I liked it in Banfora. Some things didn’t run like well-oiled, like breakfast this morning, for example, but was it so important? Not really, I’d say. Yes, I had ordered the breakfast the night before. And yes, they had promised it would be there for me on time. And it was. Except they informed me this morning they didn’t have eggs „for everything“ we wanted. But the guy told me so in such an innocent way that I just couldn’t hold any grudges. That’s just how it is here and that’s all. It seems that’s what you must be prepared for when you come to these parts. You just take it with a smile, you take it in stride, you take it gracefully.
Anyway, if given a choice what I’d rather have had, a breakfast on time but without eggs, or a breakfast with all the eggs but too late, I’d have gone for a breakfast on time any day. So no serious damage had been done. I wouldn’t set hungry out into the day and that was what really mattered. So yes, I could safely claim I liked it in Banfora.
Annette was not that thrilled, though. When I asked her what the problem was, she couldn’t give me an exact explanation. She just said she didn’t have a good feeling about the place. When I pressed her a bit on why was that, she again couldn’t give me any specific reason. It just didn’t feel all right. Well, she was a sensitive girl. Even her father relied on her dreams, premonitions and hunches. So I wouldn’t even dream of dismissing them so lightly. Only, I had nothing to confirm what she said.
Except maybe the fact that mosquitoes added a few more bites on an already well bitten skin of mine, so I looked almost like pockmarked. But I guess it didn’t count and Annette probably didn’t mean that anyway.
Well, be that as it may, we were leaving the town.
And today was Christmas. In a rather un-Christmaslike setting. At least for me. I had no feeling whatsoever that this was the time when people back home wrapped up warmly so the dead of the winter wouldn’t freeze them to the bones, but also gathered for family lunches, Christmas trees and presents today. In Banfora, they couldn’t seem to care less.
But then again, why would they, either? Why would a white tourist feel entitled to expect their own customs and traditions no matter what part of the world they may find themselves in on Christmas?
For the last time back on the Rakieta gare de routière, maybe even for the last time ever, the last thing left to do here for us in Banfora was to get on the bus. According to the custom here in Africa, we arrived well in advance of the scheduled departure time, so that the Rakieta crew had enough time to load everyone’s luggage into the storage room, then make a roll-call of all passengers and all that in a leisurely manner. I was willing to bet that not many locals succumbed to stress-related diseases here. So I had enough time again to roam around and take pictures. At least in that sense, Rakieta gare de routière was like the same movie theatre but with new film every day. Never the same and never boring. You could see a guy taking a rest inside a lorry tyre. There was a goat tied up on top of a mini bus headed to its next destination. Another guy was clipping somebody else’s toenails in the shadow of another mini bus. And then a kid with a donkey and an empty two-wheel cart. He came in and then went out, and I could never guess what was on his mind. And so a character upon character in the same vein. In fact, it was easily a better show than any movie. Which you couldn’t always claim for Hollywood production.
And of course, as usual by now, while I was roaming around in search of good motives, Annette was sitting in a shadow and waiting, just as most of other passengers did.
And then, some time before we boarded the bus, we saw Oumar again. He saw us too and we exchanged greetings. He was back on the spot, waiting for the next coach to come in and hoping that it would bring him a new customer. All considered, it was not an easy way to make a living. But he was a good guy and I hoped he would find his tourists on Christmas, as well.
