On the Perils of Transport

Your typical long distance bus, loaded high with gear.
Photo: Emily Babin



The standard red dirt graded road.



The bush taxi was waiting in the bus station to pick up more passengers, but it seemed pretty full to me. We were jammed in the van five to a row, squashed between our neighbors and holding our bags on our laps. The roof was piled high with bicycles, motos, furniture, and other assorted luggage. Vendors take advantage of the captive audience at the stations, pushing bread, bananas, bags of water, and all manner of consumables in people’s faces through the windows.

It’s a smart place to set up shop. Not only are passengers liable to be hungry and thirsty after hours on hot, dusty transport, it’s likely that anyone who can afford the ticket will also have the disposable income to splurge on a ten cent bag of cold water. A large portion of the passengers are teachers and other government employees, traveling to and from the villages to which they are assigned, or else merchants bringing in goods from town. It’s the middle class of Burkina Faso, packed together like sheep. And the simile is not used idly; passengers frequently share space in the vehicles with livestock like sheep, goats, and chickens. Getting stuck next to a disgruntled goat makes classic travel annoyances like screaming babies on airplanes pale in comparison.

The convergence of wealth on the transports isn’t lost on the beggar
children, either. They crowd the cars as well, holding out their aluminum
donations cans and chanting a beggar’s song in the local language: “Weenndd na siikiii laaafiiiiiiii!” It is sometimes difficult to draw the line between begging as an act of desperation versus a profession. Certainly there are children going hungry and relying on donations from strangers just to get something to eat every day, but there are also many commissioned to go out and raise money for their mosque or church. “Wend na loke,” people tell them in lieu of giving money. God will provide.

One more woman pushed her way past the beggars and vendors and squeezed her way into a spot in the van. That row now had six people and there was no more room for the apprentice, the man who loads people’s luggage and collects money for tickets. He shut the door from the outside and started to climb up the side of the van. I figured he was headed for the roof, which is a fairly common practice. Sometimes it even seems a more pleasant alternative than the interior. On the roof, you can stretch your legs a little and enjoy the breeze. Inside you are crammed between people so tightly you can’t even shift your weight from one side of your posterior to the other, and you have to fight tooth and nail if you want to keep a window open. Burkinabe hate having wind blowing in their faces. Transport windows get closed even when it means trapping twenty people in an enclosed space more akin to an oven than a car, when it’s 113 degrees officially and who knows how hot inside the vehicle, with no ventilation of any kind, when you’re as wet with your neighbor’s sweat as your own. Times like that, the roof doesn’t seem so bad.

But the apprentice surprised me this time. Instead of climbing all the way up, he swung in the open window onto the woman’s lap. I’m not sure she was thrilled with the development but there was no time to protest because as soon as he was halfway inside the van started moving. We had a soothing, cooling breeze for five wonderful seconds before the apprentice reached back and firmly pulled the window shut.

The bush taxis aren’t the only form of transportation in Burkina. Bus lines service the major cities, and large trucks also transport people, livestock, and goods around the country. When riding trucks people tend to sit up on top of the trailer, up to fifty at a time, twenty feet above the ground as the truck bounces along the rough dirt roads. Major cities are connected by pavement but everywhere else is dirt, liable to be rocky, rutted, and filled with mud puddles nearly impossible to drive through during the rainy season. Still the trucks keep coming, and the people sitting on top keep holding on.

What’s really amazing about the transport system in Burkina Faso is that it works. It might be hot, cramped, slow, piecemeal, and prone to breakdown and delay, but by and large people and goods get where they are supposed to go. Freedom of movement is essential for a country trying to grow its economy, so goods can move from one area to another for profit. While the transport might seem daunting at first and far from ideal, the people use what they have, and make it work. Hopefully that thought will keep me optimistic next time I have a sheep for a seat mate.