KERE- A TREAT OF A RETREAT

As promised, I come back to you with my account of the visit to Kere island. I doubt many of you would have visited an island which is just about 300 meters by 300 meters  and yet houses a proper tourist resort with almost twenty huts, an entertainment “box”, a dining hall with a bar, and a host of activities ranging from swimming or just a jal samadhi with chilled Cristal for company, lolling on the white- sand beach to kayaking and fishing. Kere, a wisp of an island in the Bijagos archipelago in Guinea Bissau,  was uninhabited till the turn of the millennium till one Laurent came and set up a resort around 2000. Actually when I was talking to Laurent , he told me that it was the news that the island had very few mosquito that drove him to pitch his tent for the first time when he was doing some biodiversity study in the archipelago.

The occasion of my visit was to participate in a Retreat being organized by a super efficient colleague Samanntha for  an important division of the UN  mIssion in Guinea Bissau  called the ROLSI or Rule of Law and Security Institutions.  Frankly,  as per the usually understood meaning of retreat as  a kind of military withdrawal , you would be surprised but then the English language is wonderfully polysemic. Retreats can also mean, , in line with long drawn Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi,  and the Christian spiritual traditions ( the Christian one being actually established by Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus whose priests ran a school named after an Italian Missionary in India by the name of Roberto de Nobili in the coalfield town of Dhanbad where I studied) actually aggressive ways of deepening powers of concentration and insight. They can be held in solitude or in a conversation, kind of a “loitering with intent “ in the words of Evelyn Underhill.Well, the fellows in ROLSI are not exactly priests and nuns, but then the diversion to explain just puts things in a perspective. Carrying your thoughts into a quiet sunset is indeed very invigorating.

About 24 of us, mostly from Portuguese speaking countries on either side of the Atlantic, left early morning from Bissau and debussed at a point beyond Quinhamel  after a long drive on unpaved roads where three country boats , powered with ubiquitous Japanese  engines, met us . We started to weave our ways through the delta formed by the Canal do Geba and Rio Mansoa   into the Bijagos Archipelago - typical mangrove, a scale much smaller than the Sunderbans but fairly reminiscent of it. The archipelago was declared by UNESCO in 1996 a Biosphere reserve - the Boloma Bijagos Biosphere Reserve to be precise, known also for animals including marine turtles and even sea water hippopotamus. The Bijagos, also known as Bissagos, Bojagos, Anaki, Bidjogo and Bujagos are an ethnic group  ( and probably gave the name to the country )  and also the name of the only deltiac archipelago in Western coast of Africa,  covering an area of over 10,000 sq km off the  coast of Guinea Bissau.

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Amidst banter, slips in the deltaic slush, selfies and usies, the journey was wonderful though without an event.  We were  lucky with the weather as it didn't rain during the two and a half hour  south western journey , most of it in the green blue waters of the Atlantic, and while the last forty five minutes I spent to catch a series of catnaps, the journey was spiced up with Portuguese and Brazilians making fun of each other’s Portuguese - so the transatlantic divide is sharp not just in English.

On the horizon we left the islands of Maio , Ponta and Formosa, three of the over 80 islands that make up the Bijagos  Archipelago . Kere is really small, and doesn’t find a mention in the tourist maps of Guinea Bissau available in the shops.  When I first spotted Kere, I thought it could be just be a segment of its northern sea face, but Samanntha remarked that was the full face.  It was way too small I thought, but my heart cheered up as soon as we , the last of the three boatloads, got down a soft landing. In most of the smaller islands, like in Rubane off Bubaque I had spent three wonderful days or Kere do not have any jetty, nor can dry landing be facilitated by the improvisation of long, narrow wooden planks which one can see in Sunderbans , so all of us were in our flip flops or hawai chappals, in shorts or rolled up trousers .

The moment I stepped on the white sand , I fell in love with the place. You step out of the boat , go past a thin grove of cabaceria tree and a few others, a few joined by hammocks, some canopying over beach chairs lying about, and you are next to the Dining Hall cum Bar which is a half gazebo, half hall.  When Sonia took me to show in my Cabin No 10 , she threw off her sand- filled sandals just at the entrance, dipped her feet in a small rectangular water filled bucket ( the kind you see around some swimming pools placed as hygiene assists with a solution of potassium permanganate) and I followed her wet footprints on a red rough cemented floor, absolutely clean. The verandah had four huge lounging chairs, a heavy circular table, the usual wall trophies of horns and animal skulls, and its floor was ringed around with a carpet of clam shells . A dim lit room, an attached bathroom, it was oozing with the warmth. I only wish Laurent and Sonia had installed ceiling or stand fans. I couldn’t sleep well the first two nights, even though on night two, I had started my sleep on one of the beach deck chairs . It was  only when I had shifted to room no 3 which had a more upfront exposure to the sea, I got good sleep.

Frankly, the Retreat was a serious business. Breakaway groups, presentations, plenary, wrap-ups - it kept the rapporteurs very busy, and I thought it quite useful to wind up 2016, spell out priorities for 2017 and set up a strategy to achieve them. It was hot and humid, the promised cool breeze playing truant, and meeting hall which was a Entertainment box with exposed beams and a pool table, had the roots of a silk cotton for one of its walls, opening into a wild grove. I think in an island of Bijagos archipelago where the silk cotton tree or polom as it is called in Guinea Bissau Kriol is also supposed to be a repository of wisdom of elders, the choice of the Meeting Hall was apt.

Laurent also probably developed the area around the roots of the silk cotton tree as they were said to be the refuge of some iras or spirits , were centres of most ceremonies and served as sort of as central to life of Bijagos people as the temples were to the communities in many parts of medieval South India. He could set himself up here only after almost two years of hanging around, and his chance advantage of saving the life of a very sick pregnant girl who was the daughter of a local chieftain was taken as a calling for the spirits to have accepted him as one of their own. His baptism was by Bijago animistic custom and various initiation rites ( fanado) . Later when he married Sonia, it was as per the Bijagos custom, which is a half way way matrilineal society!

In my view, the silk cotton tree should serve as a kind of insignia or heraldry for any task force set up to secure the maritime security of Guinea Bissau, threatened as this poor country is by rapacious trawlers froas far China and Korea, drug and human traffickers and even terrorists. Actually, the maritime security architecture is intended to stand on sensitization of and support from local people for proactive interdiction , and what better than to suggest the silk cotton tree, where in the past, the Bijagos tribes planned counter attacks against Fula, Muslim and later on Portuguese invaders .

The dining hall was indeed the centre of activities, as all would have to eat the  pre arranged menu. I wish they added some variety to the breakfast, it was the usual crepes, a few cakes, fruits , juice, coffee and tea. Most of the times, breakfast was the time one had to be most vigilant as bees clung on to your jam and honey spreads . Food during lunch and dinner was excellent.  Fish, caught locally would dominate. The entrees included very thinly cuts fish fillets marinated in lime , sometimes soup of pumpkin, and on one occasion platefuls of clams, while most of the main dishes would include fish boiled, fried, grilled , roasted or even steamed, served with bread or rice or even potato fritters. The dinner on Saturday evening had huge pieces of pumpkin, caramelised and roasted which I quite relished. Dessert was either fruit salad or  caramel custard , the latter having more body than the ones which we normally have in India. Antero, Chief ROLSI , introduced me one evening to the Brazilian Cachaça which is also known as Brazilian rum, but is different from the usual rum we know for unlike the latter which is made from from molasses, Cachaça  is made from fresh sugarcane juice that is just fermented and distilled. 

The Retreat was officially over on Friday, and then was the time for fun. Saturday morning I went for fishing. Actually, the USP of the place is that it is a fishing resort- it is called M’îles Vagues de Découvertes fishing lodge and Laurent represents Guinea Bissau in International Game Fishing Association. The archipelago, with their islands and shallow waters , do not allow the trawlers to come inside and scrounge, as a result of which the waters are abundant with various varieties of trevally, barracuda, cobia, tarpon, etc and I saw a framed picture of a world record being broken in respect of probably Red Snapper.

So with my  two colleagues Salomoa and Kitane, both from Mozambique , and the knowledgeable Kere hand Brato, I spent a good two- three hours on a warm morning . We caught four barracudas, the largest one was about 6-7 kilos which fought and won the battle against my angling rod, but lost the war to Brato’s iron hook - but enough for a been -there -done -that  picture for me.  The catch received a lot of shabashi when we returned, but then when I saw the size of catches in the pictures in the dining hall, I could really appreciate , with a great sense of humility, what international level game fishing was all about.

The afternoon the same day the Brazilian gang egged me to for kayaking. The strong and silent Kitane was my partner, the two had never kayaked , and it was only misplaced enthusiasm and fear of toppling over that kept us going. Our coordination, or lack of it, almost capsized the others due to laughing fits, and we covered, in the first leg, at least three times the distance as others over the same stretch - our glorious mismatch of paddling resulting in almost ox bow slaloms and on a couple of occasions even figures of eight !Well, on the return journey, Fernando advised me to sit in the rear and guide, and the result was a much straighter path.

The following day, Antero exhorted me for another kayaking expedition with Salomao to the Carache Island . Salomao gave up after two three tries and hopeless topsy- turvy , very wet results, so it was once again Kitane. The two of us, and Antero and Christina in another , set out for the more distant, and larger island. For a good two hundred meters before the beach, we hit a sand bank and we didnt know whether to keep rowing or step out and drag the kayak.  Anyways, the four of us reached, met a guy in Jesus Loves You T shirt, who was there for a visit to the local village or tabanka, I found a lovely turtle shell, but out under the bright sun, it was hot. Laurent has helped dig several freshwater wells for the population, one for M’incha health clinic and a few for his vegetable gardens as well.

On return, the tides joined us, and for  the last fifteen minutes , the waters became menacingly choppy, and for a non swimmer like me, a heart in the mouth experience, for about ten, interminably long minutes. Kitane, the Corrections Officer was quiet, I was quiet, this deafening quietude was our anxiety- loaded friendship bond. Meanwhile, in the other kayak, Christina did a big favour by opting out of any activity  which made it easier for Antero to plan his journey uncomplicatedly , and I think confidently - after all, he had his Iberian sea- faring genes on his side.

The return journey on a Sunday afternoon after lunch was evidently quieter, the journey slowed by intermittent engine snags in the other boat, but it felt good to be back, as I noted for my future references a few places Antero pointed out which operated local handlooms.