As a nice ending to our Burkina Faso stay, Elli and I decided to take our last weekend in the country and be tourists. And as tourists in Burkina Faso, there is really only one place to go: south, to Banfora.
Having had both a driver and a rented pick-up truck during most of our stay in Burkina, Elli and I hadn’t gotten any experience of the Burkinabe public transportation. And I don’t know if the trip that we made together with Helena, the other Swedish student, down to Banfora was in any way representative of the state of public transport in the country in general, but it sure wasn’t an easy ride.
We were told that the TCV bus was the most comfortable one, and to begin with it seemed really nice. Air conditioned, clean. It was really early, so there wasn’t even that much traffic getting out of Ouaga, only the bright morning sun.
But then they put the movies on, probably Malian, loud, taking over the entire soundspace. I was still feeling weird from the wasp bites from the day before. There were six of them, I had counted, on my temple, scalp, behind my ear, in my ear, on my neck. I just wanted to sleep, but it was impossible.
Then someone puked on Helena’s arm. And the woman in front of me handed over her baby to the man sitting next to me, just like that, without them knowing each other. And he sat there, the stranger, playing with the baby while the woman took a nap and the lingering feeling in me from the wasp bites made the whole thing seem surreal.
We stopped at a rest stop where they sold chicken, grilled meat, bananas, groundnuts, drinks. I bought a coke and after drinking that, I felt a little bit better.
Until the bus broke down. Suddenly, the engine just started smoking and the driver stopped by the side of the road and everyone rushed out, as if the bus might explode. And there we stood, in the shade by the road, just waiting for something to happen. I had brought a bag of unpeeled groundnuts with me, so we started peeling those. Which was a smart move, I think, because it kept our shared frustration at bay.
Eventually, a substitute bus arrived and took us the last half-hour to Bobo-Dioulasso. The bus ride that should have taken five hours took eight, and there was no time for us to sight-see in Bobo because the last bus to Banfora was just about to leave.
This last stretch of transportation, however, the ninety minutes from Bobo to Banfora, turned out to be really beautiful. Elli and I, who had gotten used to the dry, flat landscape of northern Burkina, marveled at the greenness, and the hills and valleys that gave perspective to the landscape. There were mango trees everywhere, big, round, and beautiful, and patches of cotton fields being harvested, as well as huge expanses of sugar cane.
It was just about to get dark when we arrived at the hotel in Banfora. It was moldy and run down, as most hotels in provincial Burkina, but painted in a bright turquoise color and the bed was both comfortable and had a mosquito net. We went to sleep early. Public transportation in Burkina Faso is not a relaxing affair, I can at least tell you that.
Katja Malmborg 