Wanderlust and Broken Suitcases: 2012

It’s a pity, it’s serious, there isn’t a solution. This is the theme of our trip to Kedougou thus far. The past 36 hours have been something out of a novel.

Yesterday morning I woke up long before my alarm went off. At 3:50 am I rustled around in bed after hearing a mini monsoon occurring outside. My biggest fear at that point was that my underwear hanging to dry on the terrace were going to blow onto someone else’s terrace because the winds were so strong. Thankfully they were there in the morning. Continuing on, I woke up at 6:45a and despite the continuous rain throughout the morning, we decided to journey on.

Unfortunately our set departure time of 8am was delayed because one of the students forgot her passport and cash in the safe at the study center which wouldn’t open until 8:30. We also had several issues with ATM machines in Sacre Coeur so people were bouncing around from bank to bank. Eventually we set off for a mile walk to school with all of our luggage, and one of the guards, Moussa, helped us hail two taxis to the garage pompiers for cheap.

Cool. We’re in the taxi and only paying 1 USD each to get to the garage to catch out next
mode of transportation. Simple, right? Traffic in Dakar was particularly crazy on Friday morning, with the addition of several trees bringing down powerlines on main roads during the storm.

A typical sept-place (looks safe right?)

9:30a – We arrive at the Garage Pompiers and are instantly targeted by every bus or sept-place (basically a station wagon with seven crammed tight seats) driver in Senegal. To describe it as overwhelming is an understatement. You feel so crowded, have no personal space and have to shove your way through people circling around you. Not only are people trying to sell you their services, but also their junk. Radios, watches, knock off sunglasses, cookies, hardboiled eggs and an occasional drug offer. The more you say no or show signs of agitation, the more they try to sell. Eventually you become a statue with no eye contact. It’s the only way people get the message.

We decide to take a mini van instead of a sept place thinking it will be cheaper. The mini van negotiator (aka the man in the yellow polo shirt) told us we could go to Tambacounda (our first destination) for 7,000 CFA as opposed to a sept place for 9,500 CFA and we would’ve had to buy out the seventh seat since we only had 6 people. Trying to save $5, we went for it… The decision that wrote the entire story.

10:30a – We are sitting on the mini bus that we have already paid for and it’s so hot. We want to close the windows because vendors keep shoving things in our face, but we would’ve died if we did. The man in the yellow polo who sold us our tickets pointed to 4 women in the crowd and said they had seats on out bus too. We were just waiting for three more people to leave for Tamba. At this point we were so hot and tired already we bought out the three seats (21,000 CFA divided by 6… 3500 CFA to make the bus move quicker). Just when we thought we were going to leave tout de suite (right away) the man in the yellow polo shows us that the women have a lot of cargo that needs to be loaded on top of the van. I can’t express the amount of cargo that we eventually hauled, and I’m not even sure if pictures do justice. We had at least a thousand pounds of shoes on our roof that the women would be taking back to their home country, guinea, to sell.

11a- Finally, the shoes are loaded. As we are pulling out of garage pompiers, three other people jump in our van (two men and another woman). We are irate, trying to explain in french that we paid for those seats. Man in the yellow polo and his brother hold “court” outside of the van where everyone is screaming and yelling in a mini mosh pit. Eventually the driver (along with us) decided that the 7 bucks we all pitched in wasn’t worth it. We are finally on the road. Estimating a 7-9 hour trip to Tambacounda. Will get a hotel and rest there overnight, picking up for our last stretch to Kedougou in the morning.

Along the way – realizing how much slower the mini bus is in comparison to the sept place. Making frequent stops at check points where Senegalese policemen check the registration of the vehicle and merchandise being transported. Hassled by many cops, explaining the amount of cargo we are transporting isn’t safe. Stop at a total of 15 checkpoints and then stop counting. Problem with checkpoints is that our car can’t shift gears very well. When the driver has to stop, he can’t get the car back into the next gear right away to get the car going. Delays progress substantially.

Stop at a checkpoint where our driver decides to get out to smoke a cigarette and pee. He does this frequently. We have to pee too. Guard tells us the hospital has a bathroom. Walk to hospital next door. They only speak Wolof. Grace knows the word bathroom and asks. After inviting us to eat with them around the bowl sitting on the ground, we tell them we are full, but go inside the hospital looking for the bathroom. Have my first rural hospital experience. Slightly freaked out by what I see. Not feeling that it’s my healthiest decision to be inside the building. Run outside and pee by the side of the building.

4:30p – almost to Tamba? Not so much. We stop in a town to get gas, and also try to fix the gear shifting problems in the bus. We sit on the bus for nearly an hour before checking out a gas station with minimal selections. We thought that would be our only dinner option. Met the only 50 cent in Africa. Sneezed on by the talibe. Received marriage proposals from a 12 year old.

We had come to be really close friends with the Guineans in our bus. We nicknamed the only Guinean man G-unit, as he was always looking out for the sake of the group. While we are sitting on the bus waiting for it to be serviced, he ventures out and finds a restaurant/bar called Blue Bird. We walk over with him and he tells us to eat “tranquillement” (tranquilly). We all order burgers and fries for less than 3USD. We wait patiently. As soon as our burgers are brought out, the Guinean man returns. The bus is finished. We pick up our burgers, pay and run back to the bus. Expecting to make it to Tamba by 9pm.

6:00p – Leave the town and hit the road again.

7:30p – Enjoy an amazing sunset from the backseat of our bus. Talk about life. Talk about what we’ve learned about ourselves so far. Talked about how hard it is to be selfless, and how sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are actually in Africa.

8p – It’s dark. We are still on the road. Hoping to make it to Tamba soon.

9:30p – 13km outside of Tamba The bus is making strange noises and traveling at a much slower pace. We ask our Guinean friends what’s happening. The bus is out of gas. We pull over to side of the road. Bus driver gets out of van and uses his cell phone to flag down another car. At least a dozen pass before someone stops. Car stops and drives driver to get gas. An hour passes. We have a musical exchange with our new friends. They play music from Guinea and Akon. We play Beyonce. They talk to us about how it’s hard to get an American visa. We think that maybe they think we have control over who can get a visa in our country. Conversation gets kind of awkward. Woman asks us if we are married. We respond no. We’re only 20. She tells us she got married when she was 14. She asks why we aren’t married, I respond il n’y a pas de bon hommes. The car laughs. It starts to rain. Bus driver returns with gas. Wants to use water bottle as a funnel but has no knife. Eventually makes it work. Expecting to be to Tamba by 11p. Discussing paying for a hotel or getting a sept place to take us to Kedougou.

10:50p -(10 minutes later on the road) 4km outside of Tamba. It’s raining heavily. Bus driver hits intense pothole. Instant flat tire.

flat tire :(

Good thing there’s a spare on top of all our shoes. Jack for car is too small. Wait for several passerbys to help. Eventually a truck stops with a jack. It’s pouring rain and we are standing outside the bus at 1am.

1:30a – Driver finally gets tire on bus. We try to drive off. The tire wasn’t the only problem, it was the axel too. The driver sits on the side of the highway and cradles his head in his hands and tells us “il n’y a pas de solution.” There isn’t any solution. We all get back on the bus and sit. We’re soaking wet. The bus is leaking. The Guineans all go to sleep. We are legitimately concerned that when it stops raining we will have to walk to Tamba.

Bus driver leaves with truck driver to go summon a new van and, fingers crossed, a sept place to take us directly to Kedougou.

3am – A sept place arrives for us Toubabs. Driver tells us to get in. Also tells us we have to wait for our driver to return to retrieve our luggage from the roof. Wait for nearly an hour. One girl, Julia, is brave enough to venture into the rain to try and find our luggage. We tell sept place driver we have backpacks. He instantly knows where to find our bags.

4a- Leave our Guinean friends and their shoes on the side of the highway. Sept place driver makes brief stop in Tambacounda for gas and to drop off the sept place driver’s friend in a full rain suit.

4:30a – Finally on the road to Kedougou. It’s raining and we’re driving in the dark. Praying for safety and waiting for the sun to rise. Driver tells us it will take 2 hours to get to Kedougou. We estimate 4 hours. We’re right so far.

6:45a – Sun rises. Much easier to relax being able to see the road. Sept place driver is an angel. Very cautious and on a mission to safely deliver the Toubabs to Kedougou. See monkeys on the side of the road. See villages. Listen to some crazy Senegalese music.

9:30a – Driver safely drops us off at Le Bedik, our hotel in Kedougou. Gives us his cell phone number and offers his services back to Tamba when we are ready to leave. We plan to use them. We are so dirty from standing on the side of a dirt highway that we have black coming out of our pores. Our shirts are black. Our faces look like raccoons. When we wash our hands, the water turns black.

10a – Our rooms aren’t ready, but we are welcomed with an amazing breakfast of bread, jam and coconut pound cake. There is also coffee, tea and bissap juice. We decide to stay awake for the rest of the day.

Totals: 24 hours of travel/36 hours without sleep/Dakar to Tamba: about 16 hours/ double what we anticipated. Tamba to Kedougou: 5 hours give or take.

The crazy thing is, not once did I ever feel threatened or at a high level of danger. Our Guinean friends looked out for us while we looked out for each other. Not once were we impatient. We were troopers. Never in America could travel go this wrong.

While so many things could have gone better, and differently, we have replayed this story as a group a million times over and wouldn’t change a single moment. These are the stories we are here for. This is something I will remember for the rest of my life. despite all the issues, we arrived safely in Kedougou and enjoyed our vacation.