Last night in Bamako and the road to Kayes

Our last evening was in the spirit of friendship and we did our groceries at the little European grocery store, Le Azar. We bought white wine, pasta, mushrooms and cheese and ha ourselves a feast. We even got mangoes and ate them chilled in the freezer. Agnes joined us for a glass and we regaled her with our adventures.

4am came early, but we were ready, and after a mere two hour delay, waiting in line being courted by flies and trying to avoid getting dried fish juice (this is a frequent occurrence when it rains on the food bags they pack in the buses), we were on board. By then I had nearly had a panic attack, and I felt as though anyone would make me snap, even though this mode of transport was infinitely better than our last. We had read that the company we were travelling with had clean, new buses, with air conditioning and bathroom. If you were to COMPLETELY reverse those qualities, you would get something close to our bus. It smelled like urine on board, there WAS NO BATHROOM (which is fine for 2 hours, but 9 hours? ) and the only similarity to our buses is that it was packed. People, coolers, children and bags of all kinds made me feel like as though I was a handbag in a storage closet. My seat was damp, but thank God I was in the window seat. In that moment, tormented by flies and severely deprived of coffee with three hours of sleep in my system, I brooded under a homicidal cloud. Not targeting anyone, of course, I was just harbouring a general resentment towards anything that moved.

At last, wer’e off! Personally, I had had enough of Bamako and couldn’t wait to get to work. Along the way, the bus halted a few times so that vendors from local villages could run up to the windows and do their business, selling anything from hard-boiled eggs and peanuts to fruit, chilled water and lait caillé (a form of yogurt….I just couldn’t get past the name, or the undetermined time the dairy-filled packets had sat out in the sun). Then, two hours after departure, having drank half my water from the heat, my bladder rang and let me know it was time to void. Bladders, naturally, not accounting for environmental factors, was very insistent but was nice enough to let me tough out another two and a half hours (at least half an hour of which was spent doing the pee dance in the isle, yep Mum, I did it in public!) until we reached the half-way point and stopped for lunch.

Quite literally in a dump.

Mind you, many places, having no garbage disposal system, really do look like dumps, despite very little actual waste. A small cantina offered rice-based dishes on the fly and cold soft drinks to those who ate fast enough, but somewhere in my mind, the thought of being car-sick for another four and a half hours far outweighed being hungry. We would eat on arrival anyhow and I had peanuts on me. God bless praline peanuts, though I think I won’t ever eat them again after Africa.

We departed fifteen minutes later, and this time stopped only long enough to drop off passengers before hitting Kayes. Driving through town was like riding through sketchy parts of Harlem; after Kangaba, nothing felt friendly and we were all excessively tired by that point. We were yelled at by two different people when we got off the bus, in a language too fast and too foreign for us to understand, we were muddy, sweaty and after finally getting all our luggage, we piled into a corner and called Karim, our contact, who had told us he would meet us on arrival at the station.

Travel is such a learning experience.

Apparently, there were two bus stations in Kayes (which is funny, because there’s only one ATM) on opposite sides of the river, and he was waiting for us on the other side. He asked us to make our way there and then our connection became difficult, so all we heard was “make your way over here and I’ll wait for you”. This didn’t help our mood until a nice guy who worked at the station explained that recent rain had flooded the old bridge, and because the new one wasn’t finished yet, the government was only allowing big trucks across, and as such, only one direction at a time. He arranged for us to hop of the connecting shuttle and get a lift across town, which with waiting, misunderstandings and traffic, took 2 ½ hours. (The actual travel time was around 30 minutes). We posted a funky video on YouTube of our crossing, we’ll try to put it up soon, check every few days, it’s totally worth it!

At last, we arrived at our compound. Karim is very kind, a stern but warm public health official who was trained as an MD, and he was very welcoming and calm when we hauled ourselves off the bus like warhorses, which had a wonderfully therapeutic effect on us.

We drove through our part of Kayes to a neighborhood called Lafiabougou (translated “neighborhood of peace”) and entered a tree filled compound with concrete buildings, and at last we saw the other girls. We were ecstatic. We also met the four other girls from Université Laval who are completing their medical studies and staying at l’ACAUPED coop as well.

Somewhere between receiving directives from younger girls and being ridiculously tired and short-tempered, I began to snap. Some of the girls like to smoke now and then, the Laval girls asked us (in what seemed to be a curt manner) to find an isolated spot outside to smoke. Not the best way for them to relax. Then they immédiate jumped on the issue of internet use and told us we would have to devise a Schedule. And so on and so forth....Bah!

I couldn’t deal with it well, and then we finally ate, after 14 hours without a meal, and were had this reheated, incredibly salty stew on fried noodles, and there wasn’t enough to go around. As a general rule, when something manages to destroy my appetite, I quit. So I quietly put away my dishes and hit the sac, sniffling a bit to not yell. I wanted to, I really did.

I don’t believe it was because of the girls or the rules or the food. Leyla reassured me we would feel better the next day, and sure enough, we did. I just didn’t factor in how tired I really was.