Spending Holidays in Mali with Terrible Transport

It seems that I just can't post any pictures from any of the computers I've been at recently. Everyone got a small taste of some of the stuff I've been seeing, and now there's nothing. Apologies for that. I have been seeing amazing things, I swear, but I'd like to post some pictures to really drive the point home.

Well, what can I say instead? I was in Mopti for my birthday, in Djenné, a city of faded glory from the days of Islamic empire, for Christmas, and now I'm in Mali's capital, Bamako, for New Year's Eve. It seems I've been running into Mali Volunteers all over the place lately, as everyone is moving around for the holidays. It's been great for me, as Volunteers tend to know the cheap/interesting places to eat, sleep, and see.

But this post is about something different. I could write about the old city in Mopti, or the massive mud mosque in Djenné, about the first's surge as Mali's major river port at the expense of the second, about Djenné's once glorious past as a center of Islamic learning and one of the major trading cities on the trans-Saharan routes, rivaling even Timbuktu and Agadez. But I'm not going to do any of that. Instead, I'm going to throw out some of the challenges the traveler faces in West Africa, which just reaffirm that you haven't left this part of the world, that though places like Mopti, Djenné, and Segou all have Internet access (even wireless in some places), the difficulty of moving around is still the biggest pain of West Africa.

I was told by the Volunteer in Djenné, which is a city more or less on an island, requiring a ferry service to access, that if I wanted to get out of Djenné, I'd have to get to the loading point (gare) by 7:00 am, or else it'd be really difficult to get anywhere before nightfall. So I woke up early and was there before 7. This is how the next three hours played out.

Me: Hi, I'd like to go to Segou today, so I want to buy a ticket to the carrefour (the main stop on the road outside Djenné where everyone gets buses, cars, etc.)
Ticket Guy: Why go to the carrefour? We have a bus that's leaving this morning for Bamako. It can drop you off in Segou, and it goes direct. You'll have no problems.
And it's leaving this morning?
Yes, this morning.

So I take the ticket and I sit down to wait. I've probably been waiting about half an hour when a woman getting in a car to the carrefour looks at me and says, "You need to go to the carrefour. If you're waiting for that bus, wallahi, you'll be waiting here still by tonight. Just you see, you'll still be here tonight." Well...that was ominous.

Excuse me, sir? That lady who just left said that this bus isn't going anywhere today and that I should go to the carrefour.
No, no, no, it is going today, trust me. (We walk over to the bus) See? Everything is already packed on top. We'll leave in twenty minutes. 8:00 at the latest.

By 7:40, they're taking everything off the bus.

Why are they taking everything off the bus? (Search for the ticket agent again after 20 mins of waiting.) They're taking everything off the bus. It's obviously not leaving today.
No, it will leave. They're taking everything off the bus and sweeping it. It will leave after.
You said before they loaded everything on it last night so it could leave early.
Look, I'll ask the driver. (To some random guy) Is this bus leaving today? Yes, it's leaving today. See? Just sit here and wait.

More waiting. It becomes more and more obvious that this bus is not leaving. Find the ticket seller.

Okay, give me my money back, I'm walking. (It's 30k to the carrefour and 2k to the ferry)
No! It's leaving, I swear. You just be patient.
But not now! It's not leaving this morning, and I want to leave.
It is leaving now. Not at noon, not even at ten. In a few minutes.
Bullshit! (Is what I was thinking and trying to communicate, but I don't know how to say that in French) Give me my money.
Look, I'll ask the driver again. (Some other random guy, not even the same one as before.) Oh, he said tomorrow morning.
F*** you, give me my money!
Patience, patience, we'll get a car for all of you waiting for the bus and it'll leave toute suite.

Fifteen minutes more. I talk to a French couple traveling overland through West Africa. Back to the ticket guy.

Let's go. You said toute suite.
Patience, we need five more people to fill the car.
I might actually kill you! Give me my expletive-inducing money!
The car will leave soon.
I don't want soon! I've been waiting over two hours for transport that barely exists anyway! GIVE ME MY F***ING MONEY, I'M F***ING WALKING!
It's too far!
I DON'T GIVE A GOOD GOD D***! I'M WHITE! I'LL HITCHHIKE! TOURISTS WILL PICK ME UP! ANYTHING TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!

The guy basically lied to me the entire time because he wanted more money. He knows the bus schedule and knows that every week for, I'm sure, years that the bus stays overnight on a Sunday to take people home after Monday's market. In this case, patience was not a virtue. If I'd waited, I would still be in Djenné or God only knows where. As it was, I started walking, got picked up by a really, really crappy bush taxi that was carrying goods only, not people, as I'm sure this thing would be unsafe under any conditions. There were no interior panels, the doors had to be jammed shut, they didn't close fully without a good kick, there was no starter, the guy just had to literally hot wire it everytime he wanted to start it. It had a max speed of about 10 mph, and the popping I kept hearing, I found out after about 30 mins, was the metal of the door grinding against the metal of the frame everytime we hit a bump.

But overall, none of this mattered. The car managed to get me to the carrefour, where I immediately got a bus. Though cramped in the back seat, breathing in the heat and exhaust from the engine, it got me to Segou about two hours slower than a regular bus would. However, I did meet some Volunteers on the bus, and they showed me around Segou and have helped me out a lot in Bamako. Overall, there wasn't a lot to Segou, but after a full day of travel hell, the simplicity and laid-back atmosphere of the city seemed like a god send.

So for now, that's all I want to spend on a computer. I'm off to somewhere else in Mali for a couple weeks until I'm in Ivory Coast to meet up with Emilie Ross, who was the first Volunteer in Tanka Lokoto, my village in Niger. We'll have a lot of stories to trade I'm sure, but until then, I'll see what other adventures I can have.