Burkinabe Transport

Transport in this country is so much fun that it deserves its own special entry.

There are several respectable and reliable bus companies, the kind that we are used to in the US…sort of. The garages are places of bustling excitement. The workers take luggage from passengers, storing it for the voyage. “Luggage” includes suitcases, bikes, packages of sandals to sell in village, wrapped fish, beds, and goats. Whatever doesn’t fit below is delicately balanced and tied on top of the bus. Buses like to stop for random reasons. We stopped to get gas and pick up passengers on the side of the road several times before leaving our starting city. I have no idea how passengers know where the “bus stops” are; they certainly aren’t marked. During the trip, the most common stop is for bathroom breaks. We’d pull to the side of the road, and the men all line up and take care of business while the women run into the fields a ways. The driver has very little patience during these stops, and he usually pulls away well before all the passengers are back on the bus. It’s quite an amusing sight to see a dozen people pulling up their pants while chasing after a departing bus.

The bus I took to my village was not nearly as nice as the one we took to Ouaga. This bus looked to be about 50 years old, with the seats torn and the overhead compartments threatening to fall on us with every bump in the road. The road to my site is unpaved and very bumpy, so I kept an eye on it most of the time. The bus was crammed full of people and their belongings, but luckily the windows provided excellent AC.

The van I took to visit J is yet another story. This was a full-sized van, with five or six rows of seats, five people per row. At one point in the trip a piece of luggage started to fall off the roof. One of the guys who worked for the transport company climbed out of the passenger side window, up over the pile of luggage, and saved the slipping garment bag- all while the bus was traveling full speed down the bumpy, unpaved road. This would certainly violate a million laws and safety regulations in the US. Oh well.

My favorite type of transportation; however, is the cabs we took in Ouaga. The drivers love to rip Americans off. Thus, every cab trip starts with a lengthy discussion of the fare. The drivers also like to cram as many people as possible into their cabs. I think they were nice to us because we are Americans because the most I had in one cab was four people, our bags for the week-long trip, and our four bikes. That’s nothing though. The condition of the actual cabs make cabs in the US look like luxury limos. One of our cabs had no interior paneling. My door sagged about an inch below the latch; also there was no door handle on the inside. There was no seating upholstery, and the dashboard was torn to shreds. Once we were all situated, the driver started the car by rubbing together two wires hanging from the steering column down to his knees. Pulling into traffic, the cab light on the roof of the car fell off; I noticed that it was powered via two wires coming in through the window and disappearing beneath the dashboard. It was raining and there were no windshield wipers. But the driver was as good as any other in Ouaga, and since we didn’t have far to go, I felt “safe”.