Transportation always an adventure in Africa
Maite Uranga
Life in Africa
Transportation in Mauritania is an adventure. It is like one long and sometimes hellish amusement park ride. Before even getting into or onto the mode of transportation, the excitement begins. Getting the one kilometer from the market to my village involves first sitting alongside the road at a seemingly arbitrary point that everyone knows. One day the spot moved. Perhaps one day it will move back. After a while, the donkey cart comes and about 10 people pile on it. Everyone is carrying something: new clothes, watermelons, children, unidentifiable animal parts or lots of vegetables.
Fifteen minutes later the cart jolts forward. Everyone nearly falls off and then we all readjust. I still do not quite know the balance of riding on a donkey cart. I am always a small bump away from plummeting to the ground. It is easy for about the first 50 feet as we go on pavement. But then there is a hard right-hand turn that sends us seemingly out of control down a hill. Eventually our momentum slows and we plod towards the village of Toulde. In about 20 minutes we arrive at the donkey cart stop.
The ride to the capital from Toulde is supposed to take five hours. I have only had the joy of taking this trip two times round trip. Each time I go to the taxi garage around 9:30 or 10 a.m. The first time we left at 10:30. The second time we left at 3 p.m. It all depends on when the taxi gets full.
My usual choice of transportation is a four-door Mercedes from around the 1970s. Six people is the standard carrying capacity. Four in the back, two in the passenger seat and the driver. For short distances this number increases. If I am really lucky sometimes there are two people in the driver's seat which always makes the ride more exciting. The price for this all depends on how much I feel like arguing that day.
Once the car actually leaves the garage the saga continues. There are police stops about every half an hour; the purpose of which I am not entirely sure. During my first trip at the first police post outside of Toulde they stopped us and refused to let us continue (the driver would not pay the bribe). Everyone got out of the car and the driver returned to the garage to get some official paper and returned an hour later. During this time we sat in the shade of the guards shack having no idea whether our driver would actually return.
Another trip during Ramadan a man cowered away from me because men and women are not supposed to touch during this time. 60 kilometers later the same man bought a goat leg at one of our stops and put it behind our heads in the back seat. His friend brought a live mutton and the driver put it in the trunk with the rest of the luggage. Periodically we could hear it kick.
Another trip I had the privilige of sitting next to a four-year-old girl who ate the entire time. By the end of the drive I had yogurt, chocolate, banana and milk all over my left arm. Every trip we stop at least twice for prayer. If the tape player works, we get to listen to some semblance of Koranic chanting for at least an hour. I have heard that some days the 5 hours turn into 24 and require everyone to sleep on the sand dunes for the night. Tomorrow I leave for Nouakchott although I have no idea when or in what condition I will arrive.
Maite Uranga graduated from Notre Dame in 2000 as an anthropology and government major. She is currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 5, 2002
