Cirrus clouds cast shadows over the ochre Sahel. Above equatorial Africa, they thickened into tumour-like cumulus. Descending towards Bioko Island, one could see vast oil refineries had replaced tracts of virgin rainforest. The airport cowered below the fog-capped Pico Basilé.
"Welcome to the Kuwait of Africa," Alejandro said. "But this isn't Africa. It's bland, like black-and-white television."
The roads facilitate the movement of the Bubi, the first tribe to inhabit the island, and the flow of 323,000 barrels of petrol per day.
The construction continues: government ministries, apartments, paseos, two once-used multimillion-dollar conference centres, stadiums to host the 2012 African Cup of Nations, and a Sofitel with silent, well-trained staff crowning the man-made beach of Sipopo with its idle golf course. It's the ideal place to enjoy a gin and tonic while Bubi collect seashells.
Over fois gras and filet boeuf flown in from France, an expatriate said, "You know, this isn't Africa. If you want life in colour, go to Nigeria or Ghana or Benin."
Djibril, Alejandro's houseboy, agreed. "You must come to Togo with me! There we have so many restaurants! So many smiles!" Why was he in the capital, Malabo? "Ah, like Alejandro, for work."
With Djibril I visited Malabo, where taking photos can land one in jail. No one smiled. "You could be a spy," Djibril whispered. "The president's always afraid of a coup."
"Life is better here," Djibril explained in a battered Japanese taxi, "but it's more expensive. This fare costs four times that in Togo."
In the New Benin shantytown, Alejandro's Bubi driver José showed me how his people lived: in rows of butter-yellow one-roomed plywood-and-corrugated-iron huts with no water or electricity, beneath which open sewers crisscrossed. "We Bubis have been persecuted since independence. We've no grandparents," José said.
The nearest stallholder lifted a wary finger. Would I buy one of her five tins of tomato paste? Her left eye was a black point in a yaws-like ulceration. They spoke. "I asked her would she like to come with you to your country," José translated. "She said no because she'd be the prettiest woman there!"
This is Africa.
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