10.2001
If They Could See Me Now...
I've spent the weekend in Abidjan, and am waiting at the bus station for the
bus to Taabo to leave Abidjan. I want to describe the scene to you.
This is what a typical small bus station in West Africa looks like to me.
The Location
The bus station (gare) for Taabo is a very small part of a huge gare called
Adjame. It's terrible, especially if you have white skin or anything else
that makes you stick out as a Westerner. The place is filled with young
thugs who stop you for money, try to steal your bags, and will do anything for a
tip. Normally, I relent and choose one young man to carry my things, and
then offer him a larger tip if he'll keep the others away from me. For
this he earns about 35 cents.
You're not safe even in a taxi. I have had one thug reach into my taxi window and push me (physically) demanding money. I have had another walk along side the taxi with his head in the window explaining there was a new tax on all travellers - 1000 cfa (about 1.50). He swore to me he wasn't a thief, just trying to enforce the new tax. Another time when a friend rolled up the window on his side of the taxi, catching the fingers of a thug who wouldn't remove them, the kid beat on the taxi threatening to beat up my friend for "cutting" his fingers. It's really terrible. Lots of times, it's amazing how little French I understand when these bandits are asking me for money "wink, wink".
But, once you get to the Taabo gare, you're safe. The workers recognize me and are all very friendly, even though they still try to get me to pay extra for my baggage. The Taabo gare is about 60 feet by 30 feet. It is the third gare in on a side street in Adjame. The side street is impassable by car... it's about two feet deep of mud. I've never seen it dry... it's always wet. I don't know how the busses can drive in it without getting stuck. We walk to the gare on the shoulder of the road which is relatively solid.
The Surroundings
There are 40 people waiting with me. 18 men, 22 women. There are
at least five women with babies strapped to their backs. Children ride
free on busses in Cote d'Ivoire. That means if you happen to buy the seat
next to the woman with an infant and three small children, you are going to be
squooshed. Live with it! The front 2/3 of the gare is where the two
busses park - next to each other, backed into the tight space. I don't
know how the drivers do it. I would never be able to, especially given the
condition of the muddy street.
The back 1/3 of the station is the waiting area. It has five wooden benches, a concrete floor, and a tin roof. There's not a breeze in sight. I'm the only one bothered by this!!! No one else is fanning or whining. The concete floor has egg shells, peanut shells, little plastic bags that once held water, and plenty of flies on it. There are also puddles of something wet. I don't want to know... It smells like trash and sewage. As I look at people's feet, they are all muddy. Some of the vendors who work in Adjame wear rubber rain boots which are covered in mud past their ankles.
There is a constant flow of vendors through the gare. Today I have seen them selling applies, plastic sacks, bread, fish, shoes, shirts, toothbrushes, soccer balls, sponges, toiletries, underwear, socks, ties, watches, necklaces, flashlights, flip flops, salt, radios, traditional medicine, cookies, eggs, plastic sacks of water, tissues, canned sardines, and big winter starter jackets (you know, the kind with American football team logos on them? I laughed outloud when I saw that!). About half the people in the gare with me have bought something since I came in about an hour ago... mostly food for the trip... but I'm always amazed when someone comes in selling, for example, ties. As though I'm going to stop and think, "Oh my goodness! I've been looking EVERYWHERE for a tie just like that!!! I've got to have it NOW, before the bus leaves for Taabo." You know me... always prone to sarcasm...
Just as interesting as the items being sold are the items being carried back to Taabo by the passengers. They fill every available place on the bus - the baggage holds under the bus go first, then the spaces in the aisle and under the seats, then they tie everything else on top of the bus with a big net. In fact, that is how my little refrigerator traveled to Taabo - right on the top of a bus.
Today we are bringing back pillows, bowls, buckets, pots, and pans. All these will be re-sold in the Taabo market. There are also various buckets, bags, suitcases, and baskets which people are using for luggage. Personally, I've got a HUGE blue and white checkered plastic case filled with food I can't buy in Taabo, books, clean clothes (there's a washer and dryer in the Peace Corps hostel), and the contents of the packages you guys have lovingly sent me. I can barely lift the bag, and I can't carry it far. When I get to Taabo, there will be a group of kids waiting to help people with their luggage for a tip. Last time, a kid about ten years old carried my bag on his head. I had to help him lift it that high, which nearly killed me. Perhaps I should be traveling with two smaller bags instead of one huge bag?
There are a bunch of big broken Styrofoam pieces being loaded on top of the bus - bigger than the size you would find packed around a TV or computer. I have no idea where they came from or what they will be used for. Also, someone is bringing back about 25 empty gallon plastic jugs, sort of the size and shape you buy antifreeze in. Both the Styrofoam and the jugs are dirty and well used, but like I said, I have no idea what they have been or will be used for. And, as always, the women are bringing back lots of empty baskets. The baskets hold fish. Their husbands have been out fishing all day, and when the women get home, they will refill their baskets, returning to Abidjan tomorrow to sell more fish.
The People
The people who will be traveling with me are all dressed in typical Ivorian
fashion. There are men wearing boubous (long dresses) and women wearing
dresses made of traditional brightly dyed fabric called pagnes (pan-ya).
Many of the men wear pagne shirts and Western style pants. Today there are
several North Africans (probably Malians) with cotton turban-like head
coverings. Ivorians don't wear those. Three people are wearing long
sleeves, including one man in a sweatshirt and one wearing a light
windbreaker. Makes me hot just thinking about it!!!
Nearly everyone has sandals or flip flops on their feet. The younger men wear "Jellies" - plastic shoes that only girls wear in the US. A couple of the older men are wearing my favorite Ivorian shoes - plastic turquoise Keds tennis shoes. (I always imagine that some marketing person was fired after he ordered thousands of turquoise plastic shoes and no one in the West bought them. To cut their losses, Keds donated them all to Cote d'Ivoire and took the tax write off.)
I notice other little interesting things... one inventive vendor has put plastic bags on his feet under his tennis shoes to protect his feet from the mud. Several of the women have beautifully polished fake toenails. One woman has the black henna tatooing on the bottoms of her feet. My bus has two faded stickers of Jesus on the windows and a bumper sticker that says "Have faith in God." One kid is barefoot - heck - I'm afraid to lean against the wall and he is walking barefoot. Makes me cringe just to think about it.
The Journey
The bus will load soon... I can tell because we're already 30 minutes past
our scheduled departure time, and nearly all the baggage has been loaded.
The trip will take about four hours, even though we are only going 150 km (90
miles). We will first stop for gas before we even get out of
Abidjan. Then the national police will stop us and check everyone's
IDs. Probably one improperly identified foreigner will be removed from the
bus - certainly not me - probably a young man who looks suspicious anyway.
After about 30 minutes the driver will stop at a West African version of a rest stop. Vendors will run up to the bus selling everything from water to oranges to shrimp, and people will lean out the windows to buy things. After another hour we will do the same thing at another stop. (You can imagine, this drives me crazy. It's worse than traveling with I-Have-To-Go-To-The-Bathroom-Again-Laila.) And, at least three times along the way we will stop to drop off people who aren't going all the way to Taabo. We will wait while their baggage is thrown down from the top of the bus before we head off again.
If we are lucky, we will not be stopped by the Department of Commerce, who will search the bus for contraband and insist on seeing the resale authorization for anyone who is carrying items to resell in the Taabo market. If we are not lucky, that stop will take upwards of 30 minutes. It's all very frustrating to me, a Westerner, who still thinks "time is money" and that busses and airplanes should leave on schedule.
On the other hand, as I look around at the sights and hear the sounds, I am glad to be here. For now, the sights, sounds, and people of Cote d'Ivoire, even the Taabo gare, is home.