I wait and wait… sleepwalk the hourglass
This way and that… the pendulum swings
Yes, there’s plenty of time… always time left to kill
Does time stand still or hurtle on by?
My day in four verses explained.
I left the Tangama Hotel in Dalaba around 8am. There was no water in the morning and the power was still off. The water started running, of course, as I was leaving.
The air was crispy. On my way to the junction with main road I stopped for coffee. Two cups and an omelette sandwich later – an elderly muslim-robed man managed to ask me for visa to Poland – I found myself at a junction but then I found out that the gare routière was further up the road so I took a 3000gnf moto taxi to take me there. We arrived at the usual dirt-garbage-dust square and some shouting ensued. Not sure what it was as it was between the men waiting for passengers and my moto driver.
I was taken to a car just at the entry to the gare area. Going to Mamou, on the junction with East-West Kankan-Conakry road. I was the first passenger. I waited. Coffee followed. I’d have more but it was not too tasty. There was a white woman, possibly a teacher, marking what looked like math tests. She spoke French but with strong accent. She stayed in the same hotel that I did. I waited. I was still the first passenger.
Dalaba to Kankan is 430km. I reckoned I’d need 8 hours of driving but I also reckoned that once I get to Mamou findinf transport will be fairly easy. I even thought that maybe, possibly, there will be a, whisper it, bus!
I started walking around the gare in Dalaba. I walked up to the men who came at my moto taxi. One of them said they are going to Kindia towards Conakry and that they are leaving now and they can drop me in Mamou. The other, the driver of the car, said that well if I already “entered” the other car they cannot move me. I even sort of agreed but… I haven’t paid and I’d sort of wanna move quickly because the road would be long. So after some hesitation I moved and we really left almost immediately, only 4 persons in the car, me alone in the back seat – my neck again had to bend under the low car roof. 25000gnf and no mention of baggage fee.
On our way some passengers joined us and I was dropped in Mamou, but the driver forgot where I was going – or didn’t know at all – and I had to take another moto to Mamou gare routière (2000gnf).
Diet filth dust. It’s 10-11am. There is a car to Kankan and it’s 130k. I tell the guys around the car I’m not sitting in the back coz of the roof-neck issues, I’ll be sitting in the middle. We chat a bit and then I go looking for coffee. It’s strong and aromatic and in a bit bigger cups than usual, 1500gnf. Men in the cafe are occupied with Guinea Games – a lottery. I walk back to where the car stands. I buy a jus gingembre. And another one. I sit down and start reading.
I finished the In search of invisible man. While it’s about searching for magic and marabous and gris gris in Guinea Bissau, Conakry and Casamance in Senegal, I don’t feel much magic. What I feel is endless waiting, state of permanent nothingness and dead inertia and killing time.
Waiting for the car to fill up, sleepwalking hourglass, I can relate.
At 1:30pm I take a lunch in a nearby shack: rice and manioc leaves. With pure water (water in plastic bag, pure water is what they call it in Ghana) it’s 5500gnf. I go for another coffee. Someone suggests that maybe I should pay for 2 seats and I respond that it’s too expensive. They don’t believe me. I try to give them example of Senegal: fewer seats paid and cheaper. Noone cares. I take another juice, this time it’s bissap, the woman runs out of ginger in bottles and I refuse more plastic bags.
After 3pm three women arrive with three little girls and what seems like 3 huge packs of live chicken. There is also a live goat under our car. I swear when they carry the goat with its limbs tied up it screams and it’s human. The women tell me they go to eat.
I ask the ticketmaster how many passengers there are, he says there are 7, we need 2 more. I desperately ask about car to Siguiri, a town a bit North from Kankan, closer to Mali border. I’m gonna arrive at night anyway and tomorrow I planned to go to Bamako, I can see Kankan on my way back from Mali. There is only one passenger to Siguiri.
In the meantime I receive my visa to Sierra Leone by email. Obviously, it clearly states the point of entry is Freetown International Airport. I send email asking what’s it about but the agency is adamant that I’ll be able to enter by land.
4:15pm they tell us we are going but by different car. They start packing the wicker cages with the chicken onto the car. I snap a pic, the guys around are not happy. One boy says I should pay. When I ask why there is no answer. 4:30pm, one cage up on the roof, the chicken smell already spreading around the car, I give myself time till 5pm before I leave. The road to Kankan is 7hrs, driving at night is already stupid enough (I saw 3 well-wrecked wrecks lying on roadside on the first stretch of the road, 50kms), then arriving after midnight… All that photo issues snap me. I leave immediately. I ask someone what time is the first car leaving – someone says 7am. I’ll be there.
It’s still difficult for me to believe there are so few passengers taking transport. The issues I have encountered so far in Africa were the opposite: too few cars for too many people.
Thankfully there is a hotel next to the gare routière. Hotel Africa. It welcomes you with a sign that renting rooms for hours is forbidden (new expression in learnt for my French: chambres des passages). The room has a mosquito net and a ventilator and shower with running water and a toilet without flush and seat and it’s 150k. Fair enough.
I look for some more books to read and I start Segu by Maryse Condé, which starts in town of Segu (aka Ségou) when Mungo Stark arrives in town in his quest to learn Niger River. It is written from a local nobleman’s perspective. Mungo Stark is the main character in Water Music by TC Boyle that I finished reading a few days ago. It will be interesting. My Rough Guide mentions the book as one of a few to read about when in Mali. I also found it in an enlightening Guardian article written by Gary Young, My year of reading African women. You’re welcome.
After dark I went looking out for food. I used Rough Guide for recommendations but there were not really many. One restaurant is really mentioned, Perloga and there is no address.
As I walked around the town, greeting or being greeted by almost everyone, I saw a photocopy shop that also had a printer. I was asked to print a job completion protocol, sign it and scan it and send it back to a man who fixed my phone’s screen before I left home. So I did. There, in 2019, without WiFi, I sent the file to the man in the shop. He connected to the network using a USB modem (3G signal only), downloaded it, printed out. I signed it. Someone else on his laptop scanned it, copied it to a USB memory. Then the memory was passed to the man who got my email, copied onto his laptop and emailed back to me. 7000gnf. Life is hard over here.
I asked about the restaurant and got directed the way I came from. It’s still there, marked in Rough Guide AD2008. Incredible how it’s all frozen and preserved in time here. And Africa is the future of humanity. The restaurant has seen better days. There is fish but it costs 80,000gnf. I ordered shawarma with chips, 30,000gnf and what I got were two dishes: a shawarma sandwich and a plate of chips. I think I prefer rice with manioc leaves stew. But it’s the only place that I see has beer and there is Guinness so don’t let me complain too much. Cheers!
The lyrics are by The Creatures (Siouxsie Sioux) from Killing Time.
Coming back to Maman 