The Islands From The Middle Of The World
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY Jeremy Blahay
The islands of São Tomé-and-Príncipe cumulate singularities as much by their geographic position, their size as by their history. This journey in the heart of a micro-state in equilibrium on the equator brought us back to the era of the great 15th century Portuguese explorations and the laboratories that were these isolated territories of the Gulf of Guinea.
This photographic journey is steeped in insularity and global history through landscapes, architectures and portraits of santomeans who appears by discreet and mixed touches.
An immersion in a time suspended in the middle of the world.
Discovered by the Portuguese in 1470, the islands, until then uninhabited, populated and mixed quickly. Young settlers in search of gold on the continent brought back black slaves there. They will be the first to conceptualise, not only the slave plantation but also the Atlantic slave trade, the archipelago becoming a stage in the traffic between Africa and Brazil. The vestiges of this heavy colonial past flow in the veins of these islanders, and are revealed blackened by time, swallowed little by little by the jungle. A slow decomposition frozen in a living space. These infrastructures impress, charged with a secular force that the faces and children’s laughter soften.
Even if today the two islands survive with international aid and are import-dependent, many inhabitants remain cut off from the major strategic issues (luxury tourism, rich hydrocarbons waters) and live a simple life in an almost intact and lush nature.
Young Bidolino’s charismatic portrait invites us to wonder about the future of this little-known society in an increasingly globalised world where ratios of scale are tending to disappear.
By taking the only road in the country, we dive into a new and unknown era. A long story to which we feel connected and whose violence is matched only by the lava flows at the origin of the archipelago.
Discovered by the Portuguese in 1470, the islands, until then uninhabited, populated and mixed quickly. The young settlers, concentrate of bad subjects, unwanted in their home country are in search of gold on the African continent where populations are kidnapped and reduced to slavery. These expansionist white crews will be the first to conceptualise, not only the slave plantation but also the Atlantic slave trade, the islands becoming a stage in the traffic between Africa and Brazil, that Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet reaches for the first time in April 1500.
Santana is a city south of the capital, São Tomé. For the past ten years, it has been invested by foreign entrepreneurs who build luxury rentals on the hillsides. A name comes up often, as straight taken from a popular tale «the man from the Moon», we will learn that it is about a rich South African, the second tourist to have stayed in space and who has set its sights on the archipelago by developing luxury tourism which the authorities are fond of.
Along Avenida Marginal 12 Julho in São Tomé, just before Fort São Sebastião, which houses the Museu nacional, I photograph this sleeping man surrounded by sand, palm trees and electric cables. On July 12, 1975, the islands proclaimed their independence after 5 centuries of Portuguese colonization, the inhuman profitability of which made the archipelago the world’s largest producer of cocoa in 1913.
Around Fort São Sebastião, many young people and students come to enjoy the beach. Dark rocks and the colour of the water crystallise this special atmosphere of distance and isolation. Looking towards the horizon, I wonder what this young man is thinking. As everywhere else, smartphones and social networks are deployed here, bringing their share of fantasies and hopes.
In the far west of the island of São Tomé the road ends, the tracks have been swallowed up by the forest. Afterwards, the basaltic and tortured coastline is known only to the few fishermen who venture into its violent open sea waters. Heavy rains and fog keep this hidden side of the island secret for much of the year. Yet it is a dormant sea and a warm light that can be observed on the heights of Monte Forte.
Soon the humid and noisy night will envelop us.
As we sink deeper into the island, we feel the earth pulsing, brimming with life.
Old world markers pop up like ghosts the jungle has yet to fully swallow. Our imagination is working at full speed. São Tomé makes you dizzy with time and space where lianas would have overcome human technologies.
We have been driving for hours on a muddy track that winds through dizzying reliefs covered with thick jungle and streams that recent rains have engulfed in power. Isolated in the mountainous heart of the island, it is the village of Bombaim we want to reach and its very old roça (former colonial farm) restored and converted into a guest room. But suddenly our wheels get stuck in the soil and we realise that part of the road has ended up in the gorges below. Fortunately two men from public works try with their machines to rebuild the section and get us out of there. A stone’s throw away, a group of children are playing under a waterfall and we feel it’s time to breathe a bit for everyone. One of the men lights a cigarette and strikes a pose.
Today we walked on an ancient crater that geological time and vegetation have turned into a lake, Lagoa Amélia. Local traditions say that a Portuguese lady venturing into the «obó», these thick primary forests of the archipelago, drowned there. A terrible tropical storm will surprise us during the ascent and will mark my films with a strange spectral presence. Back at the Roça, it is by candlelight in the thick night of Bombaim that Domingos, in charge of the place, tells us with a lot of humour about his life path between Lisbon and São Tomé.
Getting to Príncipe Island is expensive and many Santomeans have never been there. On board this small twin-engine propeller, we are greeted by a Russian-speaking crew. As a strange echo of the Marxist-Leninist regime experienced by the archipelago after independence. It would even seem that many ex-Soviet Union aircraft, registered here, are used for various traffics between South America and West Africa ... We gradually realise how much these little-known islands hidden by the ocean have always been connected to the major strategic issues of the world. We learnt that in the 90s, France, on behalf of the oil company Elf, will try to convince President Miguel Trovoada to transform part of his country into a tax haven. A project that will never see the light of day.
The flight over the choppy waves of the Gulf of Guinea makes you dizzy because the ocean is losing you. It makes you wonder if anything still exists on the horizon. 35 long minutes will be necessary before seeing a small green confetti, the little sister of São Tomé, the island of Príncipe. Here live 6000 inhabitants mainly around Santo António, the only village of the island.
The colonial aesthetic and its ambiguous charm evoke the little piece of Portugal that once existed here and which is now dominated with majesty by lush nature.
Everything is so calm, soothing, we perceive some laughter and discreet discussions probably in moncó (or príncipense) the local Creole variant of sãotomense which comes from the Portuguese of the 15th century, from the kwa of the region of Benin and the Bantu languages of the West African.
Even if today the two islands survive thanks to international aid, many inhabitants remain cut off from major strategic issues (luxury tourism, waters rich in hydrocarbons) and live a simple life in an almost untouched and luxuriant nature. Here the fishermen are experienced freedivers. In PrÍncipe, we will be greeted by Nhanu who, in addition to being a specialist in the many endemic bird species of the island, practices this sport and dangerous fishing: «to eat I fish and if I have to earn money I fish more.
We enter the primary forest of Ponta Do Sol next to Nhanu. His machete blows carve tunnels in a thick vegetal mantle that seems to close behind us. It is said here that a broom planted in the ground takes root in a few days. Above our heads, monkeys pass furtively through the canopy and the songs, rare, of Conóbia, or of Príncipe Golden-Weaver make us silent, tiny. The island has been included since 2012 on the list of biosphere reserves by Unesco, which makes it a major place for the conservation and protection of global biological diversity. The air humidity is around 100% which will cause some surprises on my film.
Approaching a trunk, Nhanu stops and shows us some mysterious gashes... After a few seconds, he explains to us that it is a medicinal tree.
North of the village of Ponta Do Sol, a long red soil path leads us to the ancient Roça Sundy, which was owned by the Portuguese royal family. Here live a hundred inhabitants in a surrealist setting where coffee and cocoa once made their ancestors bend over 700 hectares. The vestiges of this heavy colonial past are revealed blackened by time, swallowed up little by little by the jungle. A slow decomposition frozen in a living space. Behind the «casa grande, the master’s house, which overlooks the ocean, a plaque tells us about an English astrophysicist who during an eclipse in 1919 proved certain predictions of Einstein’s theories.
For a few seconds, at this tiny point in the center of the world, we imagine ourselves entering another dimension: in Sundy, space-time has folded in on itself.
A ruined building catches our attention. As we approach the entrance, our eyes are fixed on this letter, which futuristic geometry transforms into a strange symbol. We are in front of the old Roça Hospital and although it is now a ghostly maze of empty rooms and floors, it impresses, as though still charged with centuries-old power. We can guess here the great communication plan of the coloniser. In 1913, under the yoke of international pressure, Portugal was ordered to stop its practices of another century. The roças will be reorganised around modern architectures and health policies. Above all, we expose the relevance of the civilising mission through a meticulous staging of power and hierarchy.
Our stay in Príncipe is coming to an end and we spend the afternoon playing around the house with Nhanu’s children. Bidolino, who was secretly preparing himself behind a vegetal curtain, suddenly appears in costume and proudly poses. The little boy now floats in the sky, or fights like a medieval knight. A form of popular theater, Auto de Floripes, inspired by the Charlemagne cycle and which recounts past clashes between Christians and Moors, continues on the island. Like São Tomé’s Tchiloli, these live shows are classical pieces performed by the oppressor that the islanders have appropriated and transformed over the centuries. An anachronistic, subversive and mystical mixture, they are above all the expression of a resistance where justice must prevail in the timelessness of the forest, behind the fencing masks and the frantic rhythms of the pitu flutes.
As our journey draws to a close, we look back on the few days spent in the south of São Tomé Island in Praia Jalé. We will be magnetized by this beach day and night to the rhythm of the leatherback turtles that come to lay there. But this earthly paradise hides a whole different reality in the land, where huge fields of monoculture palm trees have welcomed us. The western palm oil appetite, or our more recent craze for coconut, is scalping the forest before our very eyes.
In Praia Jalé, Suzette and her mother will welcome us. The language barrier will quickly be broken and the little girl, full of curiosity, will stare at this strange device around my neck for long minutes.
