When deciding what to write about for my next blog, I realized that I have very few entries that describe particular parts of life here in detail. I recently traveled up to Kara (in the North of the country) so I decided this was as good a time as any to write a blog about travel here in Togo. As volunteers, we travel in bush taxis. Bush taxis come in two different sizes, but are inevitably in terrible condition and usually from the 1980s, with a cracked windshield and windows that may or may not roll up.
First, you have your run-of-the-mill 5 place hatchback. Legally, the driver is allowed to have 7 people in the car; himself, two people in the passenger seat, and four in the back. Children don’t count, and neither does livestock. More than once, I have found myself in the back with 4 adults, a baby, and a child, and live chickens. The trunk is regularly loaded down with huge sacks of yams, corn, fish or live goats. If the car is not going by a toll, the capacity regulations are tossed out the window. Two people can sit in the driver’s seat and it IS possible to fit five people in the back and a couple in the trunk.
Now, that’s the cushy ride. For longer trips, there are 15 place vans. These regularly take 18, 19 or 20 people, and things get piled on top (see picture) to the point when one becomes convinced that the car is going to tip over of its own accord. I have been in a 15 place van that was completely gutted and the seats replaced with wooden benches. They would fill up one bench, push it forward and then fill up the next. People rode on the top and hanging out the sliding door. I counted 25 people in the car that day. Add some bad hip-hop music on static-filled speakers, the bleating of the goats on the roof, 90 degrees of heat, lots of dust, and voila! you have a bush taxi journey.
There are no set timetables for travel here. For instance, when I decide it’s time to go back to Vogan from Lomé, I go to the station. Either I get lucky and there’s a 5 placer waiting, or I find myself the only person waiting for a 15 placer to fill up. I have it very easy, however, compared to my fellow volunteers. Many live in villages only accessible by motorcycle taxi or they wait an average of 3 hours for a car to fill up. People also wait on the side of the road, so the cars are constantly stopping to drop people off or pick people up. When I was back in the US, I almost missed both a train and a flight because I had forgotten that things actually left at the time indicated.
Lately travel here has been far worse than usual. There is one main, paved road that runs all the way from Lome, on the coast, to Dapaong, the northernmost city in Togo. The Route Nationale is the only direct way to travel up country. While I was away in the States, two major bridges on the Route crumbled away, the result of flooding, age and shoddy workmanship. All traffic throughout the country was rerouted through the West of the country, adding an average of 4 hours onto any particular trip. The alternate route was not built to accommodate big trucks, so its condition became increasingly terrible, until it was impassable as well. They have now fixed one of the bridges, and at the next place there is a small train trestle that they have started using as an alternative. As you can see from the picture below, they haven’t even begun the repairs on the big bridge. I especially enjoy the ironic “bon voyage” sign right before the sheer drop.
I can still remember my first bush taxi ride during my post visit in the middle of training. David and I found ourselves in a 5 placer with a terrible smelling SOMETHING in a basket covered with flies, 4 women with babies and two goats in the back. There was a song in terrible small-small English on the radio, and the goats kept bleating in perfect time with the lyrics. I began to giggle and couldn’t stop, laughing so hard that I was crying. What else can you do in those types of situations? I learned early on to find the amusement in them, and I’ve become much more flexible and patient because of it. Now, I just sit back, put in my earbuds, and resign myself to the fact that I’ll get there eventually, with or without chicken poop on my lap.
