Home » Togo Niger Ghana » Africa, spring 1999 part IV

Journal of African trips

Africa, spring 1999 part IV

Agelasto
2004-05-21 18:30:15

Displayed times (last time: )

world who can read, much less draw, a
map of their own locality). It?s not that they don?t know where the appropriate bus
should be parked, just that directions I can follow are really not possible. The gare is not
sign posted, and there?s no apparent logic to how it is organized. There are hundreds of
busses, dozens of bus companies. If busses are parked according to some sort of order,
it?s not apparent to me. The station looks like a tornado came in, picked up the busses
and tossed them back down, random but all landing upright. Despite instructions from the
hotel clerks, I doubt I could find landmarks such as Pierre?s tire stall or Abdul?s cassette
stand or the shop that sells those tasty little fritters. Foreigners are not the only ones who
have difficulty negotiating this station. Locals have problems, too. Thus, the station is
home to hundreds of facilitators, self-employed guides and porters who lead dazed
travelers to and from the busses they desire. The hotel staff suggests I take as a guide a
man who just happens to be hanging around the reception area. I just hate accepting
recommendations like this when I have no other choice. I accept.

My facilitator is certain he can guide me to the bus I need. He wants to carry my
rucksack; I insist on taking it myself. This man, his legs deformed by polio, uses a sawed
off crutch as he slides himself over the ground. He is friendly, beaming, happy to assist me; he says he knows exactly where I want to go. Off he scrambles; I have difficulty
keeping up with him. Nothing seems to slow him down: not the ruts in the road, not the
thick crust of hardening mud (it has not rained for weeks; one wonders what the station is
like during the wet season), not the vehicles moving in all directions, not a baggage-laden
throng of pedestrians, not the piles of smoldering debris that accumulate and must be
burned ...