DANTE'S INFERNO

Bobo Dioulasso and Ouagadougou, (pronounced “Waga – doogoo), and known locally as “Bobo” and “Ouaga” respectively, are to Burkina Faso what Minneapolis-St. Paul are to Minnesota.   Well, almost.

According to the United Nations, Burkina, its shortened term, is the 3^rd poorest country in the world.     Ouaga , the capital, is about 85 km  north of Bobo,  the country’s second largest city.   "Burkina Faso" in the  local tribal  langugage means dignity-nobility-integrity and homeland, and is translated as “Land of the Honorable.”   The Rough Guide travel book writes that  “few countries are as unlucky as Burkina. . . . It is desperately and famously poor, with an almost total lack of  raw materials or natural resources.”    To add to its misery, it is also landlocked.  

It has mostly lived up to its reputation.

The tree-lined streets and colonial buildings (in varying states of extreme disrepair), afro-beat nightclubs and fresh-baked pastries from its many patisseries, make central Bobo a magnet for travelers and ex-pats.   But the veneer, in my opinion, is marred by the reality I experienced.   Life for the locals seems incredibly desperate and sadder than in many African cities I’ve visited thus far.

Young boys wandered the streets carrying old, empty, rusted tin cans of coffee, begging for money.   We later learned that the schools require them to spend a portion of their day accosting locals and tourists alike for donations to pay for their education.  Without the requisite quota, education is denied.

Hawkers followed us everywhere waving trinkets in our faces, pleading with us to buy their hand-made dolls, bead-necklaces and small bags of water.   One woman tried desperately to sell the 3 strawberries in her hand. 

But it was the Old Quarter that made my heart break.

Only viewable by paying a guide a negotiated $2, our 13-year old fearless leader, clearly a member of the local mafia who controlled this section of town, did his best to present the place in the best light possible.   But even he could not disguise what my eyes and ears were telling me.

Imagine a shantytown of lean-to’s made of mud brick, hot as hell with nary a tree or blade of grass in sight, no place to shelter one’s head from the blazing sun.    No sidewalks, no roads, only bone-dry hardened dirt and mud between the crowded houses.   No running water, electricity, or sewers, trash littered the streets. There was only one small, locked classroom in the Quarter’s school, code-named  “Paradise,” by officials in a miserable attempt to fool the locals.  Beggars, both old and young, wandered about, some obviously insane, talking to whomever would listen – as well as those who would not.  We’ve seen quite a lot of young children with hernias in Burkina.   These hernia are recognizable as large, long, pointed growths protruding outward several inches from near the belly button.    We were told that the hernia are created by incorrectly tying or cutting the umbilical cords at birth.    As long as the hernia did not rupture, the child would merely be deformed.   But if it did rupture, death would surely result.  Women, with babies on their backs, and babies on their hips, were pounding the cassava (manioc) into maize, while making millet beer on stoves that increased the intensity of the already oppressive heat to temperatures that can only be known in hell.  Unemployed men sat on corners with nothing to do and no hope of ever finding work.  But perhaps the most depressing sight was the “Sacred Fish River.”  Polluted with sewage, plastic bags, rotted fruits and vegetables and the trash of life, gold fish in the river were fed chickens by the residents in honor of their religion and were the size of small dogs.  While the women attempted to clean the family’s clothes in this filth, children washed and splashed about.

Residents tried their best to survive in this misery.  The hardened dirt ground in front of each hut is meticulously swept clean on a daily basis.   I saw two girls sitting on a 2 x 4  in front of a makeshift blackboard,  learning math from a third girl, not much older than themselves. While residents do their best to keep their homes and bodies clean  and  teach basic math and reading to their young, only the government can rid the public areas of massive mounds of trash, install water and sewer lines, traffic lights and walkways, and provide for the old, infirme, insane and lonely.  This government, as in most of Africa, is nowhere in sight.

I am not a good-enough writer to adequately describe the wretchedness of Bobo’s Old Quarter, but suffice it to say that I am still, three days later, haunted by it.  It was a trip to hell.

Ouaga, though, in my opinion, (which happens to be contrary to that of most other travelers), is Bobo’s better- half.   A typical African capital, there are lots of old cars and motorcycles spewing polluted fumes, streets lined with vendors and (relatively) many Europeans and other westerners working in Embassies and businesses throughout the city.   The vibe here is much more upbeat.  There are street lights at some intersections (“Pedestrian Beware” at others), several large modern buildings and sewer-lined walkways covered with blocks of cements placed in such a way that if one is not careful a foot can get caught in the spaces between the blocks.  But hey, at least there are sewers.  There is the requisite Grand Mosque and a large, modern supermarket.  We had dinner last night in a quiet, hidden garden restaurant run by nuns who also serve the food, and who, at exactly 9:30 pm, sing the “Ave Maria.”

Most of West Africa is French-speaking, so I am managing quite well here.

Tomorrow we begin our 4-day ride to the Mali border.

  

THE STRANGEST THINGS

African ingenuity in creating the semblance of a modern life amid physical hardship, scarcity of resources, and extreme poverty; in making do with next to nothing; in building buildings and roads, feeding hungry families, fending off or tending to animals and earning a measly, but difficult to obtain, $600 per year, penny by penny, so that simple necessities, such as medicine or school books, can be bought, proves that necessity is the mother of invention and that the Africans are world-class inventors.

Almost everything here is either made by hand from nature or has been modified from  used or defective items cast-off by the western world. 

Some examples of African resourcefulness and the oddest things I’ve seen so far: 

1. WATER:   Municipal water supply systems are non-existent outside of, and are extremely limited, in large cities.  Those campgrounds or hotels we’ve stayed in must therefore gerryrig their own systems with the use of a generator that huffs and puffs, wheezes and growls when operating (and then just for a few hours, which hours are never announced in advance).  Moreover, faucets do not extend far enough into the sink from their perch on the sink’s ledge.  Perhaps the undersized spout is European, while the sink is American oversized for the hardware chosen.   In any event, half the water from the spout empties into the drain, while the other half splays all over the sink edge onto the floor and feet.  When the toilet is flushed, the shower may inexplicably turn on.   When the shower is turned on, the faucet may leak.  Hot water, if available, only runs in the tiniest of trickles. A cold glass of water is only a dream.

2. CARS:  Just about all cars are old – really old.   Thirty to 40 years old and recycled from the junk piles of America or Japan.  They have been refurbished, rebuilt, and gerry-rigged decade after decade, owner by owner.  Taxi passengers are squeezed into vans stripped bare and modified with wooden bench seats arranged in a rectangle along the interior walls.   There may be no doors on the vehicle, missing floorboards, and/ or holes in the roof.  The vans may slow down along the route, but they never stop, as passengers jump on and off at will.   They are squeezed into these death traps like sardines with no room to even turn one’s head.  Only the most nimble can ride in them.  “Private” taxis, converted cars with no sign that they are meant for pubic transport, (only the cruising driver, asking if we need a ride, is evidence of its public nature) are rusted and dented;   upholstery, when it exists, is ripped to shreds, the radio slot is an empty hole, as is much of the dashboard.  The windshield is often cracked and the manual window handles are either broken or missing.   One night we were 7 plus the driver in a taxi meant for no more than 4, when we were stopped at one of the ubiquitous “traffic controls” along every roadway.  Although we were overcrowded and the vehicle was extremely low to the ground, the policeman was only interested in knowing whether the blinker worked.  Never mind the almost floorless interior and lack of seatbelts..   Although it passed the blinker inspection, a  $2 bribe got us back on the road.

3. BORDER CROSSINGS:  All frontiers crossed thus far are indicated by nothing more than a wooden or mudbrick lean-to, aslant in the middle of nowhere, with a horizontal red & white striped metal rail extending across the road, anchored on either side by two vertical poles extending up from inside large metal oil drums, also painted in red and white stripe.   Once the coveted entry stamp is made by the lone immigration officer, another sleepy African official gets up from his nest below the nearest tree, walks over to the rail and manually lifts it so that the vehicle can pass. When we crossed into The Gambia yesterday, great fanfare was made at the lonesome post.  An obviously well-fed border policeman in full regalia – starched blue uniform, rifle and bullet-proof vest - boarded the truck, inspected the vehicle’s documents and read every passport, before he gave his ok to continue.   We were sure it was his only official act in days.   Our crossing from Mali into Senegal was the definition of bedlam amid anarchy.    A convoy of large trucks carrying goods into Mali was backed up for at least a mile.  The trucks were using both lanes of the 2-lane highway to go east.   Those of us traveling west into Senegal could not get through.  It was the Romans facing Attila the Hun on the battlefield, colliding as the armies charged toward eachother creating utter chaos in the hand-to-hand combat upon meeting.   Some passengers abandoned their cars, leaving their drivers to man the steering wheels and walked the kilometer or more to reach the border patrol for the entry stamp, returning to their vehicles only to find that they had advanced forward imperceptibly.  Each vehicle was battling the next for forward motion.   The Senegal River swirled below as the mass of metal and tires convoluted itself into a twisted, intertwined mishmash of confusion made the worse by the oppressive heat from which there was no escape.  I walked over to the border patrol police and asked him to please direct the traffic so that we could get through.   Quite to my surprise, he made some hand motions and extracted us from the mess.   We were on the other side!

4. FOOD:  Shopping for food was extremely traumatic at first but I have since become accustomed to scouring the markets of small villages teeming with people and the smelly, open stalls of rotting and still breathing fish, slabs of meat awaiting chopping in the hot sun,  wrinkled peppers the size of large cashews, and rotten bananas – and this is a description of the plentiful markets.   Most markets are very limited and may contain only tomatoes and cassava, or tomatoes and bananas (tomatoes, it seems, are quite plentiful).    One day the meat which was destined to become my cook group’s Bolognese, spoiled in the truck’s broken refrigerator.  The search for that night’s dinner was no easy task.  The sole market we passed that day contained only the smallest of  tomatoes and nothing else that was edible.    We opened cans of tuna from the truck’s emergency supply and made a salad using what little we had.  I am at this moment sitting in the restaurant of the Senegalese National Animal Preserve hungry for lunch.   The only thing on the menu is an omelet and French fries.  Bananas are the only desert.   As soon as I order I am told that it is ‘fini, Madame.”  A large group had just passed through and there is no more food.   Whenever we ask "What do you have to drink, or eat?" we get a long list of available items, "Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Beer, Juice," etc., "   "Ok," we say, I'll have a coke."   "Sorry," they inevitably respond.  "No coke."   As we go through the list, we discover that perhaps, only Sprite, or juice is available.   why did they simply not tell us that at the beginning?

5.  HEAT:    At round 11 a.m., the sun suddenly, in a seeming flash, becomes white hot, blinding, relentless, oppressive, and sears the brain.  All thinking and movement comes to a standstill in the 110+ heat.  There is nothing to do but seek shelter.   But there is no air conditioning;  no mall, no restaurant within which to find refuge, not even a single cloud.    The shadow of a lonely tree is often already filled with animals and people.   The never-ending search for shade takes on epic importance and I can only dream of an ice cold drink.   The female custom of carrying items on the head creates shade for the face and makes trips to the well and market only slightly more bearable in the blazing heat.  We do have a cooler on board for drinks which is filled with blocks of ice only on the rare occasion when it is available – usually from the local morgue.   We are reduced to grabbing a chip off the ice block to rub onto our sun bleached, red hot necks and chests – a/c the old-fashioned way – by earning it!

6.   ANIMALS:    We’ve seen a donkey being transported on a motorcycle, some goats on the top of a long-haul truck, apparent dinner, and today, as we crossed the Gambia River, we saw one of the strangest sights yet.  We were making the 3 minute crossing by ferry at a point where the river is not very wide – perhaps only 2,000 feet.  Someone needed to get his cow from one side of the river to the other and didn’t want to pay the ferry fee.   He put a rope around his cow’s neck and had it swim adjacent to his dug-out canoe.    He used the rope to keep the poor cow’s head above water so that it wouldn’t drown, while his friend paddled.  We stood on the far bank rooting for the cow and cheering her on.   Much to our surprise, the cow bounded out of the water as if it had been through no trauma at all, happy to have cooled off a bit.   She had evidently done this crossing before.

7.  ROADS:  African governments’ tradition of doing absolutely nothing for its people renders roads in West Africa less than ideal, barely passable really, more like foot paths of packed dirt and mud.  Like car commercials on television, the driver must slalom to and fro to navigate the large potholes, various road kill, cows, goats and the occasional rolled- over tractor-trailer.  A 150 mile trip took us 8 hours several days ago.  We saw scores of men digging a miles-long trench by hand, with only rudimentary tools, working like a chain gang, when one small bulldozer could have accomplished the same task in 1/10 the time.  One road was so narrow that we had to choose between closing the windows in the oppressive heat, or leaving them open and risk getting whacked in the face by tree branches and their leaves.  The roads are also notable for the arbitrary positioning of the frequent police checkpoints along the main road (and I use the singular here, because there is always just one main road per country).   The police stop vehicles at random and pretend to peruse vehicle and passenger document information.  Any small technicality is sometimes used to extract a “fine” from the driver.   Since the truck we are riding in is from the UK, the steering wheel is on the right.   The passenger reclining in the left front seat is often mistaken for a driver asleep at the wheel and the police board the truck to try and locate the steering wheel!  In The Gambia, the police board simply to welcome us and to chat – to find out where we are all from and to ask for a cold glass of water (which we don’t have).

8. THE SOCCER BALL:  Above our seats on the truck, in netted catch-alls, are storage bins for small items.  One passenger brought two blow-up soccer balls from home, both of which have lost most of their air to small holes.  Whenever we stop for gas or a market, children flock to the truck and talk to those sitting at the windows.  After only a minute or two, they inevitably spot the balls overhead, and beg for it.  One mother pleaded, “Please, give me the ball for my boy.”  They seem to want the ball more than they want food or money.  “The Rule” (see post entitled “Wahib and John”), prohibits us from giving it to them.   Which child among the scores outside the windows would get it?  If we simply tossed a ball outside, would they fight over it, with the strongest getting the prize?  We have yet to decide how to get the balls off the truck and into the hands of the kids, but we are determined to leave the balls in Africa.  

9. Some things we couldn’t help but notice:

1. Pubs with no beer;
2. Dartboards with no darts;
3. Waterholes with no water;
4. Markets with no food;
5. Bakeries with no bread;
6. Morgues with no ice;
7. World maps with no New Zealand;
8. Schools with no students;
9. National Parks with no animals;
10. WiFi with no internet;
11. Restaurants with no food;
12. Showers with no water;
13. Sockets with no light bulbs;
14. 3G with no access;
15. Cars with no seatbelts or doors;
16. ATM’s with no money;
17. Sun with no shade;
18. Sea view restaurants, with no sea view;
19. Sewers with no covers;
20. Police with no morals;
21. Merchants with no change;
22. Life with no hope.

THE OKAVANGA DELTA

Imagine that a continent’s major river, call it The Congo, starts at your shoulder (Angola).   As it descends your arm (“The Panhandle’) and spreads into your palm, its name changes to Kavanga (in Namibia) and finally Okavanga (in Botswana).   With no outlet to the sea, the river is swallowed by the sands of the Kalahari Desert as it branches out into your fingers, consumed by the thirsty air, and losing itself in a maze of lagoons, channels and islands.  That, in a non-pictorial nutshell, is the Okavanga Delta, the pride of landlocked Botswana, a nationally protected and uninhabited preserve and  major tourist Mecca for animal lovers, hunters, explorers, researchers and the otherwise just plain curious.

Roughly the size of Texas, Botswana is almost totally covered with scrub bush and savanna grasslands, which together facilitate vast migrations of wildlife rarely seen elsewhere on the continent. 

Botswana is also a political and economic success story, despite its notoriety as having the highest percentage (38%) of HIV infected population.  Shortly after gaining independence from colonial rule in 1966, one of the world’s three richest diamond-bearing formations was found here.   With the exception of South Africa, Botswana is the most economically and politically stable country in sub-Saharan Africa with high standards of education and health care.   But a frantic fight for alternative revenue is in high gear.   The mines are thought to contain only 35 years of diamond-supply. There is scant alternative mineral wealth and foreign investment is mostly limited to diamond mining.  Observers are worried about the country’s future.

Despite its standing as one of the best managed countries in Africa, it’s championship title compares it to a continent of misfits, madmen, kleptocrats and massive dysfunction.

Lest we forget, this is still Africa.

We headed west along the border where 4 countries – Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana meet and reached the river crossing that would take us to the tip of the Okavanga Delta’s Panhandle, to begin our descent into its heart.  It was the typical African ferry crossing.  Only one “ferry,” more like a cargo raft, makes the 5-minute crossing and is large enough for a single small bus and a jeep.   Passengers hung on to the ferry’s chains, the only barrier protecting them from the croc-infested water.  We landed with a clunk. The truck was either too high or the ferry too low.  The front fender and underbody slammed into the mound of dirt operating as an off-ramp.  No problem.  The Africans are ready for every eventuality that may happen on a regular basis.   The truck reversds onto the ferry, and two metal strips, purposely bent to imitate a dip, are placed by the passengers (one of whom burned his hand touching the metal which had been sitting in the sun for God-knows how long) in front of the truck, creating the height needed to exit the ferry.   We were on our way.

An hour later we reached our destination which was at the end of a sandy road in the middle of nowhere.  Waiting for us were our “Polers,” natives trained to steer the “mokoro”, a flat-bottomed dug-out that floats in as little as one foot of water.  We carried our considerable amount of stuff:  sleeping bags, cooking equipment, food, eating utensils, water jerrycans, etc., etc., etc., through the brush and sand, cow dung and cows, straining under the weight of our “essentials,” until we reached the water’s edge, where the mokoros were waiting – one for every two people.  Only one Poler and his long pole, a simple wood stick, pushed us along.  We were sitting low to the water.   There was only a thin sheet of wood that separated our bottoms from the water’s surface.  The 1 ½ hour boat voyage to our campsite was through a veritable wonderland of flora and fauna, void of the sound of human voice and punctuated intermittently by the  palpable grunt of hippos and singing birds. 

Despite its narrow and low –to- the- water construction, the mokoro was extremely stable, comfortable and dry.  Its pointy bow split the tall grasses before us effortlessly and silently, dividing reed and papyrus right down the middle as Moses parted the Red Sea, allowing us to gracefully glide forward.

Our campsite was a deserted island in the heart of the Delta.   Unfenced, at water’s edge, I was petrified to leave my tent to pee during the night.   Hippos, which have no sweat glands, remain in the water all day long, coming up for air every 5-7 minutes to breathe.  They graze on the river’s banks under cover of night.  If one gets between a hippo and the water he’s done for it.  Hippos are extremely aggressive in such situations and can charge with such ferocity and force that death to the interloper is almost certain.   I heard the hippos grunting all night.   Adding to the drama was the threat of hyenas lurking behind a bush and who knows what else.    I peed immediately behind our tent.

The next morning the mokoros took us further afield during a sunrise that lit the hundreds of white and lavendar lily pads and tall grasses with a glow of yellow and orange.  Suddenly I heard the telltale hippo grunt again – this time directly under the mokoro!    My heart stopped beating for a split second.   Will the nasty creature overturn our boat?  We were in only a very few feet of water.   I held on to my camera for dear life. Immediately we entered into an open lake-like area of the Delta where the hippos were cavorting.  The grunts I heard had traveled under water which had magnified the sound.  

We arrived at another island for a “nature walk.”  Our first sighting was an elephant.   Good thing our tracker/poler sighted him first.   He was agitated and not in a good mood. (the elephant, not our poler)  We backed off and crouched behind a bush until the elephant took off in the other direction.    The island was awash in zebra, monkey, oryx, warthog and other wildlife.   All of which we were able to observe fairly closely in full living color.

The trip back to “civilization,” in reverse, from isolated camp site to “big city,” was long – load our gear and ourselves off the island campsite and into the mokoros, and pole back to  middle of nowhere on the mainland, hike through the scrub and bush, loaded with stuff,  finally reaching the truck which was waiting for us in the same spot – under the shade of a lonely baobab tree. 

But the trip on the main road would prove to be even longer.

As we attempted to drive around a tree in the middle of the dirt road, we got bogged down in sand up to the middle of the back wheel.   The guys dug almost to the other side of the world to no avail.  Villagers appeared out of nowhere to watch the spectacle, as did some guy strolling down the road with a rifle laid horizontally across his shoulders, striding as if he owned the highway.   We flagged down a passing truck, and although it had no chain, it volunteered to wait as a villager ran back to get one.   He appeared, huffing and puffying some 15 minutes later with a rope – a rope!  A simple fiber cord. What was he thinking????  Another villager soon thereafter came to the rescue with a real, but flimsy metal chain.   After hooking the chain to the pulling truck, a passing army truck took its place in the back to push.   The cows were shooed away from the area, and with one giant heave - ho, a perfectly synchronized push from the back and pull from the front, the chain snapped.  Yosy took out his lucky thick nylon rope that he never leaves home without  - 5-star Paris hotel or an afternoon of cross-country skiing in the backyard - and, wrapping it around the broken chain and flimsy village cord, we tried again.   As the pushing truck and the pulling truck took their places, we counted down – 3-2-1.  One more heave-ho and we were out of the hole and on our way!  

Tomorrow we leave for Chobe, the second of Botswana’s major tourist havens, another animal preserve and home to a thousand elephants and other wildlife.   It will be the last 2 nights of camping before we finish the trip in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and begin making our way back to New York.

I hope you’ll look at the photos which probably tell this story better than this entry.