The Last Party in Malabo Town

I was dragged out kicking and screaming on a leaving party and nearly got arrested by the site security at the main gate for not having my site pass, that was a bad omen I was thinking. We drove into town and waited at the toll booth, it is a party site, soldiers and a rag tag bunch of whores and soldiers friends all getting drunk and who knows what else. Probably sex in the bushes and stealing all the toll money, why else would they be hanging around the tollbooth. So we went got into town passed all the abandoned wheeless police cars outside the station. And through the shanty town squalor we jumped out all 15 maybe and went into the hotspot in town called treasure island, once again it is owned and run by the Chinese families that seem to run all the best business’s in town. But I was shocked to find a really clean and fresh drinking place without a whore in sight. It was OK as a starting place but it had no atmosphere at all just a posh restaurant like anywhere in the world so after 2 drinks we all abandoned ship. We walked through the rubble of the high street and I felt a little uncomfortable as women squatted at the side of the road selling junk mostly and staring at the strange white men, even though the oil guys have been here for about 10 years I think only in the last 2 years have there been more than a handful of Europeans or Americans in town. So we arrived at what can only be described as a space between two house and a few tables with white plastic chairs scattered around and this was called the china sisters bar, with a sign saying massage parlour on the wall. It is a hut out of which they sell beer and a toilet that stunk so badly as to be offensive in the extreme. Nothing more than a toilet bowl sat in concrete and a large water barrel and a jug that you were meant to flush it with. As there had been cholera in town for the previous 6 months I was avoiding touching anything. we asked if the sisters were doing the massages adn were told no, they were bringing beautiful chinese girls into E.G. from Chine but they couldnt get Visas for them yet, so the sign was a bit premature. We were drinking in a group of 6 and in the bar was a group of about 6 young prostitutes and for some strange reason they did not approach us at all, not once were we propositioned, they did eventually approach our colleagues on the other table but that was so late maybe 11.00pm and for me that was fine as they can be very forceful, grabbing hold of you and demanding beer, the girls were dancing around the table sitting on guys laps and wriggling about, the guys know the score and have a laugh, one or two were stood jiggling there huge booties in some guys face, there was even one of the waitresses from the canteen who was there trying to make some extra money as she was being very provocative with a few guys bending over and getting them to slap her ass, but we had a great laugh all night discussing the merits of where next to go working and where not to and watching the antics on the next table, we all agreed this place could be a very nice part of the world if the locals were not so badly corrupted by the president. It is inevitable that sooner or later this place will be like Nigeria and it is a shame, as they seem a nice sort of people just very stinky. We all staggered back to the bus and started singing those drunken songs that the brits do so well and after a minute there seemed to be some shouting and finger pointing going on and a then all hell broke loose, a couple of guys had to be held back from attacking a couple of guys who had been complaining that we had delayed the bus, it was all very nasty and drunken but the night out isn’t the same without some fighting at some point. It all calmed own after about 1 minute and then we all got back to singing. We didn’t get back to camp until 1.00am and then we were all up at 5.30am and in the whole year I have only ever been late for work twice and once was when I overlaid on night shift. I think everybody was very delicate the next day but we survived one more night in Malabo to tell the tale.