On April 27
th, I boarded a
bus to travel from Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire to Zegou, Mali. I had been
told that the trip should take from 6-8 hours.
At the suggestion of friends, I bought
my ticket the day before and arrived at the station a half hour
before the scheduled departure of 8:30 am. Being the only “Toobab”
(white guy) in the station, I was quickly called out by a man, who I
can only describe as the “Conductor.” He was wearing jeans and I
Cote d'Ivoire jersy, but despite the lack of uniform this guy made
made everything happen. He showed me wear to wait and when it came
time to load the bus got my two bags loaded in safe spot. If anyone
had questions they went to him and got it sorted out quickly.
Around 9:15, they started loading
people onto the bus by calling out the names of each passenger
according to the seat number they had purchased. My name is a little
hard to pronounce in French so they called something like this, “Ace
Jrui.” When I took my assigned seat, #33, in the middle of the bus,
they moved me up to “first class.” By first class I mean the
front of the bus where I could at least stretch out my legs and get
some breeze to help cool things down.
We were under way by 9:45. For the next
2 hours we moved along consistently all be it slowly, stopping only
once to let people out and for the engine to cool. As we came into
Niakara and stopped at a security check point, the driver couldn't
get the bus into first or second gear. He managed to get the bus
moving again using 3rd, but when we stopped for “lunch”
they tried to work out the problem. At every stop of the bus, vendors
swarm to sell water, bananas, peanuts, cakes, fruit, and all sorts of
“fast food.” For about 500 CFA ($1), I bought peanuts and
bananas, which I shared with my seat mate.
Around 1 pm, we started down the road
again, but the engine was still having trouble in 1
st and
2
nd gear. We stopped once again, when steam started
pouring out from under one of the passengers seats, where apparently
the radiator cap had come loose. After refilling the radiator, we
moved on. At 4 pm we pulled into Ferke, a trip which usually takes
about 5 hours by car.
Once we were underway again, I called
my friends in Mali who were going to pick me up and updated them on
the situation. They let me know that because the bandits in their
area had recently been very active, it wasn't safe for them to be
traveling at night so if I arrived after dark, a Malian friend of
theirs had offered to come pick me up. They also said that it should
take 2 about hours to get from Ferke to Zegoua.
The bus continued to struggle along,
stopping twice over the next 2 hours to refill the radiator or mend
something. Around 6 pm we pulled over again in Nielle. As I got out
with everyone to stretch my legs, I looked under the bus and could
see oil pouring out of the engine. Not dripping, but pouring. For the
next hour the driver, the mechanic that was traveling with us, and
several other people worked on the engine. The driver told me that
they had called ahead to Zeguoa to send them the part that they
needed and once they found it would send it down to us.
With no estimate on how long that might
take, I bought dinner. After finishing my spaghetti sandwich, I
settled down to wait with everyone else. I talked with a lady from
northern Mali, about the war and how it had affected life there. I
chatted with a Senegalese guy who was on a tour of West Africa and
had come from Nigeria to Ghana to Abidjan and was heading to Senegal.
Around 9:30 pm, I noticed that people
were unloading the luggage from the bus. I asked the driver about
this and he told me that the bus company was sending a new bus down.
A half hour later the bus arrived, and everyone set to packing the
bus. I got my luggage in and then helped a older lady load boxes of
what I think were batteries under her seat.
With everything loaded and all the
people in their new places on the bus, I again had been able to snag
a prime spot in the front, the new driver got in and made an
announcement. I don't know what he said, because he didn't speak in
French, but one of the local African trade languages. Assuming it was
just an explanation for the delay or instruction for the boarder, I
settled in for the rest of the journey. As soon as we got back on the
main road though, we turned left off of the road and started into the
center of Nielle. I turned to the guy next to me and asked, “Umm,
Where are we going?” He didn't speak very good french, but was able
to get some else to explain that the main road was closed ahead
because of bandits. We would be spending the night in Nielle and then
continue on the rest of the way in the morning. It was at this point
I found out that Nielle is 25 kilometers from Zegoua.
The bus stopped next to a couple of
trucks which were parked in the center of town and every one started
spreading out for the night. I asked around about a possible hotel or
some place to stay, and the lady who I help load her boxes onto the
bus said that there weren't any hotels in town but I could just sleep
on the porch of the mosque along with everyone else. So I did. Or at
least I tried to. Sleeping on a dirty concrete floor with mosquitos
biting you and waking up every time some walks by doesn't really lead
to deep sleep. It wasn't until the next morning that I fully realized
what sleeping in a Mosque meant. At 4:45 am, I was woken up by the
call to prayer. I've grown used to hearing this call made in the
distance from somewhere, but this morning I heard it right next to my
ear.
Eventually, everyone woke up and after
getting some breakfast from a local coffee shop (think wooden
lemonade stand with a coffee machine) we headed down the road. Less
than 15 minutes later we were at the Cote d'Ivoire Mali border. There
are 4 stops in this 2 kilometer section, 2 customs offices and 2
immigration offices. One each for leaving Cote d' Ivoire and entering
Mali. At each stop, we gave our documents to an officer who depending
on our type of visa pointed us to a different line. Because I was one
of the only passport carriers my line was pretty short and got
through all stops quickly and easily.
At the final stop, Mali customs, I
asked the driver to get my bags out from under the bus since this was
my stop. After digging them out from one of the inside compartments,
I carried my bags over to an official who looked them over and
quickly waved me on.
I met my friends who were waiting for
me and we got into their car. I had made it to Zegou and my bus trip
had come to an end. It was 10:30 am April 28th. The bus
trip which was supposed to take 6-8 hours had taken 27 hours.
Through out the course of this trip a
question kept rising to my mind. “Why me? God, Why is this
happening to me? Out of all the people in the world you picked me?
Why are you making this happen to me? Why do you keep giving me stuff
like this?” (You might want to re-read that, but this time replace
the sarcasm and bitterness with genuine gratitude.)
God
continues to give me amazing experiences and the grace to see things
His way, to see events that might be considered problems or errors as
gifts. I mean really how many people can say the've slept in a
mosque?
