Annette could sleep long in the morning, but to her credit, she was not hard to get out of the bed if we needed to rise early. So when we arrived at the Sogoniko bus terminal, it was not even seven o’clock yet. Soon to be, but not yet.
Of course, it was daylight, but sunrays were not slanting down on the terminal yet. The sun was still too low and it had yet to rise above the low buildings and sea of shacks at the gare de routière. The gare was in the literal process of waking up and I realised that there was a large number of characters who bedded down for the night there, as it were. Except there were no beds whatsoever in sight and they had been sleeping who knows how and where. There were people spreading their mats on all sorts of places for the early morning prayer, there were others who washed their hands and faces with whatever liquid they could lay hands on, and there was even one guy who literally cleaned his teeth with a piece of knotty, hard wood which he had picked up somewhere on the ground. And once he was done with his „cleaning“, his teeth sufficiently disinfected, he tossed this piece of wood away just as he had picked it up in the first place.
Almost everyone had long sleeves on, and I was in a tiny minority of those who felt comfortable at the temperature of maybe 18° or 20°C. Annette wrapped herself up, as well, and more than once asked if I was feeling cold. But my discomfort would come later, when the sun rose.
At first it looked as if no one had any idea as to when our buses were leaving. Or if they would be leaving at all. But then a nice guy with Rastafarian dreadlocks popped out of somewhere and seemed intent on helping us. I never could quite get it whether he was working there in any capacity, or just being friendly and willing to help. Such lines of distinction somehow always seemed confusingly blurred here in Africa. At least to me. Maybe the locals knew more. Either way, he assured us that the buses would leave „soon“. He even checked our tickets.
And then, miraculously, somebody located Annette’s bus. It was leaving at eight, indeed. As for mine, well, it would leave „soon“, as well. Just maybe not at eight exactly. In fact, it was fine with me. I was perfectly happy with first putting Annette on her coach, being sure that she was safely on her way home, and then I would manage somehow. She was the one who hardly ever travelled anywhere. And as for me, I had not gotten lost anywhere yet, so there was no need to be afraid that I would now.
And that’s how it was. I was relieved to see people from Annette’s bus checking their luggage in and boarding the vehicle. Annette and I bid each other farewell, wished each other a safe trip, promised to keep in touch and, if circumstances would permit it, possibly meet in Ouagadougou again upon my return.
And then she left.
From there on out, I was on my own.
Sun rose. The bus terminal was finally washed in the morning gold and local people started shedding their long sleeves. There were no signs that my bus was anywhere in sight, let alone leaving any time soon. At first, I didn’t mind too much. I was watching people and it was as much of an entertainment as one could possibly wish for. There were sellers, there were beggars. There were people clambering parked cars for no obvious reason other than to just sit on top there and bask in the sun. There were shoe-shine boys looking for potential customers. There were ladies carrying all sorts of impossible loads on their head in a balancing act that would probably earn them a slot in any western circus in no time. There were mechanics tinkering with machines of parked vehicles, just to „make sure“ they’d be running safely when they were later on their way to wherever. There were stray goats, too. Or at least they looked stray. But then again, here you could never know.
Until at one point this show stopped being a show and turned merely into a nuisance. It had just been creeping on out for too long. And no sign of my bus yet.
When they finally informed me that my bus was there, it was nine o’clock. OK, nine o’clock was still acceptable. You learn that in Africa one hour means nothing. After all, in places like this it was a huge improvement as soon as you could with certainty pinpoint your own coach. Which I now finally could. I was even shown an area with a few benches, partitioned off by some canvas sheets in order to create shadow, and a small TV with a VCR on a stand. There were people there, sitting and waiting until the bus was due, getting entertained by those improbable African soaps. I was very kindly given a place to sit and join the audience, but I politely declined. I just left my travelling bag there and explained that I would rather roam around a bit. There would be enough time for me to sit on my way to Mopti.
The bus was one of the dirtiest affairs I’d seen so far. It could go hand in hand with the one I had taken from Bobo-Dioulasso to Sikasso. In the aisle, again, they had already prepared a number of plastic vessels, usually used for extra fuel, for extra passengers to sit on. By the looks of it, it was going to be a colourful journey.
Well, this was Africa, wasn’t it?
Yes, this was Africa. For, the time was relentlessly passing by, and the bus was still relentlessly parked. It was so at ten. And then it was so at eleven. All along, no one was giving any indication that things would change for the better any time soon. I asked some officials when the bus would finally start, and they assured me in the most friendly and helpful manner that it would depart „soon“.
And then, at one point, I suddenly realised I was busting for a pee. I hadn’t drunk much. In fact, after the early breakfast in the „Tamana“ hotel almost nothing. So it may have all been mental. But suddenly I intensely felt like taking a leak. And that was a problem. I started cruising around, but there was nothing like a loo in sight. No matter how hard I searched for it. So I realised I’d have to improvise and try to find myself a secluded spot to relieve myself.
However, in a place like gare de routière de Sogoniko it is easier said than done. All of a sudden, precisely when you need some privacy, you realise that it is teeming with people and saying it was overcrowded sounded almost like an understatement. But my bladder was not in a negotiating mood, so I had to do something, no matter what. Eventually, I discovered some relatively secluded spot and thought it might do. However, the moment I was to unzip my pants, there was a collective uproar behind my back. I turned my head and saw a number of angry guys wildly gesticulating at me. I needed no additional explanations. My pissing was off for now.
I zipped my jeans back and sought to move casually away from the spot. But they wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily. Well, I could have guessed as much. Being a white man there, the only one in sight at that, I should have thought I wouldn’t be able to get one second of not being watched there at least by someone. Particularly not when I wanted to pee. The guys were after me.
My instinct told me I’d make things only worse if I took to my heels. So I deliberately calmed my pace even if I’d give anything in the world to get those guys off of my back. But I was nevertheless attempting to abscond from there as fast as I could while it still wouldn’t look like I was making a run for it. At first, I had no idea what the problem was. Except that they were clearly unhappy with my intention to use that spot as a toilet. But I had either picked up some French along the way during my trip, or when you’re in trouble you start pulling out from the deepest recesses of your memory into light things you long deemed forgotten. In any case, I realised they were reprimanding me for what I had intended to do. And demanded to pay 3000 CFA francs as a fine. And not to do them injustice, indeed, there was a written warning on one wall, hand-written to be sure, which prohibited urinating. Otherwise, whoever urinated there was liable to pay a 3000 CFA fine. To that extent they were absolutely right, I had to own up to that. My problem was, I had not noticed it earlier.
The other problem was, in spite of that warning, there was absolutely no loo in sight. I am not entirely sure those guys never took a leak themselves. If they did not, then we didn’t belong to the same species of humans. So I found it a bit unfair to demand a fine and at the same time provide people with no place to do what we all occasionally need to do, kings and beggars alike.
But such musings aside, my most immediate concern was that those guys were right after me, like mad dogs. Luckily, they were not showing any inclination to take to violence. Yet. Even if they were hot on my heels. So at first I resorted to what to me looked like the most logical course of action. I pretended not to understand what they were saying. By then, I am sure, everyone around the gare knew the language to talk to me was English and not French. So that bit wouldn’t look like a stretch. Besides, upon a serious thought, I was not entirely sure that the guys who were after me were anything more than just a few locals who had absolutely nothing to do with enforcing law and order, or cleanliness in this case – even if by the looks of the rest of the Sogoniko it was at best a very dubious concept to begin with – and were instead just random individuals seeking to seize upon a chance to cash on a confused white foreigner and bully him into paying something up. I wondered whether a payment of 3000 CFA francs to those guys would appease any real official should he demand a real fine after that. Something told me that this payment wouldn’t go a long way with him. So I decided to hold my ground for as long as I could.
After all, yes, I’d had every intention to take a leak. But they had stopped me before I even started. So technically speaking, I did nothing to merit a fine. If they were really after my cash only, then they made a mistake by simply letting their greed get better of them. They could’ve waited a few minutes and then they would’ve had me in their hand.
Either way, they looked very furious and by now the uproar had drawn everyone’s attention. Those ridiculous soaps on VCR were not a patch on the entertainment I was suddenly offering to everyone. Not knowing what else to do, I just boarded my bus, which was still blissfully standing there. They followed me in. But some people were already aboard.
And miraculously, they stood up in my defence.
I have no other explanation than that they considered me „their“ fellow passenger. Which I would be, of course. Hopefully soon. One of them spoke some rudimentary English and confirmed what I had understood outside. My posse was demanding a fine because I had allegedly urinated there. I said that I had not. I said that I had meant to, but I had not. And that was all my defenders needed.
So I was now a witness to a shouting match between two parties which suddenly seemed to have nothing to do with me. I was just sitting on one of the seats and watching with fascination. Two sides were shouting at each other, doing their best to beat back the other one. All that initially over me, but at one point I was wondering if it was indeed over me any more. Either way, eventually, my side prevailed and my chasers and tormentors retreated. With some angry looks, to be sure, but I would suspect that anger was more a result of a knowledge that 3000 CFA francs had gone up in smoke. At least for them.
I thanked the guys who helped me out and got off again.
Somehow I wasn’t busting for a pee any more. I returned to the spot where I had gotten into trouble, but nobody bothered me again. Not only that. On another spot I noticed a guy happily taking a leak and no one was bothering him. But I was not going to risk incurring somebody’s wrath any more. Next time I wouldn’t get off the hook like that, I knew. So I decided to hold it out, however long it would take.
An English speaking guy approached me. He seemed to be very nice.
„Where did you learn your English?“ I asked him.
„I am a Nigerian,“ he said.
OK, it made sense. He had seen me in trouble those ten or fifteen minutes ago. And he was now trying to calm me down in case I still felt edgy.
„Don’t worry,“ he said. „They won’t bother you again. They just wanted money.“
Just as I suspected.
It was just around noon when we finally departed from the gare de routière de Sogoniko and I believed to be on my way to Mopti at last.
