FESPACO
The ride out of Bobo was absolute hell, but I’ve come to learn that hellish rides are the norm, rather than the exception here.
The train arrived almost five hours later, rank with sweat and loaded with produce. Some people had been riding the train since the previous evening, when it departed Abidjan, and would travel for almost a day and a half before reaching Ouaga.
At each stop – and there were far too many – people would rush onto the train to buy things like bananas, plantain, avocadoes, pineapples and big bags of Kola nuts. Two big, fat women sat opposite me, each with a full seat for four, plus the overhead racks and their own seats loaded with produce and they would stand up on the seats and stick their heads out the window to announce their wares. A big sack of pineapples went for 2,00 CFA, about $5.
At hour two of waiting for the train to appear, I was a bit worried that I’d made a bad choice for transportation and after another three hours and a few minutes on the train, I was certain. It was nowhere near as comfortable nor any speedier than the bus. I managed to fall asleep – dead asleep, actually – and woke up several times, finally opening my eyes to the stinging sensation of having my hand slapped by the man traveling opposite me, who told me we were at Ouaga, that as a foreigner I would have to wait at the station until morning and that he would like my address so we could correspond. We were still a half hour from Ouaga, there was no reason I could think of to hold me at the station and there was no way I was giving him my address. I got off the train tired, stiff, cranky and desperate for a bathroom. Instead, I found the gates locked and a pushy “taxi” driver hovering like a fly around a stink. The problem was my absolute lack of hotel reservations and the fact the city was full up of film-goers for the FESPACO festival. The driver agreed to help me find a place, but it proved to be a pretty frustrating venture and by the end I spent as much on the room as I would on have if I’d just stayed in town at a hotel we saw before he drove an hour to drop off his friend. When he popped the hood and took out the dipstick, then wandered away to pee, I just lost it and could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. The driver took no notice, of course, and by the time I finally agreed to a room, he demanded more money, thinking nothing of the hour of my time he wasted. I refused and was scared witless when, 10 minutes after I walked into the hotel room, and was just about to step into the shower, he started hammering on the door demanding money. I initially felt scared, then angry that I was paying $50 for a hotel room and management had so little regard for me or the fact I was traveling alone that they let him through to bang on the door at 4 a.m. Then I just felt guilty, anxious and tired.
But every day is a new day and the next one – although I was already technically in it – was promising. I walked into town, went to the tourist office for help finding accommodations then went for lunch where I met Christine, a Peace Corps volunteer from Ghana who happily shared her FESPACO schedule. We had a good chat, then parted ways. I went to the bank and the Internet, where I met some more Canadians on their way back to Ghana, then headed for my hotel and a long nap.
I met Christine and Sarah, an American studying French in Senegal, at the movies and watched three films back-to-back, starting with a Canadian film called “Stander” about South Africa’s biggest bank robber. It was good, but the accents were sometimes incomprehensible and there was a tenuous sometimes forced-feeling subplot involving apartheid. The second film, Souli, was an Othello take off that was also quite good, with a small but smart cast and some good commentary on the tensions between black and white. The third film, which I waltzed up to another theatre alone for, was all in French and Arabic, but involved a father-son roadtrip to Mecca. I quite enjoyed it, but found the ending quite sad.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and had initially quite a sleepless night, as it was hot and airless and the fan seemed to be doing nothing with its whirring. I kept getting up to splash water on myself and remove more clothing until I was down to just my skivvies.
The next morning I slept late, then had a rather unproductive morning wandering trying to find things that seemed to have moved from their designated place on my map. I bought a couple postcards and visited the music museum recommended by Brian, which was actually very interesting, informative and well-maintained. It contained a few balafon, which I learned makes its sound not by the gourds, but the length of the wood pieces. The gourds merely amplify the sound. I met Christine in the afternoon for lunch at the American embassy, which was way out and really not all that worth it. I thought I might see her again at the movies, but I ended up at a really horrible, plodding French film that I sat through only because I had nothing better to do.
The next morning, I got up had breakfast and headed to the bus station to begin the long, long trek into Mali. There clearly isn’t much trade between the two countries because the route is not well-traveled. There are few taxi brousses and at one point, the road is merely dust.
I made it as far as Ouhiguaya without any problems, but then waited for about three hours for the car to Koro to fill up. Four Ghanaians headed to Mali to sell clothes waited with me and basically took care of me, ensuring I had chopped and had a place to stay.
When we finally got ready to go, the driver tried to overcharge me by 500 CFA, which I wanted no part of and we got into a fight about how I’m a rich white and could afford to give him a cadeaux. The ride, as per usual was a nightmare. I sat in the front with an old Muslim guy who wouldn’t even look at me, the roof crumbling on my head, the overhead light banging on my forehead, the gearshift digging into my thigh and the seatbelt poking into my back. But I wasn’t squeezed into the fleshy folds of the Ghanaian women, so I consider myself lucky. The car had clearly seen better days and barely halfway into our journey, a tire blew. Then the spare blew and finally the spare spare blew. We came limping into Koro about two hours after leaving Ouihayouga covering a distance of only 75 km.
The train arrived almost five hours later, rank with sweat and loaded with produce. Some people had been riding the train since the previous evening, when it departed Abidjan, and would travel for almost a day and a half before reaching Ouaga.
At each stop – and there were far too many – people would rush onto the train to buy things like bananas, plantain, avocadoes, pineapples and big bags of Kola nuts. Two big, fat women sat opposite me, each with a full seat for four, plus the overhead racks and their own seats loaded with produce and they would stand up on the seats and stick their heads out the window to announce their wares. A big sack of pineapples went for 2,00 CFA, about $5.
At hour two of waiting for the train to appear, I was a bit worried that I’d made a bad choice for transportation and after another three hours and a few minutes on the train, I was certain. It was nowhere near as comfortable nor any speedier than the bus. I managed to fall asleep – dead asleep, actually – and woke up several times, finally opening my eyes to the stinging sensation of having my hand slapped by the man traveling opposite me, who told me we were at Ouaga, that as a foreigner I would have to wait at the station until morning and that he would like my address so we could correspond. We were still a half hour from Ouaga, there was no reason I could think of to hold me at the station and there was no way I was giving him my address. I got off the train tired, stiff, cranky and desperate for a bathroom. Instead, I found the gates locked and a pushy “taxi” driver hovering like a fly around a stink. The problem was my absolute lack of hotel reservations and the fact the city was full up of film-goers for the FESPACO festival. The driver agreed to help me find a place, but it proved to be a pretty frustrating venture and by the end I spent as much on the room as I would on have if I’d just stayed in town at a hotel we saw before he drove an hour to drop off his friend. When he popped the hood and took out the dipstick, then wandered away to pee, I just lost it and could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. The driver took no notice, of course, and by the time I finally agreed to a room, he demanded more money, thinking nothing of the hour of my time he wasted. I refused and was scared witless when, 10 minutes after I walked into the hotel room, and was just about to step into the shower, he started hammering on the door demanding money. I initially felt scared, then angry that I was paying $50 for a hotel room and management had so little regard for me or the fact I was traveling alone that they let him through to bang on the door at 4 a.m. Then I just felt guilty, anxious and tired.
But every day is a new day and the next one – although I was already technically in it – was promising. I walked into town, went to the tourist office for help finding accommodations then went for lunch where I met Christine, a Peace Corps volunteer from Ghana who happily shared her FESPACO schedule. We had a good chat, then parted ways. I went to the bank and the Internet, where I met some more Canadians on their way back to Ghana, then headed for my hotel and a long nap.
I met Christine and Sarah, an American studying French in Senegal, at the movies and watched three films back-to-back, starting with a Canadian film called “Stander” about South Africa’s biggest bank robber. It was good, but the accents were sometimes incomprehensible and there was a tenuous sometimes forced-feeling subplot involving apartheid. The second film, Souli, was an Othello take off that was also quite good, with a small but smart cast and some good commentary on the tensions between black and white. The third film, which I waltzed up to another theatre alone for, was all in French and Arabic, but involved a father-son roadtrip to Mecca. I quite enjoyed it, but found the ending quite sad.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and had initially quite a sleepless night, as it was hot and airless and the fan seemed to be doing nothing with its whirring. I kept getting up to splash water on myself and remove more clothing until I was down to just my skivvies.
The next morning I slept late, then had a rather unproductive morning wandering trying to find things that seemed to have moved from their designated place on my map. I bought a couple postcards and visited the music museum recommended by Brian, which was actually very interesting, informative and well-maintained. It contained a few balafon, which I learned makes its sound not by the gourds, but the length of the wood pieces. The gourds merely amplify the sound. I met Christine in the afternoon for lunch at the American embassy, which was way out and really not all that worth it. I thought I might see her again at the movies, but I ended up at a really horrible, plodding French film that I sat through only because I had nothing better to do.
The next morning, I got up had breakfast and headed to the bus station to begin the long, long trek into Mali. There clearly isn’t much trade between the two countries because the route is not well-traveled. There are few taxi brousses and at one point, the road is merely dust.
I made it as far as Ouhiguaya without any problems, but then waited for about three hours for the car to Koro to fill up. Four Ghanaians headed to Mali to sell clothes waited with me and basically took care of me, ensuring I had chopped and had a place to stay.
When we finally got ready to go, the driver tried to overcharge me by 500 CFA, which I wanted no part of and we got into a fight about how I’m a rich white and could afford to give him a cadeaux. The ride, as per usual was a nightmare. I sat in the front with an old Muslim guy who wouldn’t even look at me, the roof crumbling on my head, the overhead light banging on my forehead, the gearshift digging into my thigh and the seatbelt poking into my back. But I wasn’t squeezed into the fleshy folds of the Ghanaian women, so I consider myself lucky. The car had clearly seen better days and barely halfway into our journey, a tire blew. Then the spare blew and finally the spare spare blew. We came limping into Koro about two hours after leaving Ouihayouga covering a distance of only 75 km.
posted by Palmer in Africa at 10:24 AM
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