Getting there

Malian transportation is a funny thing. And sometimes, when you’ve been on a crowded bus all day, stuck between screaming children and screaming goats, all you can do is laugh about it.
My parents are coming to visit. And in planning our excursions, I am recalling all of my favorite public transport moments thus far. Yes, I’ve only been in country for 6 months, but already I have had some great experiences, getting to and fro on Malian buses, cars, trucks, and bachees (large green vans. Used for short or long distances, packed tight with people).

Not long ago, I took a trip west. I started out early one morning, catching the 6am bus out of San towards Bamako.. This ride usually takes somewhere between 6 and 10 hours. The bus is a coach bus, or a charter bus, with padded individual seats. Not like a school bus. But unlike charter buses in the states, there is not a bathroom on the bus and the bus is probably as old as I am. The seats are upholstered in flashy fabric from decades past and hold more dust than a welcome rug in the desert. The windows may or may not open, more likely that they don’t, and the bus may or may not have vents in the roof. If it does have vents in the roof, or windows that open, opening them will usually get you a glare from those sitting near you, Malians bundled up in fleece sweatshirts and puffy jackets. Mind you that while it is only 60` or 70` at 6 in the morning, on a ride that lasts an average of 8 hours, one finds themselves traveling through the hottest part of the day with temperatures reaching the 90’s. And when you are on a bus filled with people, random children placed on your lap, sleeping heads bobbing on your shoulder, extra passengers shoved into the aisle ways sitting on giant plastic jugs or other luggage, 90` turns into at least 110.

So this is how I find myself walking through San at 5:45am, looking for a bus at a gare (terminal) that just isn’t there. Am I too early? Am I at the wrong gare? With my pack on my back and breakfast in hand, I wander towards the nearest buuru tigi. Buuru is bread in Bambara, and tigi is “owner of.” This is why rich people are called waari tigi (waari is money) and village chiefs are dugu tigi’s (dugu is village).The shop keeper sends me out towards the goudron (main road in and out of San) where I meet a bus just about to leave and find my way on. These buses stop for people on the side of the road, trying to fill their seats and make their money. It takes us a full 45 minutes to even get out of San city limits, by which time I have fallen asleep sprawled over both seats. I am awoken by a shy young man, maybe high school aged, who is asking me to scoot over. I look around and realize that every other seat on this bus is taken. Waking the Tubab and asking her to move is a last resort. In front of me, the mother and two children who were sharing two seats have moved over to let a man sit with them, the eldest child sitting in the lap of this stranger. That is just how things go here. Everyone is a mother, a father, a child, so it is not strange to be handed a little one to hold, or to see someone you assume is a stranger sitting with a random kid or two on his lap.

Later, in this same trip, I have been dropped off at one corner and need to take a taxi to get to another corner to catch different transport. So while I try to hail a cab, a driver approaches me and tells me that I should get in his cab. With the other two women who are already in there. This is also not uncommon. He will drop us off in succession as we head towards the furthest destination. Or go all over town, dropping off who ever makes more of a stink first. And make some good money doing it. At the next gare, I purchase my ticket and get ready to wait for the next bus, which will be leaving in two hours. Getting water at one of the stores, I make a new friend in the shop keeper. And another in the namasa tigi (banana seller) while I wait. People here are very friendly. And curious. What is your name? Where are you going? Why? And then because I am a Tubab, the questions continue. Where are you from? Why are you here? Where is your man? Do you have a Malian man? Do you want one?

As I was getting onto the next bus, I met a man who was going where I was. We ended up sitting next to each other. He is Malian, and in addition to speaking Bambara, French and Malinke (a minority language), he also speaks some Spanish. He drives freight from West Africa to Spain for Toyota. Sitting on my other side, on a big water jug in the aisle of the overcrowded bus is an older woman. I try to offer her my seat, but she will not take it. We chat, the three of us, for the 4 hour drive. She shares her fruit with me, we laugh about the Malian music playing through the speakers, we talk about my work. When we finally arrive at our destination, the man next to me, my travel companion, makes sure that the people I am meeting are at the bus station before he leaves. As I walk away, people yell out to me, by name. Traveling as a Tubab, everyone knows my name and where I am going and why. I will tell only the few people sitting near me, or the bus driver’s apprentice, and somehow everyone knows.

This is especially helpful when trips don’t run as smoothly as they should. Which can be said for most trips, actually. Another time, I had gotten on a bus leaving Manatali, a town in the very far western part of Mali. I had had a good few days, hanging out with my friends John and Jason, seeing the area, floating on the river in inner tubes, dodging the hippos across the river and watching the monkeys play in the yard. The road between Manatali and Kita, the next nearest town with transport, is quite bumpy. And transport doesn’t go so very often, so I set out towards Kita when I could. I got on a bus unlike the one I had taken out to Manatali, which was basically a truck with seats and a roof over the bed. This was more of a bus, uncomfortable seats and all. As we filed on, children were placed in laps or set on the floor to make room for the adults who paid for their seats. One girl, about 6 years old, curled up under the seats, next to the feet of her mother and another passenger. I could see her blue socks sticking out from under the seat in front of me. We left just about on time, which is highly unusual, but only got about an hour into the 4-6 hour drive when the bus pulled over and everyone was asked to unload. Something was wrong with the engine, or the breaks, or something important, and we would have to wait for another vehicle to come get us.

As I said before, the road was quite bumpy. After the ride in, we were sore for days from our tail bones hitting on the metal framed seats as we came back down from bumping our heads on the ceiling of the truck-bus. I had grand dreams of this ride being smoother, but they were dashed as we made the 20 minute walk into the nearest village, away from our bus. At this point, I had made friends with a few different passengers. Three different men riding to Kita and on to Bamako, just like me, took me under their wing. Neither of them knew each other either, but as we sat at the house of one of the villagers, drinking tea and waiting the 3.5 hours for the next bus to arrive, we all became close friends. I think we drank at least 7 rounds of tea and talked about everything under the sun. We at least exhausted my limited Bambara. One of the guys was a soccer player, coming from visiting friends in Manatali, on his way to Bamako to play with one of the many teams that come out of Mali. He was originally from Cote D’Ivoire, but had spent most of his adult life traveling through West Africa, playing soccer in different countries. He spoke great English, so when I was really confused about transport or any other related thing, he broke out of Bambara and helped me. He also helped with my Bambara, giving me a mini lesson as we were waiting.

Finally, we heard a big engine and ran out to the road to get on our bus. Our bus was in fact not a bus but a big huge truck. This is the kind of truck you would see with big cows or huge sacks of grain in, and instead we filled it with people and their luggage, making seats for people on bags and suitcases. Many people stood up, letting the wind cool them, as the sun beat down on us. Some very brave men even rode up on the edges of the tank, dodging the branches of the trees we whipped by. I was applying sunscreen like it was gong out of style and got lots of laughs from my companions and the other passengers when I tried to explain what it was and why I was using it. Again, we resumed talk of me being married. I usually tell people when traveling that I have a man, and even go as far as to wear a ring on my left ring finger. I don’t usually say I am married, because saying I have a ce (pronounced Che, means man) is enough. Somehow, it was assumed by one of the others that I was in fact married, but that didn’t stop them. Everyone knew a Malian man I should meet, they told me. It is ok, they said, to have one here and one there. Two years is a long time, they reminded me. As we were talking about this, my footballer friend informed me that he wished he could meet a nice American girl like me, since there was no way he’d marry an African woman. They are too much trouble, he says. I assured him that women the world over can be quite similar. He went on to say that he was referring more to the fact that marrying an African woman meant a marriage to her whole family, mother and father and second cousins and uncles twice removed, which made things more complicated. It would be easier to marry an American girl. Besides, he said, they could travel together, see places most Africans wouldn’t, because there would not be a family, and the duties Africa women are expected to carry out, like immediate childbearing, to tie them to one village.

When we reached Kita, one of my travel buddies took me to get food, helped me find water and fruit, and then even made sure I knew where to catch our bus when it was ready. The last leg of my journey, I traveled with him sitting next to me and my footballer friend behind me, next to the third member of our tea party. We were exhausted. They all kept checking on me, asking “I seggenen don?” (are you tired?) I’d say dooni (a little) and they would agree. Our journey, including when we were stopped and ID’d by the gendarmes as we left Kita, had taken 15 hours. It should have taken 7 or 8.

Of course, it was dark when we got to Bamako, but my friends made sure I got where I was going safely, acting as interpreters for me and requesting that I call them when I was back in town. Throughout the headache of it all, I had had a great time. I met some terrific new people, gotten a little tan, acquired a new story and had a good laugh. Sometimes its all you can do.