March 20: Off to
Bamako
Ok, so we are all over this trip and ready to go back to
Benin—or America, whichever comes first—as soon as possible. Again, we took a once-air-conditioned bus,
but fortunately the trip from Segou to Bamako was only 3 hours rather than 5
and the bus stopped less frequently.
The bus was supposed to leave at 9:30am, but in true African
style left at about 11. When we got to
Bamako—the gigantic, sprawling capital that seems to stretch on forever, in
contrast to the cramped, concentrated Cotonou—we were, of course, accosted by
taxi drivers and the frustration began.
First, when we got off the bus we wanted to secure our
onward transport to Ouagadougou right away.
We wanted to know that, yes, there is a bus, yes, it is on a schedule,
and yes, we could be accommodated. We
heard that TCV bus line had an overnight bus to Ouaga, which would have been
perfect because we wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel for one night. We asked for the location of the TCV bus line
and were told that the bus we came in on (called Bittar) also handled TCV,
which we went along with even though we were convinced that it was a big
lie. We got the phone number and left to
find a taxi to our friend’s house (we were to stay with a French friend who
lives in town and works for an NGO). One
taxi tried to gouge us, so we left to find a different taxi and the first taxi
driver ran over to us and accepted our price.
We called our contact—a Malian friend (Guisse) of our French friend
(Thibaut)—to give the taxi driver directions to the house. Thibaut was out of town for work so Guisse
was given the task of meeting us at the house and letting us in with the spare
key.
After getting lost a few times, we FINALLY arrived at the
house but, of course, taximan wanted more money. Guisse intervened (terribly) in local
language and discovered that the taxi driver did not speak French and that he somehow agreed to a price that he did
not understand.
This was a problem throughout our entire trip and would
prove to be a major obstacle in the capital.
Though the Mali’s official language is French, maybe only 20% of the population
actually speaks it. The major language
is Bambara, and Songhaï,
Fula, and Dogon are spoken in different regions. Almost everyone in Benin speaks French as a
second language, so we understood that people maybe wouldn’t speak French
fluently, but it seemed like almost nobody in Mali spoke French, which was a major
problem.
Anyway, after about 15 minutes of arguing and grandstanding
with the taxi driver, he finally left with his hard-earned cfa. The house was comfortable and had fans
everywhere, which was nice because Bamako is essentially the Phoenix of West
Africa. Thibaut had told us that there
was a chawarma place near his house so as soon as we were settled in, Heather
took off with Guisse to get us some food.
After we ate it was close to night time (about 5:30pm), so we stayed in
for the night and decided to check out the city of Bamako (whatever there was
to see) the next day, then leave on Thursday.
March 21: Half a Day
in Bamako
We left chez Thibaut at
around 9 or 10 to check out Bamako.
First, we had to find the TCV bus gare to secure our next day’s
passage to Ouagadougou. We got a taxi that
seemed competent and we were off. He
seemed to know where he was going…until he clearly did not. He, of course, took us to the wrong bus
station, then drove around FOREVER trying to find the one that we were looking
for despite our pleas to just stop and let us out and cut our losses. He knew French and used it to argue with us
the entire time and wanted extra money when we finally got out. He got out of the taxi and chased us down,
grabbed my arm and demanded more money.
I shook him off and he returned to his taxi and screamed at us as he
drove away.
By this point we hadn’t yet eaten breakfast. We were all hungry, frustrated, confused, and
upset. Our collective blood sugar was
dangerously low so we took off on foot to find something to eat. Luckily, we were able to find maman selling
bananas, and around that time we also found a way to get around Bamako besides
taxis—tro-tros. Heather spotted a bunch
of run-down green minivans with men shouting destinations out the windows (like
we have seen in Accra), and we decided to give it a shot. The tro-tros cost 100 or 150 cfa a trip;
taxis, on the other hand, often cost 500 cfa each trip, plus you have to deal
with an irate driver who wants more money but doesn’t speak French at the end
of the trip.
We checked out a neat (albeit sprawling—if there’s one word
that describes Bamako, that’s it) artisan’s market that churns out jewelry,
immaculate boxes, swords, chairs, woodcarvings, sandals, and other souvenir items
at an industrial level to sell to tourists.
This was not mentioned in Lonely Planet.
After that, we tried to go to the “Marché Medina” that LP promised was a decent market and
see “Point G” where supposedly there is a good panoramic view of the city.
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| 'gator skin at Artisan's Market |
That part of our plan did not work out for a few different
reasons: First, the medina area sells like a mix between dried & fried fish
and shit. It was pretty disgusting. The quartier was criss-crossed with open
sewers full of trash and feces and the breeze blows the stench everywhere. Second, Point G would require some light
hiking that we were not excited about since it felt like it was 200 degrees and
we didn’t have much water with us.
Third, the city is so covered in dust and smog that you cannot even see
the surrounding hills, so there was no way of seeing the city from the
escarpment, anyway. A shop owner we
asked about it showed us a picture in a book of the view from Point G, which,
based upon the graininess of the photo, was probably about 25 years old. Who wants to see a birds-eye view of this
mess, anyway? I wanted to click my heels
together, say “there’s no place like home” and be transported back to Benin,
America, anywhere but Bamako.
We took another tro-tro to our quartier and went shopping
for food for the next day’s likely voyage.
Our host would be back later that afternoon and we were going to ask him
to take one us to Bittar to get our bus tickets for the next day.
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| Taureg-style box from Artisan's Market |
After our light shopping we went back to the house, took a
quick nap, and left for some hard-earned and much-needed chawarma. When we got back to the house, we saw that we
had 4 missed calls from our host. We
beeped him and he called us back and talked to Erin for a few minutes.
Apparently a coup d’état
was in the works. The army had the
presidential palace surrounded. The
story Thibaut told was that there were “violent protests” and that the army had
fired upon the protesters, killing some of them. We were to stay at the house and not to go
outside. We called out country director,
Bob, and asked for advice. He advised us
to stay inside and gave us the phone numbers for the Mali CD, Mike, and the PC
Mali Safety and Security Officer. We
called Mike and he filled us in with some information, then we called our families
to let them know that we were ok.
We got to work setting up an informational tree: Erin would
be able to speak directly with her family, and Heather and I would use Brian to
get any word to my family and to Heather’s family through Vashti. That way, we would only have to make 2 phone
calls total to get all info to our families.
We had no internet connection where we were, nor did we have radio or
television, so we were completely reliant on second-hand accounts of news.
Brian called me later and filled me in on what he had
heard/read from news reports. We talked
for about five minutes and he promised to keep us informed once a day at
least. Erin’s family called her late at
night and she spoke with them at length each evening.
We watched a movie and went to bed, anxious to hear the next
day’s news.
March 22: Stuck Inside
We were stuck inside all day and got restless. Heather and Erin woke up early and went out
to get a few things from a little shop that was close to the house. We got Guisse to go out and get some other
stuff for us in the afternoon. We
figured that the cost would be 3500 cfa at the most and gave him a 5 mille
bill, but when he came back he hadn’t bought everything that we asked him for
and said that he used up all of the money; there was no change and he couldn’t
get everything on the list. He basically
shorted us and bouffed our money!
We spent the rest of the day alternately brooding,
contacting Peace Corps to see if they could possibly move us to the Peace Corps
house, and complaining to each other about Guisse, who kept coming and going
and kind of awkwardly hovering over us.
I tried to talk to him but couldn’t really understand his garbled
French.
We got a hold of PC folks to get updates on the situation
and to plan our next moves. PC informed
us that we were officially caught in a coup d’état, all borders had been closed
(as well as the airport), and no PC vehicles were traveling due to safety and
security concerns but they would work on a plan to possibly get us to the PC house
in Bamako.
Brian called in the am on his way home from work after he
was called in and gave us info about why the coup happened as well as rumors
about what was going on in the city center, such as looting, gunshots, etc.
Nothing else really happened. We watched some movies and went to bed anxious
to see what, if anything would happen the next day.
March 23: The Move
Guisse stayed with us again last night and we awoke to see
who we were pretty sure was a prostitute crouching in Thibaut’s bedroom door. Thibaut never made it back to Bamako because
the roads were shut down, so he had Guisse stay the night just in case
something happened (because he speaks the local language). We also saw Guisse speaking with another
Malian man outside and we thought that if we had not woken up and made our
presence known, the man probably would have been invited into the house. Fortunately, at about 10am the Malian CD
called and said that he had been able to arrange transport for us to get to the
Bamako PC house.
A Malian staffer had been tasked with procuring foodstuffs
for the volunteers stuck inside the house and he would call us when he was
available to come and get us. It would
probably be something like 2 hours or maybe more, so we just had to sit tight
and start packing and wait for his call.
He called within an hour and was at the main road near the
house in a taxi about 10 minutes later.
Traffic seemed a little more subdued than normal and I only saw one instance
of a military presence, that of a large group of soldiers at a gas
station. Apparently there was also a
group of soldiers in the street ahead of us at one point but I couldn’t see
because my huge bag was on my lap. I did
see groups of people out the side window who were staring at the soldiers with suspicious
glares.
There were 11 other PCVs at the house. We made 14.
The house was much nicer than we expected and was very comfortable. We had internet and access to news and were
filled in from the PCVs were at the house who had been connected to news
outlets and information from PC since the situation began.
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| Soldiers up ahead |
Throughout the day, PC Mali sent out communications to
Malian PCVs through text message and email that the volunteers in the house
shared with us. One of the later
communications mentioned that in the neighborhood that the PC house was located
in experienced looting, but it was just hungry soldiers going into a hotel
kitchen to get some food and that nobody was hurt. We were to stay inside. PC had also had many safety/security
briefings and was likely preparing for a worst-case scenario and figuring out
evacuation plans if needed. They decided
to consolidate volunteers to their local consolidation points so that they
could keep track of everyone.
I went to bed at midnight, but couldn’t sleep and got up at
1 and watched part of a movie and went to bed again at 2 or 2:30. It was difficult to get to sleep but once I
fell asleep I was only able to sleep until 6:30am, when I woke up and went
downstairs to check out the news.
March 24: Breakfast for
Dinner!
I always have trouble sleeping at Peace Corps housing. I’m not sure if it’s because the internet and
access to information, air-conditioning, and other amenities are so great that
I don’t want to miss it by sleeping but whenever I go to bed, I can’t seem to
get my mind to shut off or slow down to get a proper night’s sleep.
The only significant event from the 24th was that
a PC Mali staffer came by and had a roundtable discussion with volunteers about
the situation and answered their questions, mostly having to do with
hypothetical evacuation procedures.
There were no new revelations or news, nor were there any significant
activities in the capital.
The PC Mali folks were so welcoming for us and were so
organized that they never seemed to miss a beat. We made communal dinners each night at the PC
house that sort of miraculously came together and organized themselves out of
thin air. We decided to thank our hosts
with some “breakfast for dinner”: country potatoes, scrambled eggs, and
pancakes, and Heather used some extra mangoes to whip up delicious mango syrup.
Heather was spending a lot of time on the computer so I
spent a lot of time reading cast-off and outdated magazines, mostly Esquire and
Rolling Stone.
March 25: No News
Didn’t really sleep (again) but did get some laundry done,
my first achievement since I left Benin.
Today’s major development/news was that we were able to go outside the
gates of the concession, if only to the nearby boutiques, and either Erin or
Heather were told that it was likely that we would be flown back to Cotonou,
which sounded great to me! The Mali
staffer who was at the house the previous day came back and brought some
Snickers and Bounty bars, then left an reappeared with a bunch of
fruit—bananas, mangoes, apples, etc.—to everyone’s delight (there were a few
vegetarians who were really excited). PC
Mali did a great job and seemed to go to great lengths to keep everyone as
comfortable as possible while stuck inside the house.
Folks continued to get restless, and some people got up
early to get in a quick workout in on the terrace or in the back area to get
some of that anxiety out of their systems.
Bamako continued to be relatively tranquil, though traffic
seemed to flow a little heavier each day as the capital became more normal.
March 26 is the holiday of the coup in 1991 that ousted a
dictator (by, ironically, the guy who was just deposed) and ushered in the
recent democratic regimes. Some
volunteers speculated that significant developments might happen on the 26th
but lacking concrete information about what was happening at the presidential
palace, the speculations only added to the noise and confusion. Of the few things that we knew for sure, one
of them was that we would all be holed up in the house together for the
immediate future and no amount of speculation about what was happening or what
was going to happen would change that fact.
With that in mind, I kept myself busy reading through magazines and
keeping tabs with folks at home.
Since Monday was due to be a state holiday, everything was
going to be closed and it was unlikely that any new information would seep out
until Tuesday or maybe longer.
March 26: Waiting…
Apparently there were some scattered, small demonstrations
in the city center this morning, but all was calm in our neighborhood. By the afternoon we were given clearance to
go to the PC office a 5-minute walk away.
PC Mali Dr. Dawn came by and checked up on folks who were in Bamako for
medical reasons.
The BIG news of the day, a momentous piece of news, was that
we would be able to leave on Wednesday!
Mali’s country director called to inform us that we were booked on a
9:30am flight and a driver would be at the house at 7:00am to pick us up to
take us to the airport.
PC Mali staff was amazing throughout the entire coup d’état
ordeal. They checked in with the
volunteers on a regular basis and updated everyone with information and dropped
off food at the PC house when the volunteers could not go outside. All volunteers have things that they like to
complain about but in this case, PC Mali was excellent from the beginning.
March 27: Gettin’ Out
Since we were able to walk over to the PC office, we decided
to pay a visit to the staff that had been so excellent to us to thank them for
all that they did. We met the country
director and it turns out that he was a volunteer in Benin back in the day, not
too far from where we live now. We also
met with another staffer to sort out our visa situation. When we first entered Mali, we tried to buy a
visa at the border but the official there just stamped our passports and let us
go on our way, without a visa. With the
coup and its silliness we didn’t know if we would have any trouble at the
airport with a visa-less passport, so he made a few phone calls and got it
sorted out for us: a high-ranking police officer that he knew would meet us at
the airport and escort us through to make sure that we wouldn’t have any
problems.
After we left the PC house, we got ice cream! In front of a little boutique in the area was
a soft-serve ice cream machine with a guy sitting next to it who sold big cups
of ice cream for 250 cfa. It was a great
deal and Mali is so miserably hot which made the ice cream extra tasty. We spent some time arranging our stuff to
make the next morning easier without waking everyone up as we left. The volunteers at the house were a good group
and stayed pretty positive during the whole situation.
March 28: Back to
Benin
The driver came and picked us up at 7 to take us to the
airport. On the way to the airport we
saw a part of Bamako that we never saw the previous week when we were out in
the city center. We passed by what
looked like a brand new business park-style block of buildings that hosted the top
offices of each of the ministries, which was pretty impressive, done up in a
faux Sahel style of many of the mud buildings that we had seen in other parts
of the country.
We didn’t see any military out until we got to the
airport. At the entrance to the airport
were a few checkpoints where soldiers checked cars going through, but we did
not have any problems. There were a lot
of people at the airport; there was a huge line to get in, and it looked like
all the affluent people in Bamako were looking for tickets on the next flight
out of the country. We were met at the
airport by our police officer who would guide us through, and we were able to
walk right in past the long line of Malians to get inside the building and
check in for our flight.
Our Air Mauritania
flight left about 30 minutes late and stopped briefly in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where about
half of the passengers got off the plane and we continued on to Cotonou.
When we arrived in Cotonou and got our luggage, our country
director Bob was waiting for us at the airport!
We never thought that we would be so excited to get back to Benin, and
it was a big surprise to see Bob standing there waiting for us, since he is
always so busy. He had to run off to a
meeting but a PC driver was there to take us to the workstation.
That’s all! We stayed
in Cotonou Wednesday and Thursday night to take care of Cotonou business and
then came home on Friday. Back to work…
