It turns out, as my moto driver taking me to the car park in Buchanan is telling me, that I won’t be able to get to Ganta on Liberian-Guinean border or even Gbarnga, which is on the way to Ganta directly from Buchanan. I will have to go back to Monrovia. Ugh.
Sure enough, the car fills up quickly, four of us + child on a lap squeezed in the back. The driver tells me he will take me directly to where cars to Gbarnga leave.
Checkpoints are easy this time, on the immigration stop the guard recognises me from yesterday, there is no more offended egos drama. We pass however another checkpoint, where we have to get out of the car and walk a corridor surrounded by wires.
I don’t even know the name of the place I was taken in. The driver said but as usual in Liberia, I couldn’t understand the name and somehow I didn’t even look at the map. It’s somewhere North of Monrovia, a filthy very crowded muddy marketplace and there in the middle a few cars, going to, good news, all the way to Ganta. Ganta is 250kms away, Google says it’s less than 4 hours drive, so hopefully the road will be good.
I am the first passenger in the car, it’s about 11am. Of course they ask me if maybe I wanna charter the whole car or maybe two seats I want especially in front. I refuse. The price is 1000L$ + 200L$ brought down by me from 250.
I don’t really negotiate the transport prices, I believe what they tell me. Also it’s difficult to verify whether the price is really the right one or if I’m being overcharged. Yes, I could ask my fellow passengers but I think I’d soon get tired of it not to mention paranoid. Unless the price is exorbitant, I pay it. Baggage is slightly different and I suspect in Liberia it’s used to pump a price of the journey a bit.
The course fairly quickly fills up and there is a woman that is, let’s say, my size. I wonder. Soon, we are full and the car park people come to me with a suggestion that maybe possibly I could pay for two seats. Coz in front noone will fit with me and if I sit in the back and the big woman with me there will only be space for another person and they need four. I say no. But they keep insisting. They start saying “oh let’s forget the luggage and you’ll pay only 2000 for the road.” I say I can’t pay 2000. So how much can I pay, immediately a question. I say 1,500 with bag included. Ah not possible. So maybe I can pay 1,800. No. Another man enters the discussion and he spills the beans, the fare for this journey is 900, not 1000. Of course the discussion gets heated and the suggestion is no longer a suggestion, I’ll pay or I don’t travel. I think of including the woman who is also big and also came after me so I shouldn’t be the one suffering but let me be the gentleman one more time. And I have to go.
Pride swallowed. There is another car waiting for Ganta. But they already caught that I am ready to pay more and they keep coming. That maybe I could do it $10, so 1,600. I say I do it for 1,500, otherwise I take one seat. I refuse to speak to the people who kicked me out of the first car. Soon our car is full and I wanna sit in the back when one of my fellow passengers says, “no, sit in front they will take your 1500.” Surprised, I ask the driver and he insists it’s 1600. I asked the man who said 1500 is OK and he says he’ll pay the 100 for me coz he already wants us to go. I say OK but I’ll owe him a beer but he doesn’t seem to understand what I mean. I pay the 1600 coz what else can I do?
The road is smooth and nice and fast, scenery very green, small villages on our way, checkpoints too. Sometimes the driver gives the money to the checkpoint bosses whoever they are, police immigration, Liberian Drug Enforcement Agency, LDEA. Just at the beginning, immediately after when we left the car park, a new kind of checkpoint, “accident investigator”, and he points to something in the front of the car and he doesn’t allow the driver to drive away. The driver gets out of the car with a note in his hand, gives the note to the accident investigator, the accident investigator looks at it and throws it back to the car. It’s 20L$. Bribe upgraded, 50L$, we continue.
During a loo break I ask people travelling with me how best to reach Ivorian border. Turns out one of the men is also going to Ivory Coast, to Danane, the first village in Ivory Coast behind the border according to Google Maps. Google Maps are struggling with the villages around here, I’m at the border on the Liberian side and Google doesn’t have a name for the place. It’s Douatuo. So, the men in the car tell me I could even reach Danane today, the border closes at 6pm, there is transport to the border, car or bike, it’s possible to overnight at the border too. All good.
The driver buys a roasted corn and shares it with me. That and two more eggs are my lunch. When I throw egg shells through the window, a man behind me in the car pokes me and says something which I don’t understand but I think he tells me to keep trash in the car. Well. The road is littered with single use plastic bags in which water is sold. People throw away everything through the window. And I get reprimanded for egg shells which in this climate will disappear in a day? OK, I’m not sure if they will disappear in a day but I consider them organic. Fine to dispose of. I already have a pocket in my shorts full of water plastic bags. Now I don’t know what to do with my corn knob so I watch my driver to see what he does with his. Obviously it goes through the window.
Ganta doesn’t present itself as a pretty town and as soon as we arrive we are surrounded by bike drivers. They promise they can take me all the way to Danane. I ask for the price to the border, it’s 3:30pm. 2500L$. And right now Orange Liberia decided to go down in Ganta so I cannot check the distance to estimate the price. I ask my fellow passenger how much it is. He says 1500L$ but the drivers all say it’s for 2 people on a bike. Now me and my bag that’s already 2.4. We agree on a price of L$2000, I go with a man named Prince. He is dressed in Winter jacket and his bike is all covered in plastic, I assume it is to protect it against the road dust.
When I sit on the bike I tell Prince not to drive too fast.
He didn’t listen. We drove like crazy. There was no bike that we didn’t overtake. And the road was bad. The asphalt was over already in Ganta, at least in our direction. The landscape was beautiful, green and hilly but it also meant we were driving up and down. I kept sliding off the plastic on the seat. We passed cars, we passed a minibus, we passed a truck because of course. There was a bridge that consists of only a few pieces or tree trunks barely polished, I wonder how any big car would pass there. And that’s the road to the border. And as it later turned out, it’s a preferred road to the Ivorian border.
The border crossing was closed until 2016 because of unrest in Ivory Coast that took place before that year. We passed signs calling for integration of Ivorian refugees. There were a few checkpoints, including one of LDEA, but the men there were only curious where I’m from. And Polish passport is of very poor quality, the golden letters on the cover were gone in a first few months of me using it. The checkpoints were godsend to me as I could get off the bike and stretch my legs.
It took us 2.5hours of the road to reach the border. The village is small and curious of me. I paid to Prince and a man led me to where a car with Lagos (!) registration was parked, to an unnamed restaurant, in the back of which there are rooms. They are of course basic but the “current” has been on the whole evening, the shared bucket shower isn’t too bad and it’s $10, which is consistent to what I paid for such outside Liberia.
I went for a walk. Of course greetings galore. I saw a woman selling something that I think is called peanut brittle. I bought one, they make it here. It was delicious! I don’t normally eat such, they tend to be dry and full of glucose syrup. Not sure what this one was made of, it was good. I walked a bit further and saw a heavily loaded bus with Ghana registration. I asked people standing next to it if I can take a photo and they agreed.
I walked to the end of the village, a few hundred meters. A man on a motorbike stopped me, I thought maybe he wanted transport to Danane. The man said he worked with immigration and asked me why I didn’t cross but stayed in the village. I explained why. Arriving in a foreign country in a foreign city at night – not good. Not to mention the bike ride after the border. Also, I did arrive in the village at 5:55pm so the border would close like now. The man agreed and left.
I saw more peanut brittle, this time the price was double of what the woman took from me: L$20. I told the boy that I can get it for 10 somewhere else and he resolutely answered “but somewhere else is not the same as here.” When I was going back to the village I bought the brittle for me and L$10 got me two pieces.
As I passed the bus a driver sitting in the bus called me. Eish, I thought, it’s another case of “30 minutes ago you took a picture of me, how could you?”. But the driver just wanted to chat. His name is Augustin and he lives in Accra – capital of Ghana – and the bus comes from Accra. Accra is on the coast, and this border is over 200kms North of the coast. I askee him how long it takes from Accra to here. He said they had left on Sunday. It took me a while, had to look at the phone, I had no idea what day it is today. Friday! 5 days??? Augustin said they had been held on the border for the past 3 days, so that the inspectors can thoroughly inspect all the goods that people carry. And the load on the bus’ roof was heavy. 3 days! People slept in the bus. I asked what really the carry to Liberia, Liberia doesn’t seem to have much to trade for small traders and I assumed they were traders. He said that these are former Liberian refugees from the Liberian civil wars, who are just visiting home with goods. Refugees everywhere. Ivorian refugees in Liberia, Liberian refugees in Ghana.
Augustin of course said that such customs officers’ behaviour doesn’t exist in Ghana, that I’ll be welcome because Ghana is one big-hearted country of hospitality. I wanted to mention the visa but kept quiet.
It was getting dark and the bus would leave now. On the crazy road to Ganta. Through the night. Those people are survivors.
There are money changers in the village. The only almost decent rate they offer in terms of CFA is for a dollar: 570CFA. 300 Liberian dollars fetches 1000CFA which is pretty lousy. When I asked about the euro – to which CFA is fixed at 655CFA to 1 euro – the man said euro and dollar are the same for him, 570CFA. Ha!
I had bread for dinner. My place had some “hard food”, rice and meat but the meat I saw didn’t look too appealing. There is possibly another place to sleep here, it calls itself VIP Hotel and they also had food – rice and “gravy.”
But on the main road in the village I saw an inviting wooden booth, complete with wooden bar table and high stools. I had a local baguette (soft and mushy but fresh), half with can of sardines and half with omelette. And I took tea. My hopes for coffee in Ivory Coast are dim but if there is a coffee place for me on this trip, it’s chez éléphants.
From the village you can see a row of lights going through the woods. It’s the border! Wow. The borders around here are usually fairly relaxed affairs and in this place of no current such extravaganza? Noone wants more refugees.
I came back to my place and had a Guinness. Two small children, a young girl and a baby boy were playing outside. As is often with children they were adorable and they liked me. We played a little hide and seek, the boy sat on my knees regularly.
Since my place doesn’t sell plastic bag water and bottled water reaches L$175 here, I walked out to find some water for the night.
The ground goes very slightly downhill toward the main road. It skid under me and I fell, scratching my newly healed right knee again. Fuck! And the pain! Fuck! As I walked on the main road I saw the blood trickling down my leg.
I bought four bags of water, that’s 2 litres. Inside the guesthouse I washed it with water from one of the plastic bags. In the room, hydrogen peroxide, stings. Then I thought I lie down and let the wound dry a little. But the blood was rising. I dropped a few drops of iodine. Stings very much. Good I bought some gauze pieces in Monrovia. Just I don’t have the right plaster. But I did stick a piece of gauze with more iodine with what plaster I have. Till tomorrow should be alright. But it’s all over again. Shit.
Coming back to Maman 