Journey Across Africa

Below you'll find stories of my two year experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the small West African country of The Gambia. After my service I traveled solo, with only a small backpack, across West Africa; reaching N'Djamena, Chad after two months. Visa problems for Libya and Civil unrest in the Darfur region of Western Sudan made Chad my last stop.

Peace Corps Service: Aug. 2003 - July 2005

Journey Across Africa: July 2005 - Sept. 2005

Name:
Location: Boston, MA, United States

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Deportation means Desert Detour

Days 60 – 64
Sept. 15 – Sept. 19
Trying to get Chad

I’m going to write this the long way, since it’s just one long story. It will be temporarily be broken up by day-to-day statistics.

Thursday morning, (Sept. 15), I went to the garage park in Diffa for a car going through Nigeria to Chad. Using the map they told me I had to buy a ticket to Maiduguri, Nigeria and then another to Ngala, Nigeria to cross through Cameroon and into N’Djamena. I bought the ticket to Maiduguri and got into the car. However, before I did I asked if I could get a visa at the border (it was possible to get into Niger that way). The man in charge knew enough English to understand what I was asking and said: “No problem. Visa. Border. Yes. You get visa, you cross border, you go to Chad. No problem. You be in Chad tonight”

We crossed the exit point for Niger. No problem. Passport was stamped and all information was collected. Got back into the car to cross into Nigeria. Problem.

Luckily Nigeria is an English-speaking country; which helped this scenario out a lot!

The guard looked through my passport: “Where is your Nigeria visa?”
“I was told I could get one at the border.”
“Who told you that?”
“The people at the garage park.”
“Where?”
“In Diffa.”
“No. You can not get a visa here. For them, no problem. For you, problem.”
[Citizens of West Africa can travel in different countries as easily as Americans can travel to different states. They don’t need a visa to enter a bordering country, except if it’s not part of the West African region]

He’s trying to figure out what to do. He calls another guard over; he asks the same questions. They rummage through a stake of papers and find a letter they had written previously granting permission for passage. However, it was quite a few years old. They were debating whether a letter written for me would work. They called in their supervisor. He wasn’t quite as nice.

“No! If you don’t have a visa you can not enter Nigeria! Did you think you could get into Nigeria without a visa?”
“I was told I could get one at the border.”
“I understand that. Did you think you could get into Nigeria without a visa?”
[That’s a hard question to answer. Technically, I could answer ‘yes’ since I WAS in Nigeria without a visa; but I would sound arrogant and who knows what he would do. If I answered ‘no’ I sealed my own case. Back to the standard answer.]
“I was told…”
He interrupted “Yes! I understand! However, DID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET INTO NIGERIA WITHOUT A VISA!”
[No hope] “No.”
“Ok. You go back to Niamey, get Nigeria visa and come back.”
“But I don’t want to go back to Niamey.”
“You want to enter Chad?”
“Yes.”
“To enter Chad through Nigeria you need Nigerian visa. To get Nigerian visa you must go back to Niamey. Once you have visa you can come back here and travel through to Chad.”
“What about Nguigmi?” [Nguigmi is a town in eastern Niger, further east and north of Diffa which shows on the map it’s a border post to enter Chad – through the desert]
“Yes. You can enter Chad through Niger through Nguigmi.”
“Ok. That’s what I’ll do.”

This whole process lasted about a half-hour with the rest of the car waiting for me. The border patrol took me back to the car, ordered the driver to give me the bulk of my money back, and took my stuff out of the car. The car continued on to Nigeria without me.

The guard would escort me out of Nigeria, on his motorcycle, if I paid for his fuel. I gave him the $3 and hopped on with my bag on my back. I was being deported from Nigeria. He drove me all the way back to the car park and helped me find the correct region for Nguigmi. [Different towns have different regions within the car park for the cars to wait to fill up] I thanked him for the ride and he went back to his own country.

By noon a car was ready to go to Nguigmi. It had been in the hot sun for over two hours, waiting for the cargo of rice bags to finish being loaded. I had to ride on top of the rice bags, feet dangling over the front cabin. However, to get on top I needed to grab the metal railings to push myself up. Metal in hot sun doesn’t help. My hands were bright red by the time I got up, and was wincing in the pain. Kids realizing I couldn’t handle the heat just grabbed on and were doing monkey aerobics on the railings. I don’t know how they did it, but they had to be use to hot metal since it was HOT!

In the Olympics you have synchronize swimming – in Niger you have synchronize ducking. The road was one of the worst I’ve been on, decaying on both ends so only the middle section remains with potholes splattered among that section. Most of the time we rode along the road, on the dirt trails, next to the trees. Trees have branches. We’re 10 feet up sitting over the front cabin. Tree on your right, everyone swings to the left. Tree on your left, everyone swings to the right. In some cases there wasn’t room at all to swing. The branch was so big that within a two second window we all had to either jump down to the back cabin, on top of the driver’s cabin, or lie down on top. You kept your eyes open!

The ride was suppose to take only three hours. It took us thirteen. The three hour rule was said by the Doctors using 4WD in a private car. That might be true. I was on top of a pickup truck with a dozen other people in the back. Then, two things happened:

Flat tire. We waited on the side of the road for three hours as the driver took the spare, found a motorcycle to borrow, rode back into town, got a new tire and rode back.

Two hours later, another flat tire. Luckily there was a village nearby. The driver walked the 45-minute one-way trip to the village, and walked back. He needed something that he forgot, or didn’t know he needed. An hour-and-half later he’s back again with a new tire.

Those two flat tires cost us a six hour delay. There’s a rule for traveling in third-world countries using public transportation: Assume the road is in perfect condition and you have a private vehicle. Estimate how long it will take to get to your destination. Multiple that by pi. Then multiple again by your favorite number. Take that number, write it down and then crumple the piece of paper up and throw it away. That’s your best guess.

We arrived in Nguigmi at a quarter to one in the morning. Another passenger said I could sleep at his house, and showed me an empty room with a mat on the floor. The room was hot, but because of the ride on top at night it had the feel of a cozy bed after working outside in the winter for a few hours. I fell asleep instantly.

Day 61
Sept. 16

At the car park to N’Djamena the “big boss man” was trying to find a car for me. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get me to pay $100 for a ride. “No problem!” he would say – a big clue you were getting ripped off. I looked at the map, judged the distance, and estimated that $50 was a reasonable price. [Found out later that was a good guess as it was very reasonable price] His actual response to my $50 suggestion:

“Ok. Yes. No problem. 25,000 Franc government price. No lower. No higher. Fixed. You go to N’Djamena for 25,000.”

He found a car to take me for $50 and I got in the front. A minute later the driver turned to me:

“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“He wants more money. Maybe give him 10,000 Francs. [$20]. No problem, we go.”
“He told me ‘no higher’!”
“Yes. But you pay 10,000 and we go. No problem.”
“No!”

I got out of the car. The ‘Big boss man’ found another car. Again I got in the back and minute later another ‘problem’ was raised.

“Problem. You no give money.”
“I gave him money! I gave him 25,000 francs.”
“Yes. That money for ride.”
“Yes, so we go.”
“Problem. You gave money for ride, but no money for him.”
[Aaahh!] “I gave him money.”
“No. Money for ride. We no go unless money for him.”
[Aaahhhh! Aaahhh!] “How much?”
“For breakfast.”
“Yes. How much?”
“You give 2,000 we go no problem.”

I paid the guy the $4 so we could leave. Throughout the ordeal I had four currencies in my wallet. Niger uses West African Francs while Chad uses Central African Francs (1-1 exchange, though); add to that the few dollars I kept from the exchange in Nigeria, and emergency American money.

I was in the back, with Ali the driver and Yahyah as front passenger. Yahyah spoke decent English with Ali less so. If you look on a map, to get to Chad from Nguigmi you have to go through the desert and that’s exactly what we did – as a caravan of cars. I stopped counting the number of times we stopped to push someone out of the sand. It wasn’t sandy as a dune, but more of dry dirt on the edge of a desert. The acrobats the cars did wasn’t made for the cars. The ride was meant for a dune buggy and we were in a regular car doing donuts and jumping hills (once we were on two wheels!). Even the back bumper came off and we had to tie it on the roof. The drivers would take turns trying to pass one another, swerving off the beaten path (you WOULD get lost if you went by yourself!) and speeding through the brush to get ahead of the curve in the road.



I forgot to mention that after we started, at nine in the morning, and crossing into the border, we stopped until four in the afternoon. Those six hours were just spent lying around, the muslims praying, and us having lunch. It would have been hot to travel in the middle of the day.

We stopped that night in a random village near Rig-Rig. I would sleep in the car, in the passenger’s seat, while they slept outside. Ali and Yahyah left while I had my dinner (bread and pineapple) and even shared some bread with the children. The closest kid grabbed the half-loaf and run like a bat out of hell! I pointed to the others that it was for all of them and they soon ran after him.



As I laid down in the car the kids came back. They tapped on the windows, which I ignored, and even made animal sounds that drove me crazy but I ignored. But then a few started spitting on me. I have never had a kid spit on me in Africa before! Any misbehavior on a kids part usually results in a severe beating from the father. No other grown-ups were around so they were just being kids, with no restrictions. I yelled at them, and even opened the car door to get out but they ran off. Before they came back again Yahyah and Ali showed up. I told them what happened and Yahyah went to tell a villager. He came back:

“No problem. We wrote down the list of names of the children. Monday the headmaster at the school will take care of it.”

I wasn’t sure if we was telling the truth or not. So, I bluffed a little bit.

“Tomorrow, no Chad. Chad problem! Tomorrow we go back to Niger. Niger no problem.”

His faced turned to shock: “No! No. Chad no problem. Village here, no white man before. Only village problem. Chad no problem. No problem. Headmaster Monday, no problem.”

“Fine. Tomorrow N’Djamena.”

“Ok. No problem.”

We went to sleep.

Day 62
Sept. 17

An hour after leaving from the village we arrived in Bol, at ten in the morning. I should have guessed how long we would stay here, but didn’t think of it. The customs needed to write down my information, but there was a problem was it was Saturday and they were closed for the weekend.

A teenager was sent to collect me and get my information. We walked to the police station, which was open, but the cabinet for the papers were not. He didn’t know what to ask me, but was ordered to get all my information. We sat on a bench outside while he wrote on a blank piece of paper my information. I’ve been through enough immigration offices to know what information they need. He forgot the visa number, any military experience, number of wives, numbers of children, etc. I had to help him out.

There’s a volunteer stationed in Bol, but since I didn’t know when we would leave I took a nap instead by the car. One nap turned into two. Two was able to turn into three before we were called to go. It was four o’clock.

We drove for an hour, stopped for an hour. Dinner.
We drove for an hour, stopped for an hour. Prayer.



At dinner time they gave me a coke. This was the first Coca-cola I’ve had in a year-and-half. We’re out in the desert, they bought it for me (well, using my money); and it was a kind gesture so I took it. I think having a coke for the first time in a long while is like having your first beer – everything tastes funny! I could taste the sugar, the water, the syrup and even the temperature change of liquids in the middle of the bottle compared to the sides. It just didn’t taste right.

There’s one good thing about paying that $50 for the 3-day ride: you have the option of stopping the entire car when you have to go to the bathroom. I had go, bad. Multiple times. That was worth every penny. We were in the middle of nowhere and no pit latrines available. It was in the bush I went. I even used up all my toilet paper I had and had to resort back to Peace Corps training.

Finally, the town of Massaguet was reached. We were staying at a friends house and they laid out a foam mattresss for me and a mosquito net outside. I went to bed almost immediately.

Day 63
Sept. 18

Why arent’ we going yet? It’s early morning! On the map, we’re only a centimeter away from N’Djamena. We could be there in just a few hours. No. We relax. We wash the car. They killed a ram. This was going to be a long day.

I sat inside the hut for most of the day just reading and trying to stay cool. The day before the plastic containers inside my backpack were starting to melt. Toothpaste already exploded, the water in my Nalgene bottle was close to boiling (or sure felt like it when drinking), and it wasn’t even mid-day yet!

They sliced cucumbers, onions, and grilled the meat of the ram. I don’t know what the occasion was, but twelve of us ate soup, beans, soda, plates of meat, and pineapples for lunch.



The guidebook said this about this part of the trip “as little food is available so prepare to get thin.” I thought about that statement as I’m holding hands full of meat and veggies. Whoever wrote that must not have gotten a good deal on the trip.

At four o’clock we finally left Massaguet for N’Djemana.

Same procedure
We drove for an hour, stopped for an hour. Dinner.
We drove for an hour, stopped for an hour. Prayer.

It took us four hours to go a short distance. We reached N’Djamena at eight at night and the driver let me sleep at his house for the night.

Day 64
Sept. 19

Ali took a detour tour of the city while trying to find the Peace Corps office for me. I saw the ordered chaos of the city, no traffic laws that I could see; motorcycles and mopeds going in and out of traffic, swerving around the round-about. Even saw someone walk his pet-monkey, leash and all!

I had e-mailed the country director earlier asking for the address. His reply:
WE DO NOT HAVE A PHYSICAL STREET ADDRESS THAT IS OF ANY USE.

Now I could see why. It was next to a garbage dump, with litter and mud splattered randomly around the dirt road and huge detours you would have to take if you chose to go down that road any further.

I went out to eat with the Associate Director for lunch. He was shocked I had visited Chad: “Why are you here? There’s nothing here! Nothing! We even encourage our volunteers NOT to come to the Capital. This isn’t a tourist area.”

Thanks for the comfort.

The waitress accidentally tripped on a chair, which by chain-reaction had my lunch and drink splattered on the floor. His response to the scenario: “See, that is how we treat foreigners!” I could tell it was an accident, but his comments were quite negative.

I explained that my first day I was spit on. “Yes. That has happened. One volunteer left her village and went home because of the harassment. Spit. Yes. It can happen. I am even surprised you stayed at your drivers house. It is not safe.”

[I was thinking it was quite safe; they fed me, toured me around the city, and even let me sleep at their house without any charge other then for the ride down]


Back at the office I was pleased to find that the Associate Director invited me to stay at his house for the night since I hadn’t found a place to stay yet. Both the Peace Corps office and his residence (along with the other American residents’) have brick walls enclosing the compound with barbed wire in a helix pattern on top. Guards stand 24/7 at every post and every Tuesday morning each American employee working at the Embassy or Peace Corps must acknowledge a radio call for safety and security reasons.

The next morning we took his kids to school. One of them, named Morgan, was his very first day of school – little backpack and all. The father brought out his digital camera and was taking pictures, to his the confusion of Morgan. When they left he naturally cried. This was at the American International School where the children of American citizens can get an American equivalent education up to grade eight. There are other options for higher grades. The compound had swing sets, slides, merry-go-round, all enclosed in a guarded barbed-wire compound.

So far I’ve only met friendly Chadians – some even offered me rides to certain places, like the Egyptian Embassy to get my visa.

We’ll see when my flight is.

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