivan – 14 of us inside. It’s my first time on the notorious Route Nationale 1, which stretches from Libreville in the North to the Congolese border in the South. A portion of it was entirely destructed by the heavy rains in December, which caused major transportation and supply issues for some weeks in the country.
But fortunately, this first section of the RN1 road is still a proper road, with limited traffic except for the scarily giant wood trucks coming back at full speed and fully loaded from the forest. We stop on our way to see raffia craftsmen and women. Raffia is a palm tree from tropical Africa, which long leaves provide very strong fibers and can be used as natural strings or ropes, amongst others. Gabonese also use it for decoration at home and in traditional ceremonies as body ornaments.
Things start to get funny when we reach Ntoum and take the smaller road North to Cocobeach and Equatorial Guinea. Mud all over, giant puddles, pits and bumps, screams in the van especially when it is sliding out of control towards a pickup coming in the opposite direction, and which we miraculously avoid at the last second.
There are a few houses and people along that road, and we wonder how much they are cut off from the world in the rainy season, when water fully takes over the mud road.
We reach Madame Léonie’s before noon. This elderly and energetic woman takes us around and told us all about the flowers, fruits and vegetables that grow in her big backyard and end up on Libreville stalls.
Atangas 
Porcelain rose 
Iboga fruit 
Corossol 
Ananas 
Palm nuts
Just at that point when each of us is about to melt completely, our lives are saved by a round of Régab beers. Then we have a wonderful lunch, with smoked fish and nyembwe chicken, the national Gabonese dish – smoked chicken in a palm nut dough. Mmm.
the kitchen 
the cooks
The brand new but not shiny anymore minivan takes another mud bath on the road back to Libreville. We all notice dozens of tiny red bites over our arms and legs. A knowledgeable friend says this is the signature of the fourous, insects so small they are almost invisible. They bite and leave you feeling nothing in the first place.
Back home, I am so tired I can hardly hold a pass me the salt conversation with my girls… I sleep ten and a half hours in a row. Well, almost in a row: at 2 o’clock in the morning, the red bites start itching like crazy! This lasts a couple of hours, then disappears as suddenly as it came. Fourou power!
Thomas
Tanad stories from Gabon 