De Transportatione Africana (Some General Observations)
It has been nearly nine months since my last entry – a lack of correspondence on my part that I ascribe to the vagrancies of graduate school and the fact that my whinging about said education would not make for particularly engaging reading. Such lack of correspondence ends today, for this is my first communiqué out of..... Africa! (At this juncture, I should further apologize to the vast majority of people who hold my acquaintance for sloughing off to the sun of West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali, to be precise) with nary a mention from me --- I attribute such antisocial behaviour to the aforementioned vagrancies of graduate school, as poor an excuse as that may be).
I should iterate at the beginning of these ramblings that I am far from being an ustad on Africa. I might remember all of Roger Milla’s goals at the 1990 World Cup, cried inconsolably when Cameroon lost to England at that same competition, and written a second-rate exam about Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta in first year university, but I think that hardly constitutes any sort of substantive corpus of knowledge about African customs, culture, history, or social practices. Thus, lest I glibly make sweeping generalizations about various cultural matters that are not within my prevue, this entry is necessarily devoid of the cultural and historical minutiae of any one geographical location; it is, instead, a cursory overview of one of the dominant themes -- at least in the eye of the beholder -- of African travel: Transportation (here, I autocratically reserve the right to glibly make sweeping generalizations on this theme despite my earlier indications to the contrary).
In regards to the means of vehicular conveyance available throughout West Africa, the following can generally be observed:
-All taxis must be green.
-If your prospective taxi driver gives you a low-ball price, it usually means one of that the engine doesn’t work, the radiator is non-existent, the car needs a push start from three fairly fit males to start, one or both headlights detached themselves from their holder sometime in the 1980’s, or that your driver has to stop every six seconds or so to ask directions to your hotel in the very centre of town. Alternatively, all of these factors might be evident in the same vehicle.
-Expect dust.
-When possible, the inside of your taxi should be as gutted as possible. Rusted metal with protruding sharp bits is definitely a la mode. Better bus companies should also display this trend.
-In keeping with this minimalist theme, seats are mostly characterized by their unadulterated metal nature. Any randomly adhering bits of vague, upholstery-like material on your lumbar support device are purely accidental.
-All taxis must be issued with a musical selection that alternates between West African kora music, and reggae. This is non-negotiable.
-All vehicular door handles fell off shortly after post-colonial independence. Any taxi that doesn’t possess a clothes hanger or other sort of contraption in lieu of the factory handle is no taxi at all.
-Longer-haul minibuses should also display this lack of door-handle accessorization. Rope is usually the preferred method of maintaining the conveyance’s structural integrity.
-For longer-haul minibuses, departure time should invariably be when the minibus is just a bit fuller than it has been for the previous 43 minutes spent on baking tarmac at midday. When the captain has indicated that things are full enough, it is best also to wait just a few minutes more should any stragglers come.
-Expect wind and dust.
-One should naturally assume that a maximally long bus journey should be mirrored by maximum personal discomfort. No matter what seat you choose, your seat will always be the worst; you will be reminded of your profound personal discomfort/length of journey about every three seconds on account of the inexplicably placed piece of protruding metal burrowing into your kidney.
-All photos of vehicles in Africa will invariably portray them with their hoods up and several men working industriously inside trying to coax the engine’s brakes/radiator/sparkplugs/transmission/fans/filters/all of these back into life. Alternatively, those labouring might be trying to coax the engine back into life without the benefit of one or all of these standard features (Africans are master automotive bricoleurs and, at that, master mechanics). These photos, meanwhile, will be taken somewhere between the middle of nowhere and the end of the earth, for that is invariably where your breakdown will occur.
-Expect dust to inexplicably cover every inch of your body and possessions, no matter how much you bundle up.
-A hot day to make Dante sweat, coupled with a lack of onboard water, will invariably ensure that your driver chooses to take longer and more unnecessary chatting/cigarette breaks in locations devoid of disposable water.
-Although your long-haul transport has been booked several hours in advance, and although the minibus has been sun-tanning under the open skies for even longer, your mass conveyance device will invariably fuel up with gasoline only after you have all packed in (inclusive also, of course, of the extra 43+ minutes of time spent waiting on the tarmac for the driver’s cousin to appear). Minibuses, as a rule, cannot be fuelled up before a journey.
-Expect half of Noah’s Ark to accompany your bags on top of your minibus. If your minibus is one story high, expect an additional story of bags, metal things, and local florae and faunae lashed on above.
-Expect to hack up red dust coloured mucus at least five days after your last voyage.
-Expect cavernous potholes.
-And, lastly, expect to get there eventually, come hell or highwater (and given African weather, hell and highwater are usually apparent on the same day) – come what may, your chosen form of conveyance will invariably deposit you (more or less) at your destination at some finite point. You may have only accomplished 400 km in 17 hours, but the guy at the ticket booth (or rough approximation thereof) didn’t promise the EuroStar to Calais either.
So there you have it: An unerring portrayal of transport in West Africa that importantly avoids the pitfalls of overgeneralization so common to other travel accounts.
Bonne soirée!
It has been nearly nine months since my last entry – a lack of correspondence on my part that I ascribe to the vagrancies of graduate school and the fact that my whinging about said education would not make for particularly engaging reading. Such lack of correspondence ends today, for this is my first communiqué out of..... Africa! (At this juncture, I should further apologize to the vast majority of people who hold my acquaintance for sloughing off to the sun of West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali, to be precise) with nary a mention from me --- I attribute such antisocial behaviour to the aforementioned vagrancies of graduate school, as poor an excuse as that may be).
I should iterate at the beginning of these ramblings that I am far from being an ustad on Africa. I might remember all of Roger Milla’s goals at the 1990 World Cup, cried inconsolably when Cameroon lost to England at that same competition, and written a second-rate exam about Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta in first year university, but I think that hardly constitutes any sort of substantive corpus of knowledge about African customs, culture, history, or social practices. Thus, lest I glibly make sweeping generalizations about various cultural matters that are not within my prevue, this entry is necessarily devoid of the cultural and historical minutiae of any one geographical location; it is, instead, a cursory overview of one of the dominant themes -- at least in the eye of the beholder -- of African travel: Transportation (here, I autocratically reserve the right to glibly make sweeping generalizations on this theme despite my earlier indications to the contrary).
In regards to the means of vehicular conveyance available throughout West Africa, the following can generally be observed:
-All taxis must be green.
-If your prospective taxi driver gives you a low-ball price, it usually means one of that the engine doesn’t work, the radiator is non-existent, the car needs a push start from three fairly fit males to start, one or both headlights detached themselves from their holder sometime in the 1980’s, or that your driver has to stop every six seconds or so to ask directions to your hotel in the very centre of town. Alternatively, all of these factors might be evident in the same vehicle.
-Expect dust.
-When possible, the inside of your taxi should be as gutted as possible. Rusted metal with protruding sharp bits is definitely a la mode. Better bus companies should also display this trend.
-In keeping with this minimalist theme, seats are mostly characterized by their unadulterated metal nature. Any randomly adhering bits of vague, upholstery-like material on your lumbar support device are purely accidental.
-All taxis must be issued with a musical selection that alternates between West African kora music, and reggae. This is non-negotiable.
-All vehicular door handles fell off shortly after post-colonial independence. Any taxi that doesn’t possess a clothes hanger or other sort of contraption in lieu of the factory handle is no taxi at all.
-Longer-haul minibuses should also display this lack of door-handle accessorization. Rope is usually the preferred method of maintaining the conveyance’s structural integrity.
-For longer-haul minibuses, departure time should invariably be when the minibus is just a bit fuller than it has been for the previous 43 minutes spent on baking tarmac at midday. When the captain has indicated that things are full enough, it is best also to wait just a few minutes more should any stragglers come.
-Expect wind and dust.
-One should naturally assume that a maximally long bus journey should be mirrored by maximum personal discomfort. No matter what seat you choose, your seat will always be the worst; you will be reminded of your profound personal discomfort/length of journey about every three seconds on account of the inexplicably placed piece of protruding metal burrowing into your kidney.
-All photos of vehicles in Africa will invariably portray them with their hoods up and several men working industriously inside trying to coax the engine’s brakes/radiator/sparkplugs/transmission/fans/filters/all of these back into life. Alternatively, those labouring might be trying to coax the engine back into life without the benefit of one or all of these standard features (Africans are master automotive bricoleurs and, at that, master mechanics). These photos, meanwhile, will be taken somewhere between the middle of nowhere and the end of the earth, for that is invariably where your breakdown will occur.
-Expect dust to inexplicably cover every inch of your body and possessions, no matter how much you bundle up.
-A hot day to make Dante sweat, coupled with a lack of onboard water, will invariably ensure that your driver chooses to take longer and more unnecessary chatting/cigarette breaks in locations devoid of disposable water.
-Although your long-haul transport has been booked several hours in advance, and although the minibus has been sun-tanning under the open skies for even longer, your mass conveyance device will invariably fuel up with gasoline only after you have all packed in (inclusive also, of course, of the extra 43+ minutes of time spent waiting on the tarmac for the driver’s cousin to appear). Minibuses, as a rule, cannot be fuelled up before a journey.
-Expect half of Noah’s Ark to accompany your bags on top of your minibus. If your minibus is one story high, expect an additional story of bags, metal things, and local florae and faunae lashed on above.
-Expect to hack up red dust coloured mucus at least five days after your last voyage.
-Expect cavernous potholes.
-And, lastly, expect to get there eventually, come hell or highwater (and given African weather, hell and highwater are usually apparent on the same day) – come what may, your chosen form of conveyance will invariably deposit you (more or less) at your destination at some finite point. You may have only accomplished 400 km in 17 hours, but the guy at the ticket booth (or rough approximation thereof) didn’t promise the EuroStar to Calais either.
So there you have it: An unerring portrayal of transport in West Africa that importantly avoids the pitfalls of overgeneralization so common to other travel accounts.
Bonne soirée!
Obligatory picture of African transport with hood raised, miles from anywhere...
4 comments:
Great. Just great. Even after eight month on this continent I couldn't have put it better. May I transalte this post and publis it under your name in my blog?
Allez-y, natuerlich wenn du so moechtest, dann kannst du tun -- although I think you are able to handle bush taxis better than I....
Whilst sitting in or when writing about? ;-p
You probably have a better handle on all facets of bush taxis... :P
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