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| The Death Cab |
The taxis that depart Kerou are guaranteed to leave on a specific day of the week - a remarkable feat given this part of the world's lack of accountability on...anything. But a specified time is not necessarily noted. They say 10 am at the earliest, but you can find yourself sitting at the taxi gare (station), IN the car not wanting to give up the precious, mildly comfortable eat you've scored for yourself, in fear that another kid, pregnant lady, nun, sleazy man, or generally smelly person will take your spot should you decide to get up and run to find a pee spot, or get some food. This wait could potentially last three hours at which point you'll find yourself crammed against 19 other people (children included), maybe a chicken, too and/or a goat in a dismal, decrepit, and ancient automobile whose seats no longer resemble actual seats, but rather a melange of metal fixtures and cloth.
After each nook and cranny has been satisfyingly squeezed with human bodies, bundles, or animals, the car will creak out onto the dusty road. You do not drink much water because no one knows if there will be a bathroom break (when the car does halt, you'll find a bush on the side of the road). You've hopefully had a big breakfast because food is an unknown.
Upon initial departure the car meanders maybe 200 feet before the driver begins stopping the car systematically to chat with every Mohamed, Ibrahim, and Razack he sees, as though suddenly he has appointments to keep. And you cannot sleep on this trip. There is no where to rest your head, and plus, it's far too hot. Also, there are too many distractions like bawing and screeching kids - and goats, heckling mamas, and gruff papas yelling back and forth, all preventing you from closing your eyelids. It is now your duty as a passenger to begin hoping that the car doesn't break down.
Though it probably will. And when it does, you'll get out of the car with all the other Mothers, Babies, and Children to sit under a tree while the Men fiddle with the engine, scratch their heads and spit; moving through each step towards repair with surprising agility. And that's when it dawns on you that the driver and each of its passengers have encountered this very problem hundreds of times before. Yet, you can only watch patiently from your dirt seat on the ground under the tree waiting for the engine to be fixed - again. Can the driver buy a new car? No, not until that engine has a tombstone. Plus, this driver probably doesn't have any savings nor the luxury of making the journey to a place where automobiles are actually sold.
After waiting at least 4 hours if you're lucky, two if you're luckier still, you're on the road once more. But now the car moves even slower than before - what with the hundreds of pounds of miscellaneous luggage piled on the roof, the 20 passengers, and the newly dredged up anxiety that the car may break down a second time, it's a wonder we aren't being pulled by mules. So slow the rickety piece of metal moves; up and down the pot-hole filled roads while one (or both) of your legs begin to feel numb because the gangly 16 year old boy sitting across from you has longer legs than you are tall. So your own limbs are crushed and contorted in just such a way that the pain creeps up your back finding a perfect resting spot in your lower, middle and upper spin where it will remain for days after. Oh, and at this point you may also begin praying that the little boy who sits on the lap of the 16 year old, both of whom are facing you, doesn't get car sick and puke on your skirt (happened to me twice already).
The car will likely stop once or twice so the passengers can get out and stretch their legs and test their joints. Or the driver may pull over and ask everyone to get out and walk in the mid day sun, while the hunk of iron vaguely resembling a car, is pushed up a surly hill. Either way, you just keep your fingers crossed, your breath held and your eyes open for signs indicating hell has almost passed.
After about eight hours, the trip to Cotonou is about half way over but you've only arrived in the nearest large city in route, and can stop for the night. It's probably dark by now, and if you are a Peace Corps volunteer you can crawl to the lovely confines of a Peace Corps workstation (beds, computer, electricity, RUNNING WATER, a real toilet), or if you are a local you head home to your Auntie's house. If you are a visiting traveler, you can find a reasonable hotel and perhaps spend some time looking around for street food and drinking water.
When you get up the next morning, waking in an actual city opposed to a small village, you are afforded the opportunity to take a REAL BUS (think demolished Grey Hound in AFRICA) at 7am and sit in the sweltering heat of the unventilated transport for at least 8 more hours.
Yet this bus is better than the taxi as it's almost promised to stop for food and a bathroom break (hard boiled egg and sauce, maybe, stuffed into some bread, and peeing behind a wall or in the bushes somewhere 'inconspicuous'. But you're in a PUBLIC, and crowded pit stop where other buses have stopped with hundreds of passengers, so where exactly IS 'inconspicuous'???). Also, on this bus there is a place to put your luggage. And there are real seats. Yay. but the windows are CLOSED so fresh air is granted only when the bus's front and rear door sporadically opens to dispense and collect new passengers. Not that bad, but bring tissues to wipe the sweat off your upper lip, forehead, neck...and carry something to fan your face. You'll be grateful. Oh yeah, don't drink any water.
Then you've arrived in Cotonou. If you are a non-Peace Corps visitor, you can hop on a plane and fly home to a comfy, beautiful, LAND OF THE FREE but organized, and you'll never have to make that agonizing trip again.
But I on the other hand will make that ROUND TRIP an average of once every two months for the next two years. While it's more than possible to hire a 'private' taxi for the entire length of that journey, thereby cutting the travel down from two days to one, and eliminating all fellow passengers, my budget does not allow for that and well, I'm here to live like the people, right?
I wrote this about one month after arriving in the village where I'd been assigned to live for the next two years. I learned not too long afterwords that my in-country travel arrangements are unique compared to other volunteers. Shuffling around the sites of Benin, and West africa for that matter is not nearly as agonizing as this particular route...
