So here we are on the road in Africa

Inspiration is low as I pour whatever energy I have into the bloody mémoire, due in three weeks exactly and barley started. Stress is running high and I wish I could be somewhere else... So today's post is all about remembering a bit of a trip I did in 2004 with my friend Olivia to Senegal and Mali. At the time I had some of the worst experiences I thought could happen, though it all seems pretty funny now.

This extract of the Africa diary starts with us somewhere between Dakar and Bamako, trying desparately to get to Mali from Senegal by road...

Woke up at 7. Olivia was roaming about, insomniac because of the heat. Dark clouds looming overhead and insufferable humidity: looks like the rainy season is imminent. We packed up and saw the rest of the family gradually emerge. We had a bucket shower and breakfast of bread and Nescafé. Tarim Toubé was going on his way to work and had told us that he would drop us off at the bus station. We picked up one of his friends who worked for the Senegalese gas company. This was something he seemed to be doing for the first time judging by the look on the friend’s face. We suddenly realised that we were being shown off, a little hike in his prestige the reward for his generosity. This seemed fair enough so we lavishly and truthfully praised our host for his hospitality, generosity, and the splendour of his house and family. We all parted in a good mood.

We needed to go to the bank as these get more scarce apparently over the border, and waited until it opened at 8. Waiting for Olivia, I watched the queue for the Western Union counter get longer. There are Western Unions all over the place, and they are popular for their simplicity: no paperwork or alphabetisation skills needed, no explanations required. One simply correctly answers the confidential question, and collects the money that someone has sent. Living in Paris I see the other end of this chain, the men and women who send their wages to relatives out here. This is the link between these two worlds, both of which are characterised by poverty and need. I looked at the ads on the wall. The ones for loans show how extra money will allow one to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, or lots of goats for Tabaski to impress the neighbours. Credit seems alarmingly available to all, without much indication of the horrendous interest rates.

After the bank we stopped for breakfast (again) on the way to the bus station. We sat at a big round table under a straw roof. We ate a dish made of beans wrapped in bread and I had my first cup of “café touba”. This is bitter, thick and smooth and even with a lot milk tastes overwhelmingly of cinnamon, it warms and lightens the insides.

We found an empty “sept places” going to Kidira (9400 each), the town on the Senegalese-Malian border, Senegal side. This time we took the middle row, which actually has leg room. Next to me and in the back are 4 young guys carrying a massive stereo, they are already asleep. In the front, as chance would have it, is Denis, the rather annoying French chap we met outside the embassy in Dakar. He has only just arrived in Tambacounda, having taken a 24-hour bus journey from Dakar, poor sod. From Kidira we will go to Kayes which is the first big town in Mali. We’re off.

*

It’s now nearly eleven and the countryside is getting greener with more grass, shrubs and trees. It’s really beautiful. Should be at the border in about 3 hours. Insh’Allah!

*

I dozed, with music pumping from the stereo. We reached Kidira at about 12.30, unloaded the car, and handed our passports to the grinning officials. No problems whatsoever. Olivia, Denis, one of the youths and I then took a cab to drive across the border (we’ve made it!), and got out to walk 300 meters to Malian customs. These were in a square concrete building at the end of a small street that crossed a village. Inside, a half naked man was handcuffed to a bench. Olivia, Denis and I paid 1000 FCFA “customs duty” each, which the official pocketed with a smile. The other guy however seemed to have a problem in that he didn’t have a passport, and had a phoney date of birth on his identity card. I hope he doesn’t end up chained to that bench as well.

We walked back to the main road of Dibouli, the village on the Malian side, and are waiting for our new vehicle to fill up. This time it’s a baché, a cross between a van and a 4x4. The driver and two passengers sit at the front, and a kind of trailer is attached to the back. It’s made of wooden slats and has a bench running round it, the floor and roof are made of corrugated iron. After a short wait it has filled up rather a lot: 16 people so far.

*

It didn’t help that on the baché’s floor were two massive spare tyres, buckets and a large bag of rice. A thin iron rail stops anyone falling out of the back and it was as squashed full as it was possible to be. Among the passengers: a turbaned man that looked like a desert nomad Touareg in his long indigo-blue robes; a mother holding her screaming child, five young men with another ghetto blaster stereo, and a large man with the worst skin disease I have ever seen. Half his face was rotten with shiny red flesh poking out from huge scabs; he looked like he’d been eaten by insects. He was also extremely jovial and beamed at the heap of people around him. Actually, it was he who started booming at the driver about the buckets and rice and spare tyres occupying the floor; he bellowed that we were not sardines. One tyre, the rice and two buckets disappeared on to the roof, and three other people promptly got on. One must insist on the fact that this trailer was only 1.50m x 2.50m and with a 1m20 ceiling.

That’s when the goat arrived, accompanied by its young mistress, a cheerful 20-something year old girl. From the cries of the others we understood that the goat was supposed to be travelling with us. “Mais il va uriner partout!”, bellowed the massive flesh-eaten man, so instead the goat was unceremoniously dumped in to a large bag, wrapped up to its head, and tied to the roof. At last we set off, squashed and bouncing on the awful roads, the goat screaming the whole way.

After about 150 meters we were stopped. The police wanted everybody’s passports, except for us three “toubabs” (white men). The others were led off to the official hut by the road, and depending on their nationality paid 1000 or 1500 FCFA. The Mauritanians pay more as they are disliked for still practising slavery on the Senegalese and Malians according to one of our fellow passengers.

This time we were off. The mother and child had now moved to the front, a couple of guys had gone on to the roof next to the bawling goat, another was balanced on the metal bar at the back, the goat-girl was sitting on the spare-tyre. Denis and Olivia were opposite each other at the back looking back at the fleeing road and countryside, I was next to Denis and squashed in to the flesh-eaten man, terrified of contagion. Everyone was very cheerful, we all burst out laughing whenever the poor goat bumped and screamed. The countryside was green, like an endless forest clearing of grass and lonely bushes, scattered baobabs. The road itself was appalling: a wide, red gravel track covered in orange dust. We bounced along. Bounce Bounce Bounce. Baaaaaaaaaaaa. Guffaws. Music blared from the stereo. After about two hours of feeling stiff, we stopped at a little village; the mud houses are square here rather than round. We were covered in orange dust which made us look badly fake-tanned. Everything was covered in dust, it got under the seats, between the toes and teeth, in our bags and water, our eyes and the creases of our clothes. We swapped seats around a few times to get new muscles to ache, and for a long while I dangled out the back, sitting on a metal rod, my feet skimming the air. Became fluorescent orange.

We stopped again for hibiscus juice, a taste of cranberry and peppermint. It comes frozen, in knotted little plastic bags. One simply bites off a corner and slurps it out. It is the most refreshing thing I have ever tasted. The mood was light all the way to Kayes. When we got near the town, we turned down the stereo which had been belting out Malian drum and bass. Soon enough, officials came to look at our passports, gawping with amazement at the difference between our passport photos and grubby reality.

Now, the problem with the baché depot just outside Kayes is that it only has one cab, and it certainly charges monopoly prices. We three toubabs, in search of a place to stay that night, tried bargaining to get to the “Marché” area of town, but the guy knew that without him we were stranded and refused to budge on his asking offer of 2500 FCFA, making noises about it being 7 km away and needing two litres of petrol to get there. In the end we gave in and entered what was truly a horrible vehicle. All cars in Senegal were fucked: cracked windscreens, no mirrors, windows blocked open or shut, no door handles, or just pieces of string where they should be, spluttering engines. This one didn’t even have an ignition. When he had wired it to start, thick black smoke and carbon monoxide started pouring in to the back from the boot where the engine appeared to be. With shut windows it was an asphyxiating drive.

The room we’re staying in is huge, empty except for two foam mattresses and a ceiling fan. There is also running water and I had my first blissful shower in Africa. The rooms are set on the first floor, looking over a courtyard which is covered in straw mats. The bathroom as well as the kitchen is communal, as is a large table set on the terrace. We met half a dozen French people doing various kinds of volunteering in the area. On their recommendation we went to a nearby patisserie for supper, and Denis, who was now getting rather annoying, came too. The dark alleys around the hotel are thick with mud, so we were actually quite pleased when our companion, prepared as ever, produced a torch. Supper, capitaine fish and tinned peas, was rather spoiled by Denis’ monologue of his exploits: hitchhiking in Tibet, hanging out with arms dealers, teaching French to the Indians of Papua New Guinea, motor biking around war-torn Sri-Lanka. He says he expected Africa to be like this- he’s been here as long as I have. We leave tomorrow at 5.15 to catch the train to the capital Bamako. If we miss it, we’re stuck here until Sunday...

*

I woke up this morning to the simultaneous sounds of pouring rain and Olivia screaming “C’est trop la merde!!” We’d overslept; didn’t even hear the alarm in fact; it was 6.15. Olivia hadn’t repacked, and I was drooling with fatigue. She got Denis up (yes, he too was coming to Bamako), he had been wandering around purposefully for hours. Within 15 minutes we were sloshing in the pouring rain in the back alleys where kitten-sized rats swam in puddles of sludge. It was still dark. Thankfully, we found the main road and a cab in these deserted streets. When we got to the station we joined the rather chaotic queue for tickets and learnt that there were no more sit-down seats in second class (7000 FCFA). As the journey is between 10 and 14 hours long, we opted for 1^st class, a hefty 12000 each. The carriage is very empty, especially compared with the chaos that reigns in 2^nd class.

*

We were meant to leave at 7.15, but this is African time. The guards are wearing long yellow raincoats that make them look like Paddington Bear. At the risk of having the train leave without me, I went off in search of breakfast. Next to the station behind a stone wall and beyond a huge swamp was a little stall flanked by long tables. They were making fresh, hot omelette sandwiches, which I got with some coffee made with Nescafé and sweet condensed milk. The protein was great. The platform was not very busy because of the rain, though it was still lively: kids were selling water, women breastfeeding in a circle, a small child sitting on his potty. The guards saw us and burst in to hysterical laughter. They also said that we would shortly be leaving. That was 45 minutes ago. It’s 9 o’clock and the cushioned seats are fabulous, they even recline! I just wonder what time we will arrive in Bamako.

*

We’ve just left; it’s five past noon. The carriage has suddenly filled up with shouting people. What a shithole.

*

We’ve just gone through Mahina where we stopped for a bit. The countryside all around is spectacular like a green Texas, with huge mesas and canyons. For the past three hours though it has been flat again. From the map it seems that in the past seven hours we have covered just one hundred kilometres. We are now crossing the wide Senegal river; it’s very humid and the whole train is just dripping in sweat, the plastic seating on the seats is increasingly uncomfortable.

*

Around seven o’clock, the sky turned the colour of dirty cardboard and the humidity rose about 40%. We were stopping at a village for supper and a well-deserved break from the train. As we got closer to town we heard music drumming away and when we arrived at the station we saw women dancing a kind of St Vitus’ dance, as energetic as what we had seen in Dakar. It was rapidly getting dark; the western side of the sky was yellow, the eastern side already dark with night and black clouds. Outside, on a patch of open land, hundreds of people were milling, squatting in front of huge vats of mutton and rice, and trays of oily dried fish, tea and water. We grabbed small plastic bowls and bought some food- just rice for me, I can’t eat meat since I travelled with the poor goat. 300 FCFA. Night fell minutes after we had arrived, and soon lightning began flashing in all corners of the sky.

Just as we got back on the train the mother of all storms started. Our train is actually an old French one, complete with the French railway maps between carriages. It is completely unadapted to the climate: only the top part of the windows open, making it sweltering, and more often than not they are actually jammed open, allowing the rain to dribble in. The storm was brief and violent. Afterwards the air felt fresher and I stood on my seat, my head hanging out of the window. The whole sky is black on black: spongy velvet storm clouds on a night sky as sharp as glass. Outside a forest is illuminated by frequent flashes of lightning. We are travelling a lot faster now and it is truly exhilarating; the train is like an animal bolting for shelter from the elements.

*

We raced over bridges, over swollen streams and at one point became level with the top canopy of the trees. Forest turned in to thick jungle. Inside, people dozed under the neon lights. I woke up a few times to shut the window as it got cooler. At the same time fresh air was necessary because of the two fat fish our neighbours had bought earlier, and which were now smelling rather putrid. It’s 4.30 in the morning and we seem to have stopped. It is just pissing it down with rain outside, the lightning is flashing every few seconds; the storm is getting hysterical. It’s very hot and sticky inside, and I’m feeling increasingly nervy. Why have we stopped? We can hear an ambulance siren. It seems that someone is going to be taken to Bamako by road. If illness is what it takes to finally get to our destination, I may consider faking something.

*

It turns out it wasn’t someone taken ill at all, it was a corpse found on the rails or in the train, we couldn’t understand which.