The Face of Apathy

Sent to me by Rayan. I wasn't even aware he took these -- I call it 'A Study on Waiting' -- enjoy

Waiting on the taxi to leave the Parakou Gare



Crossing the Niger River

Waiting to leave Niamey

Niamey, again. Ponctualite, my ass.

By Popular Demand

You know, I always like books with pictures more than the others, so for all of you geographically challenged and visually stimulated folks out there heres the Sahelian-taxi-crawl-travel-companion----

It gets bigger if you click on it (thats what she said)

Yellow dots are where I stayed - it all added up to over 2000 miles (I calculated that from km. In my head. I have lots of hidden talents.)

On Mountains, Rodents, and Bowling

What began as a fantasy trip venturing to the mountains of Agou and then heading up north for Christmas celebrations, visiting family and friends with the wishes of snow-covered peaks and dreams of fat men and dancing fruit quickly met with the realities of the tropical West African climate and the logistical beast that is impromptu-dirt-road-cross-country travel. I left my dear Lome in mid-December, shirking responsibilities by flagging a taxi out of town. What ensued for the next 3 weeks was an alcohol fueled romp plumbing the depths of discomfort across 4 countries. I found myself, (in rough order) charming the yovophobic children of Koudassi while visiting a good friend for lunch, resting in the highest village in Togo, Dzigbe, sitting nearly at the top of Mount Agou, looking out over the valley where we lived for 3 months in stage,

Dzigbe

relaxing in Atakpame, listening to Scottish-bagpipe-techno (the first time I had heard that genre), the smell of honeysuckle floating through the air from the rolling hills surrounding the town. After a quick overnight in Pagala, I shot up to Niamtougou where home-made eggnog and beef kebabs floated us through the Christmas like the lilting piano runs of the Vince Guaraldi record we had flowing from the speakers of Rayan's computer. After 3 days of Xmas fete-ing we cleaned the house, returned the rented plastic chairs and got a taxi out of town. Rayan, Marcus and I left for Kara, where they awoke to the sight of me chasing rats the size of my forearm around the living room with a machete at 3am, counting the minutes until we could leave for the border.

The Three Brushketeers

From this point we truly began to delve deep into the depths of painful travel, with moto rides through dust storms (I got a bandana starting day 2), disintegrating Peugeots and the occasional donkey, going 12 hours of road time to the border of Niger, collapsing into bed at 11pm after running over 231 potholes (we were in the damn taxi for 7 hours, we had to do something) and eating a dinner of Thai-neon-orange-drink (with 25% real fruit!) and a hazelnut chocolate bar (you find the weirdest things in border towns). The next day found us gambling in a straw hut over the border in Niger at the Gaya bus station waiting for transport to Niamey.

Gambling is a sin in lots of religions. We're angering many gods at once here.

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine... they were chewy

I threw sheckels I had found in my bag from my trip to Israel at local Muslims. We drank curdled coconut milk (yeah, they weren't real pieces of coconut) and ate as much meat as we could stuff into our mouths at once. Nigerians are an exceedingly warm, honest, and amicable bunch and the rough ride to Niamey was mitigated a bit by actually being quoted the correct price for the bush-taxi ride. We watched the Nigerian countryside whip past as we made our way to the capital throughout the day. As an aside here, we were beginning to see a pattern at every border we crossed –
- Passport agent asks for passports, thinking we are French.
- Sees American passport, smiles broadly and says something about the 'Republic of Obama.'
- We smile and nod fervently.
- They cheer and stamp passports with no questions asked.
- Everyone gives three Huzzahs for democracy.

I still love tea

They even put the stamps in there all neat and side-by-side. I've been to some places where I swear they intentionally put on stamp diagonally across an entire page just to make sure you understand how apathetic they are to you, your travels, your opinion and ultimately their job. No one says “I want to be a border agent when I grow up,” right? So, thank you future president of the United States, you saved me many many CFA in bribes to get across borders scot-free (In your FACE, Sarcozy!)

The next 6 days are spent in bars, outside of bars, in restaurants, outside of restaurants, in and out of beds and hot (!!!) showers. New Years eve we danced while video of Gaza being bombed flashed across the screens of the bar. We watched fireworks from the 5th story roof of a building after seeing someone with us slice his head open on a broken beer bottle (he didn't die. The amount of blood lost would convince you otherwise). We cursed life in the morning. Thank god we decided to take a bus on the 2nd, not the 1st. Our last day in Niger was spent drinking lots of water and watching awful movies.

Grand Mosquee, Niamey

The next morning, after sleeping for only 3 hours and hiring a car at an exorbitant price to take us to the bus station at 4am, our bus to Ouagadougou (no matter how many times I say it, its still fun) was 4 hours late and 5 seats too small. Our chère bus line had three tenets of satisfaction plastered across every cracking wall of their building-

Ponctualité – scheduled to leave at 5:30. Left at 9.
Confort – My knees still hurt. The lucky passengers got a cooler to sit on in the aisle.
Sécurité – Bus was a soviet-era Russian diesel bucket. Windshield had been shattered and repaired more times than we could count. Held together with discolored glue.

10 hours later with the beginnings of arthritis and hemorrhoids we find the capital of Burkina. Hell, at this point I don't even remember what we did there. I must have slept the next three days. I know I ate a breakfast sandwich made of sour meat and arteries and danced with tons of hookers until 4am at some point. After all of this, we met some folks heading down to Lome and decided to cut the trip 5 days short to escort them back down to the coast. I've been showing them around the past few days and man, do I love this city. Sure, its a bit like a truck stop, but I can get 25% fruit juice from Thailand anytime of the day and my bowling game was getting a little rusty.

Yeah, thats my house. We established my level of bad-assery long ago – this should come as no surprise.

Its a good thing we're back, too --- do you know what its like up in the Sahel during Harmattan? My lips cracked like the surface of mars and my nose bled every day. I have no clue how people adjust to dry climates. I've finally come to terms with it -- I love hot, humid places (My next job will be in a rain forest somewhere, I'm sure). I don't know what it is, but I'd take a lukewarm beer and fish brochettes on the beach over steak and cold drinks in the desert anytime.

So, who's thinking that I had an awful time and couldn't wait to get home?? That I never want to travel again? Can I see some hands? How many are betting I'm about to give it all up and run back to the 9-5 life in the states? Anyone out there? If you raised your hand, please confirm the web address you typed to get here. Did you mis-type www.waitingtodie.com? Maybe it was www.isuckatlife.com you intended to visit? Perhaps you were looking for www.ilockmydoorsallthetimebecauseimterrifiedofblackpeople.com?

No?

Well then, you should know me better than that – this was one of the coolest trips I've ever taken. I'm having a riot over here and I feel sorry for all you chumps, wherever you may be! (Well, except maybe you, Steven. Hes sailing uncharted islands and running down kangaroos in the outback right now.)

I had an incredible time – thank you everyone for the packages (especially the Florida crowd -- $120 shipping? Seriously? You guys must really like me) and emails wondering where I had disappeared to – its neat to find out people actually read this :) Hope the pictures tell a little bit of the story – It would take a short novella to do my past month justice.

Here's to being home-brewed in the US of A and 100% moss-free – Cheers.