You notice that Sao Tome is not a reggae country. They have problems getting guitar strings, relates Vicente, the guitarist in the group Africa Negra, after the festival in the parque, a meeting-point where many celebrations and concerts are held. Instruments and equipment are acquired only through having connections, in Europe or Gabon, he says. In the town there's no specialist shop, and the stuff is expensive too. On the radio you can sometimes hear even jazz, a musical donation from France.
Local radio is too impoverished.
Voice of America set up its hypermodern transmission boosters right next to the old ones of Radio Nacional. On the flat spit of land on which the antennae stand, salt used to be extracted in former times. Not far from there, the Chinese attempted to start up a rice project. They did not, however, take into account that the local menfolk feared that they would lose their manhood if they had to work with their legs in water. The project failed.