The Longest Ride of Your Life - And A Goat May Pee On You.

The Death Cab

The written description below tries to articulate the painfully long ride in a bush taxi from Kerou in the North of Benin, to Cotonou, the largest city, and the capital, in the far South.

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...

New Arrival

Welcoming Party - Petite Nazifa & Bio Portent Des Casques

November 11, 2008

I've had my new address for approximately 8 weeks. I can't give an actual street name nor a house number. But I know the dirt path lined with grass taller than a grown man, littered by a scattering of goats and sheep, begins at the weathered COGEMAC sign beside a lone Mango tree and ends at my front door. The path, barely wide enough for a car, but perfect for bicycles and motos, leads to the 7 foot high barrier walls of a Concession, where behind the large metal red door that locks at night, myself and four other families live. Like a molecular neighborhood we share a well, a tap for running water, a cluster of latrines and seemingly communal child care responsibility. 

This Concession provides a good example of the complex roots of a sometimes complex Beninese family tree; for within the walls of this little community everyone is a Muslim. Of the five families, two of the wives share one husband and have reared more children than I can count. I've tried and it is literally impossible. Among one family, the Second Wife, Biba lives alone with her baby girl while the other and First Wife, Jamila acts as the true matriarch of our cluster of houses, in the largest dwelling, with her load of children and domestique (maids) ruling the coop.

In this space, I have my own home, a cement replica of the two others attached to mine. I have my own door and privacy with shutters on the windows, but I share the outside tap for water. I have a stove for cooking, a comfortable bed, chairs, tables. Lights. Electricity! A walled-in area in the back outdoors where I shower and can see the stars at night. And when I step out the front door I see the laundry of my neighbors drying in the sun on their front porch. 

I'm figuring out how to store and cook food without a refrigerator, making a habit to have an extra basin of water on hand at all times; becoming familiar with the new foods at market and how exactly to buy them without being being afforded the wrong price. 

So far I've begun working in a large vegetable garden, one begun by a French volunteer (not with PC) where I go nearly every morning; facilitating a weekly micro-finance group meeting of 25 men (about 1/3 actually show up each week), and for locals here who cannot speak or write French, I'm trying to work through the tricky African politics of starting a Literacy Group. Difficult, because the Mayor's office is slow to do much of anything and the timing of the group must commence when the adult students finish work in the cotton fields.

Despite the fact the nearest large city with things like green beans or peanut butter for example, is hours away by bush taxi, Kerou is strong and self sufficient with a pretty solid system for keeping people smiling and stomachs full. The marche' (market) comes into town every four days, and the SuperMarche' (grocery store) opens nearly every day with a scattering of perishable goods like soap, candles and condensed milk.

At the marche' fruits and vegetables and other local fair with unpronounceable names are sold at the Marche' (asking about the mystery products is often hopeless as the answer is typically: «To make the sauce»). All produce varies according to dry and rainy seasons - eggs disappeared about a week a ago, two weeks ago tomatoes arrived in true abundance, and so far eggplant, okra, onions, garlic, and cheese are plentiful. Banana's and guava are here for while, and oranges, too. In May mango's will begin to arrive! Watermelons showed up last week and will probably stick around for a month longer.