Staying lubricated in lockdown

– Amanda leans into the fridge, fishes out two ice-cold beers and quickly closes the door after taking a worried glance up and down the street.

“No table, just chairs,” she says. The reason for the discretion: her tiny bar is welcoming customers on the sly, defying a threemonth-old anti-coronavirus lockdown in Gabon’s capital.

High-end bars, restaurants and nightclubs catering for wealthy Gabonese and expats on Libreville’s seafront have all dutifully been shuttered.

But in the city’s poor districts, the sound of laughter and good times can still be heard as Regab, the local beer, is supped behind closed doors.

The defiance highlights the role of bars in the country, which some say are vital outlets serving many purposes beyond just booze.

“Let’s go to Alba’s, that’s where the action is,” said Oscar, 33, as he scoured the bar-restaurants, or maquis, in one of Libreville’s poorer neighbourhoods.

Alba, a 33-year-old mother, is the manager of a bar that provides her only income and she must continue to pay the rent on it.

She stealthily kept the bar open at the start of the lockdown and when the police passed by, lights, music and cigarettes were all lowered.

“But shutting up drunks was not easy,” Alba sighed.

It thus became necessary to pay bribes to police to turn a blind eye.

But the kickbacks became such a burden that Alba finally moved her business out of the bar and into her house.

Her home, nestled among dilapidated huts, is reached through a maze of sheet-metal shacks on paths dotted by immense pools of mud.

There, her clientele arrives in groups: unemployed young people, tilers, soldiers and even a magistrate.

“Everybody’s happy at my place,” she said proudly.

In these mapanes, as the poor neighbourhoods are called here, bars are a safety valve.

“There is nothing, no cinema or parks,” said Etoughe-Efe, a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific and Technological Research.

“What else is there to do but go to the bar?”

Since the 1970s, Libreville has been experiencing rapid urbanisation. About 800 000 people – more than half of the country’s population – live in the capital.

“Staying locked up is a nightmare,” agreed Serge, a 45-year-old soldier who ordered a soft drink at Alba’s. “I’m suffocating.”

“Urban life in Gabon is very much influenced by village culture. We live outside and the home is just a place to sleep,” said Etoughe-Efe, author of a book in French, The Popular Bars of Libreville.– AFP