ABSTRACT
In 1988 a Nigerian journalist found: There is no desert without an oasis. Amid the poverty of Malabo, the rich live in style, worthy of their class. There are as many as 20 privately owned Mercedes on this island. Quite a few, too, are owned by the government, which also parades some official Lada cars imported from the Soviet Union. Many elements of traditional culture remain. This is especially true in Rio Muni where music retains some of its socioreligious functions. The mvet is the principal traditional musical instrument among the Fang. It is a type of zither made from a calabash and has a palm stem and strings made from plant fibers. As elsewhere, "Westernization"—the imposition of European culture on non-European groups—has had an impact on religion. However, the term should be used guardedly in Equatorial Guinea because of the slow penetration of both the capital and culture of the European colonizer.
