Mopti Caw Site Visit

(picture from Tubaniso, the PC training site in Bamako)


Five years of living in Portland, and it turns out I had to come all the way to Mali to find my Oregon Trail adventure: the Mopti Caw site visit. The potential mishaps of the Oregon Trail are all apparent here, with some amendments to be sure... Replace the risk of scarlet fever with yellow fever, and the threat of your driving ox's heart giving out in the mid-day heat with the potential for your bush taxi's engine blowing out. The other potential risks are all there: having to forge a river and losing all your cargo on the way, having a giardia attack (necessitating a swift departure to go shit up a storm en brousse), encountering bribe-demanding bandits (a.k.a. Malian gendarmes), being peed/vomited on by a small child thrust upon your lap. Oh the joys of sub-Saharan African public transit.

So here's what that translated into for us, the 18 new Mopti PCTs, on our first visit to the villages we'll be living in for the next two years...

Most of us woke up at Tubaniso at the ungodly (un-Allah-y?) hour of 5am to the militant sound of our trainer's trumpet-- only a smidgen better than the usual loathesome donkey/rooster wakeup call. As was impressed upon us, at 6am precisely we trudged through the early morning rain and mud to the refectoire to catch our buses. Instead, we were greeted by a room void of the promised coffee and breakfast, and absent of anyone deluded enough to think that ANYTHING in Mali can be organized that early in the morning (except for praying or going to work in the fields).

We, the Mopti Caw (Caw means people in Bambara), finally loaded up at about 7:30am and hit the road in our air condition-less Spanish bohemouth of a van. Fourty-five minutes later, we roll up to the gare for Gana Transport... and stop. After some time we learn that we're waiting for them to "replace a tire," which I learned is Bambara for "wait around to fill the seats with as many passengers as possible." Once we got going again, we make periodic stops to fill up on gas, actually replace a tire, stop at a market, etc. At around 9:30 we finally get out of Bamako, which should've only taken about 40 minutes. Layilah. But, no crying babies, no livestock on the roof, and our driver doesn't visibly appear to be drunk: so far all is well by Malian standards.

A few hours later we roll through a part of Mali called Blah (not joking), and by now the lack of A.C. has started to hit. Funteni fuckin be, as my friend Chris would say (explitive Bambara for it's fucking hot). We pull over to unload some luggage for a PCT who will be staying in this godforesaken place, and chu-chu-phhhhh... the engine fails. The driver tries putting it into neutral and letting it roll backwards, then forwards, to give it a running start. To no avail. Eventually about 15 of us jump off the bus to go push the massive thing (okay, the Malians were pushing, the Tubabs were taking pictures/smoking cigarettes/laughing hysterically). Et voila, we finally get going again.

Hereafter, we begin repeatedly encountering a problem called "Jeremy Lhoir." This is a Belgian-American PCT (my friend) who insists on sprinting out of the bus at every opportunity to go... well, who knows what he does... thus delaying our departure time multiple times throughout the day, pissing several people off, and dramatically increasing the smell of b.o. in the bus (every time we stop, so does the airflow).

We make it to Seygou around noon, and get off to have lunch. Bad sign-- the driver opens up the hood of the bus. He sends someone to go get repair parts for something. We sit there in the midday heat, attacked by street vendors and garibous (street kids asking for alms), for THREE hours. The sound of the bus finally honking for us to get on was the sweetest noise I have heard here.

On the road again, and night starts to fall. Spirits are rising and the temperature is going down. We all are drifting in and out of a peaceful sleep. Then, all of the sudden the driver slams on the breaks and starts to swerve a bit.... THWAK! We hit a cow. Luckily our driver's skill prevented us from even coming close to tipping over or anyone getting hurt. No such luck for the cow.

Shortly thereafter, another storm rolls in, firing up the otherwise pitch-black sky with lightning and red dust, and slowing down the pace of our bus.

FINALLY, at about 9pm, we arrive in Sevare. Alxamdulilahi. Now the only thing we have to worry about is Yacouba (a trainer) having a heart attack...

Quite the intro to Malian transport. Still, I think we had it pretty good. The PCVs told us to stop bitching, that it ain't no thang. Personally, my only regret is that we hit a cow, not a donkey.