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Journal of African trips

Africa, spring 1999 part II

Agelasto
2004-05-21 18:00:16

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something very un-British). Sometime after 9 a.m. a big bus
arrives. I hope against hope that there might be a queue (this is a big bus and one would
think something more formal and orderly than a mini-van). Boy am I wrong. The stampeding herd becomes vicious, and when the dust clears (literally), I am left without a
seat. It turns out that many of the old folks on the bus have paid young men, facilitators,
to save them a seat, so there is no way I could have elbowed my way ahead of the
numerous 20 year old bucks who do this sort of thing as a profession. I have my luggage
with me and realize it will have to be stored on top. I carry a backpack, but whenever
traveling in busses or taxis I enclose the rucksack in a nylon bag and lock it with a
combination lock. So I drag the bag back off the bus and find an attendant to store it atop
the bus (keeping out the inevitable dust is another reason I use a nylon bag), and she gives
me a ticket. Then I get back on the bus which was now getting quite crowded, even with
the herd of bucks grazing among customers who wait for the next bus. Then I find out I
have to buy a bus ticket which an attendant sells from a cage in the middle of the bus, a
congested area which everyone is either trying to reach or trying to leave. (Why couldn?t
they sell tickets at the depot and assign seats as they do in most places in the world?) I
finally squeeze through and buy my ticket (I am charged for the bag at this time). I return
to my standing spot. The bus resembles a sardine can on its side that smells quite ripe
(few locals use deodorant in Africa. It takes a few weeks to acclimate to this natural
human odor; I am not yet acclimated.)

So I am left standing for the next three hours, or about 150 kilometers. TG?s highway - it
is the nation?s only highway - is macadam, and pretty smooth as roads in West Africa go,
but it is still three hours standing, the first time I have ever stood in a moving vehicle for
so long. When the bus pulls over for lunch, I grab the seat of a passenger who?s leaving.
I know I should give this seat to the elderly women and pregnant women and women with
babies bundled on to their backs who remain standing. But the custom in Africa is first
come, first served, and I rationalize that giving up my seat would be an affront to local
custom. And it would just give fodder to those who argue that white folks? customs are
just plain stupid. Fortunately, most of the infirm, baby-ridden and pregnant women find
seats, and my guilt abates and I no longer have to pretend to be reading so as to avert my
eyes from coming in contact with those of fellow passengers.

From my vantage point, the bush taxi is starting to look pretty good again. And they
better because they are what I must endure in order to see what will be my favorite West
African country, Guinea.