Sao Tome and Principe, isn't that in the armpit?
The bare minimum here seems to be 400 hours. Most companies with small pistons start from that mark with their insurance, then the next mark is about 1000-1500 for turbines.
As for the state of living, the half naked farmer feeding his cows likely has a mobile tucked into his loin cloth. In the cities you can have a nice pleasant life, I just went to see James Bond in a cinema not unlike any other western nation would have. But on the way home we drove back along a three lane road, direction of traffic in center lane is decided by who has the biggest veachle and who has the biggest balls.
You can find it all on this great wide continent, sometimes for a hefty price. I hear Nigeria and Angola are becoming far too expensive and the traffic makes walking seem a viable option. And then you got a place were people think your loaded because you own more than one t-shirt and places where kids under 20 have never seen a motorised veachle.
That's the nice thing about here, you can find it all.
