As it turns out, nothing is better preparation for Burkina's buses than Greyhound. In fact, in a lot of ways, the TCV was actually less terrible than Greyhound -- no creepy people trying to chat you up, less smelly, fewer obnoxiously loud people ... At any rate, I had a five hour ride across the country from Ouaga to Bobo, which gave me a lot of time to stare at the window and realize that I'm so far out of my element I'm practically back into it.
But first, let me start with my morning before the bus. I stayed here, which is sort of like an Artists' collective (but not in the hippie sense). They house art expositions and have rehearsal rooms, lots of supports for various types of arts. Apparently a music festival had just ended, so there had even been a few other Americans.
This was the bigger part of the residence just across the street.
Right nearby was a school with lots of famous black scholars and politicians and authors painted on the side. Barack Obama and MLK made the cut ... It's pretty incredible to think of the significance that electing a black president has had for so many people who are so far away from the United States.
Also parked nearby was a driving school car. This made me laugh, because if you could see the roads, you wouldn't believe that any such thing exists (although I suppose that given the number of possible accidents, it all seems pretty well orchestrated). It also made me laugh because a sketch in Johan's theatre piece right now (On arrête pas la connerie au Petit Montparnasse) has a reprise of Jean Yanne's famous sketch about a driving test (it's probably on Youtube somewhere; Jean Yanne is a classic French comedian. It's kind of like Monty Python, but of course the French disagree with me on that).
I had breakfast before leaving, and I thought the teabag was funny. I'm not sure what language is on it in addition to the French and English.While I was having breakfast and waiting to head to the bus station, the TV was on. There were music videos entitled "hommage aux cultivateurs" (hommage to the cultivators, I think of mangoes and other fruits, but I'm not positive) and another one about not throwing trash around called "ecocitoyennété" (ecocitizens). I think both were sponsored bydifferent government Ministries, which I guess makes sense.
Here's the sign of the bus company I took. This is supposed to be a really good one, so when I say that TCV is not so different from Greyhound, I guess I should point out that I'm comparing the best of the best in Burkina to whatever ranking you think Greyhound deserves. I'd say for American buses, it might be the best of the best (boo hiss, Megabus).
Here's the ticket window. Sorry it's sideways, but the internet is a bit of an ordeal, and I am not going to try reuploading just to rightside it. Although the bus before mine left right on time, my bus was nearly an hour late. Womp womp.
It's hard to explain what it was like to drive the five hours from Ouaga to Bobo. First, to set the scene, picture a normal charter bus, packed, with the bus driver blasting African music the whole way. Some was in French, but most was in languages I didn't understand. I spent most of the time staring out the window, just trying to take things in. I've never visited a place where I felt so overwhelmed (seriously, even China is looking pretty tame right now). I suppose part of that stems from the fact that I've never traveled to anyplace so different on my own. At any rate, we drove along a mostly paved road, although periodic "chantiers" (work zones) diverted the bus off the road onto hard-packed mud. The mud here is a distinct reddish brown, and when it rains the puddles are the color of Thai iced tea [if you've seen Thai iced tea, you know exactly the color I'm talking about and how weird it is to see puddles that color]. The off-roading was mostly unremarkable, although there were a few times the bus tilted an an angle that I would have preferred to avoid.
Everywhere along the way were small houses, one-story, buillt with what looks like something halfway between packed mud and cement-stone stuff. That's probably not a helpful description, but it was hard to see from far away. Lots of people were out in the fields, but the fields weren't the sort of cornfields you imagine if you're from the US. The fields really just looked like cleared brush, and it wasn't obvious to me what was being cultivated, although I could see traces of a plow or some sort of tool across much of it. There were lots of goats and chickens wandering around seemingly free, and it's striking how many children this country has. It's one thing to look at a birth rate chart, and it's an entirely different one to constantly see small kids wandering around.
At any rate, we finally arrived in Bobo around 21h15, slightly later than we should have been given our lateness, because we were stopped by a Customs official. When Amadou found me and took me back to my villa (tour to follow), I discovered the reason that NGOs use IBM or Dell instead of Apple: I got the flashing-question-mark-file-folder of DOOM. Having had more than my fair share of Apple SNAFUs, I happen to know that this means my hard drive can't be located, either because a cable came loose or my hard drive fried. Given that this computer is less than a year old, I'm crossing my fingers that the bouncing around of the bus was too much for it and a cable came undone. Naturally, I doubt Apple has any authorized repairshops in Bobo, and I'm not about to invalidate my brand new warranty, so that computer is off the grid until the end of July when I get to Paris and raise a real stink in my best American-African-French accent.
I'll post more about my adventures in African computer hunting later, but for now, be assured that everything is going well, and I'm fine!
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