{maique}

Week with no guests. Week with tinyMovieStar by my side all day long, while mom works at the office. Exhausting week. We spent most of the week in town.

🏝️ Started with a very regular Friday. We went out for dinner. We met friends. We ate. We drank.

It had a morning, afternoon, and evening. As most do.

I also spotted a sticker, something out of the ordinary here. There are stickers, but they are all on motorcycles, as the last posts confirm. That’s it for sticker spotting. I’ve almost stopped posting altogether, as even I am bored with them.

Then the storm came! A huge one, complete with thunder, for hours. The whole night. Thunder. Rain. We woke up multiple times. Storms here are very different, or feel very different. They feel more primal. Also, the fact that there’s no light at all during the night, with the power being cut off, turns the night into a very silent thing. No one is up, not a single radio on, nothing. Just the forest sounds, and the storm, with lightning. It’s beautiful.

When morning finally came, I went out looking for a special kind of banana. tinyMovieStar loves those apple bananas, but they’re not always available. Some stalls have them once in a while, and they’re impossible to find at the market, unless you get there before 6AM. I’m not going anywhere before 6AM. Sometimes, when we’re driving around (and we did not this week), we find them being sold on the side of the road, out of the city. Cheaper too.

Before that, I needed money. So I got some more. It involves sending some euros to a Portuguese account.

Found the bananas, and awesome Joel while at it. He invited me for a beer. Why not? It was almost noon already.

Back home for a little while, and then we took the little one to Book Club. Nice initiative by one of movieStar’s colleagues. For kids. On the way, more photos.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, and then I went out for take away.

One of the new restaurants in town is a pizza/burger place. It’s very close to home, in the same spot one of our friends used to have a clothing/accessories boutique, mainly catering to tourists. Of course, she went under, since tourists aren’t nearly enough to support these shops. She employed a couple of people, they produced the items with African themed fabrics, purchased locally. Another very cool handicrafts store also closed after being opened for only a little while. Sad, but predictable.

Anyway, burgers and pizza are new here, and every kid in town is begging their parents to take them there. The restaurant is very fairly priced, and always packed. A success story. Cater to local, not tourists.

Sunday arrived, and with it the damn church bells. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that, and no way to have coffee at home.

This Sunday was a little different, as it was Cup Final day. I got to spend a couple of hours with the nice guys from Porto Real, the best team on the island. They did, in the end, lose the game. They were, understandably, sad. The friend who invited me over (one of the players), was very disappointed, and messaged me later, apologizing for inviting me for such a sad show. He felt embarrassed, and it didn’t matter how many times I told him I had a great time, and still loved it.

In the evening we finally got to have some ice-cream. The shop is, normally, closed. When it opens, there’s no ice-cream. This time we were lucky and they did have vanilla, and were open for business. Had a caipirinha next.

Caipirinha: 1.2€. Ice-Cream: 1€. Decent.

Monday morning… La La La La La …

Belo Monte visit. Pool, and overpriced lunch. It was a national holiday, movieStar was almost having a day off. Nice dinner at Cruz, the spot where we are having most dinners.

Days without guests/journalists are mostly all equal: movieStar at the office, and the rest of the family alone all day. Since there’s only one cafe, no library, no movie theater, no beach in the city, only one decent mini market, we’re a bit stuck. We struggle to find different ways to keep the little one entertained. I struggle to find ways to keep me entertained.

Then there were no eggs on the island. Thankfully that one was solved after a day. At the same time, another rainbow. Mood on the island sways with these little events.

This was also the day I rode Francisco’s Chinese motorcycle, in the night, after dinner. Small ride, but I’ll do it again. Francisco is a good friend, the architect who is almost permanently on the island, tasked with implementing the vision of the chief architect, who visits once or twice a year. We have dinner with him almost every day. He’s usually driving his pickup truck, but also owns this cheap motorcycle.

I also got a haircut, on a rainy day. The day was a bit depressing, but it ended on a good note. One of our favorite restaurants is now open, after more than a month with closed doors. tinyMovieStar helped bake a yummy orange cake for dessert.

More journalists are coming, and then we’re off. By this time next week we’ll be flying back to Portugal, after a day in São Tomé. It’s been six weeks since we left, and we’ve been mostly away since July. We’re all missing home, but we’ll miss this place. A lot. We always do. This time around even tinyMovieStar will miss it. She’s old enough to remember all the things she experienced in a month and a half.

☕️ My buyMeACoffee account saw a LOT of action last week. I’m very grateful. It was very strange, but very welcome.

💸 Purchased some Envijon presets. Not many, not expensive. They look good. Also, there’s a black market for those, I found out! Someone will source dozens of these, and sell them at a discount.

📹 I thought about setting up another blog, for short video clips. I did. Not sure how long I’ll be able to keep motion.maique.eu alive. Editing, reducing file size, endless upload attempts with under par internet, … it’s all too much trouble. Some hate it, but Instagram, both Stories and Reels, are great for that. I gave Ghost a shot, and the videos look amazing over there, just not sure I want another bill. I have Bear, and Pika, for a year, and both are very poor at handling this. Very small maximum file size means a couple of seconds of video only. I ended up with Scribbles. Still a super service.

🍿 Wolfs. Meh. I love the guys, and that made it tolerable.

📺 I watched every available episode of Bad Monkey**, and I’m now waiting for the weekly releases. Same with Slow Horses, of course.

📚 Arriving Today, by Christopher Mims. I should enjoy this one. I am liking this one.

📱 New apps on the block: World Clock Widgets. The awesome OK Video. And Croissant, another app I don’t need, but that didn’t stop me from subscribing.