A short while later we stopped in Ségou. The town itself, the third biggest in Mali, was most certainly one of those scheduled stops and there was no reason for us not to observe the timetable, albeit with a hefty delay. Hence, when our bus pulled over at the edge of a tree-lined four-lane avenue somewhere downtown, most of us got off again for another fifteen-minute stop-over. We had some very pleasant late afternoon outside, the sun mellowed considerably and wasn’t beating down on us any more, so we decided it was most certainly worth exchanging the musty and stuffy inside of the bus for a quarter of an hour on fresh air.
I got out holding an almost empty carton of apple juice, something that I had bought the day before for my trip today. On such a hot day drinking comes easy, particularly for someone like me. So by the time I was out, my apple juice was almost finished. Well, I saw no point in saving any of it for later, so I drained what was left of it and then looked around to see how I could dispose of the empty pack. Our bus was parked immediately by a roadside ditch, a thing so ubiquitous in urban Africa that everywhere I went it served the purpose of a sewer. Not exactly the paradigm of hygiene, and when you see your first one, then you kind of understand why this part of the world is still occasionally plagued by outbreaks of diseases none of us in the West dies to be around. But there they are and you can’t get around them.
So there was this one, as well. And compared to some others that I’d seen, this one was OK in the sense that it was completely dry. Consequently, the garbage that the sewage had washed up in the ditch didn’t reek. If you could keep your cool at the sight of it, and if your stomach wouldn’t start singing the blues just for the fun of it, you were fine. I was. I guess I was simply getting used to it. However, regardless of the fact that those ditches had been there long before my arrival and were going to be long after my departure, I had no right to add up to the garbage pile inside. Least of all just because it was already there. And yet, not exactly to my credit, after a short search for a proper spot to throw away my carton pack, and having found none, I simply tossed it into the ditch. There.
It’s not like anyone gave a toss about my toss. Hardly anyone cared that I had polluted some more the already polluted environment in Ségou. But the whole thing didn’t go unnoticed. Practically the moment I left this particular spot, a kid clambered down from one of the trees hanging over the ditch and dove for the carton I’d just discarded. He shot one or two quick glances my way, just to make sure I had no intention of trying to retrieve it. Once sure I would lay no claims any more, the kid grabbed the carton and literally tried to squeeze out of it and suck the last drop of apple juice he possibly could.
I gazed in astonishment. I think that was the most shocking example of poverty I had encountered as yet. The kid glanced over his shoulder in my direction once more and then disappeared behind the bus. I never saw him again.
Nobody popped an eyelid. As if it was a perfectly normal thing to see. But was it?
However, the show went on. There was hardly any time to waste. Our bus crew decided to treat themselves to the episode two from the how-to-fix-a-bus-wheel series. They all suddenly appeared armed with all sorts of poles and leverages and started again tinkering with the wheel that had earlier caused us to stop by in Sébougou. With great agility they began dabbling with what was, I guess, meant to be a firm attempt to definitely fix that wheel. Collective effort soon produced excellent results and after some strategic thinking at first, short time later they proudly took the wheel off. The crowd was very pleased again and watched with interest everything that was going on. Same as in Sébougou, this wheel business was a very good drawcard for quite a few local citizens who, in the lack of some other sensible pastime, gladly joined the bus passengers enjoying the whole scene. There was no shortage of not only mechanics already busy with the wheel, but also would-be mechanics who leaned closely and over each other’s shoulder intently followed entire activity.
As for me, I personally found this car-mechanic bonus somewhat less amusing. So I roamed around, taking in scenes of the Ségou town life and finding them ultimately more to my liking. Flat tyre or busted wheel was something you could occasionally see in Europe, too. Maybe a bit less often than in Mali, but such things happened wherever there were roads and motor vehicles. Instead, I preferred watching guys on top of buses untying and then tying again their passengers’ luggage, which consisted of just about everything, from motor-bikes to bed mattresses. And anything in between. Or donkey carts cruising this four-lane avenue we were stuck at with equal rights as scooters or teenage „Mercedes“ limousines. Or a small herd of cows, for that matter. Or stray goats. As far as I was concerned, that was the true fun.
However, what gradually started taking the fun out of the whole thing was the fact that it increasingly felt like we were really stranded. At first it didn’t appear that way, but the guys with the wheel disappeared somewhere, and without any explanation at that. By and by, local crowd saw itself less than entertained, as well. I must admit that my fellow passengers really took it stoically. I could only imagine what people would say if such a thing happened in Europe. There would be undoubtedly a healthy dose of oaths and curses all over the place, many with a pretext of „relieving the stress“. But the passengers of my bus were a really nice and patient lot. There was not a nervous word around. And yet, it was now clear that in everyone’s mind this thing with the wheel had gone on for too long.
This was not how I’d imagined my trip to Mopti. Being stuck in Ségou, that is. Granted, it could’ve been worse. We could’ve ended up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where God had said good night a long time ago. We hadn’t, so in case things turned bad, it was still town and I could find a place to sleep.
I took my diary out of my knapsack and in part to kill time started describing what was going on. And actually, as I was writing about it, I realised I was increasingly leaning towards the staying option. For whatever was wrong with that rear right wheel - or tyre – we seemed stuck and I saw no end to it. OK, you could never know. Those guys could still produce a miracle with the wheel and we might still move on to Mopti soon. Even if the sun was getting ominously close to the horizon and I wasn’t at all sure any more if I wanted to go on now. Well, I decided to give them some more time.
And I did.
Just by the way, I wondered for a moment what that cow milk I’d taken in Bamako had to do with this.
But at one point, the time I was willing to give them to fix the wheel irretrievably trickled away. Not ever doubting their skill and determination, I suddenly knew I was not in a mood of arriving in Mopti in the middle of the night and then looking for a kip. I decided I had been waiting enough, the things hadn’t quite worked out and it was now time for me to check out of the bus and head for some hotel here Ségou. After all, it wasn’t like I had to get anywhere. It was just my vacation, wasn’t it?
Having now made my decision, I looked up that nice guy who spoke some English and addressed him:
„Could you please possibly ask someone to open the storage space for me and give me my bag? I’d like to stay here.“
„You want to leave the bus?“ he asked with a measure of surprise in his voice.
„Yes, it’s getting dark and I don’t know when we’ll go on from here.“
He nodded. And immediately sent everybody around in search of anyone belonging to the bus crew. Because „monsieur doit partir“. The gentleman had to leave, that is.
As if on a cue, a lot of people started looking for someone who could give me my luggage. It took them a while since nobody really knew where the bus crew had scampered off to. All the passengers had been left practically clueless by the bus, without a single word of explanation. People knew only what they had seen with their own eyes. Anything more than that appeared almost like classified. Eventually though, someone tracked down someone who could help me out. I got my luggage, shook a lot of hands around, we all wished each other all the best and I left.
In Africa, picking a taxi is never a problem, so Ségou was no exception. I asked the guy who had stopped for me to take me to „Hôtel le Djoliba“ as „Lonely Planet“ warmly recommended it as the best kip in town. However, it turned out I was not the first one to entertain the idea of staying there. In other words, it had already been fully booked. So then taxi driver offered to take me to „Hôtel de l’Esplanade“. Once the sun starts setting down in Africa, nights fall at amazing speed, and by the time I left „Hôtel le Djoliba“ with the boot in the ass as my only prize, it was already completely dark. Hence, without much further deliberation I went along with the cabbie’s suggestion and a few minutes later I found myself a place to stay for the night.
The cabbie duly demanded his three thousand CFA francs for a ride that in normal circumstances would probably not cost me more than five hundred.
„Let’s rip off the white guy, huh?“ I grinned.
Africans are great in their own fashion. Interestingly enough, once found out in whatever mischief they get up to, they behave in a charmingly and disarmingly innocent way and – opposed to us white people – almost never try to deny it. Instead, they just smile, feeling embarrassed and that’s all. An average white guy would absolutely try to deny it and start naming any number of plausible and implausible reasons in order to seriously justify whatever he tried to do. But my taxi driver just laughed with me and said nothing. For some reason his behaviour won me over. And it was pitch dark outside. Ségou had hardly any street lights and most certainly not a single one around the „Hôtel de l’Esplanade“. So I gave the guy those three thousand CFA francs and he left.
As a matter of fact, I could have been much worse off. At the end of the day, my only trouble was that most of the time today I had been melting like an ice-cream in an oven and then ended up in Ségou instead of Mopti. But to offset that, I was now in what might easily be the best accommodation so far, a suite, an apartment really, in a hotel complete with garden and a pool, right by the Niger river. Come to think of it, not a bad trade-off, even if it possibly meant eventually ditching Dogon country further up the road.
I was tired. And perfectly happy to have gotten off the bus. In fact, the more I thought of it, now that I knew I’d have to rearrange my travel plans, the more I was inclined to slowing down a bit and staying in Ségou for more than just one night.
But dark as it may have been, it was not that late yet. Therefore, having left my stuff in my quarters, I asked where I could find an Internet café. One guy who apparently worked in the hotel offered to take me to one on his motorbike. I would have preferred to walk, even if it was all dark as soon as you moved away from the vicinity of the hotel. In fact, particularly since it was dark. Sitting on a frail-looking motorbike when you couldn’t make out things in front of you more than five, ten metres ahead at most was not the best way to soothe your nerves. But somehow I couldn’t refuse the guy’s offer. And so, off into the darkness we went.
Our ride through the darkness had a happy end, though, and a few minutes later I was indeed sitting at a computer in an Internet café.
„This is my cousin,“ the guy from the hotel informed me, pointing at one fellow there. „He works here.“ OK, family business. I got it now. We shook hands and the guy from the café proudly and with a big grin pointed his finger at a badge he sported on his chest for everyone to see. Barack Obama, it read.
„Do you know who this is?“ he asked me.
„Sure,“ I smiled, trying to be polite.
„This is new American president,“ he said anyway, just in case I lied. I nodded, somehow believing it would end there. But it didn’t. The Internet fellow marched on:
„He’s a very good man.“
„Is he?“
„Yes.“
And then he took it from there, in effect asserting that this guy would single-handedly transform the world. And the way he sounded, you would think that first real changes would be felt by the end of the week at the latest. At that, the old, crusty cynic about all things political came back alive in me, and my instinct of deep mistrust towards the species collectively known as politicians took only seconds to resurface. I said:
„Look, my friend. He may be a good man. I don’t know him personally, so let’s believe he’s good. But let me tell you something. He’s a politician. And as such, he doesn’t give a damn about you and me. Eventually, all he cares about will be American interests. He couldn’t care less about Mali or Croatia. Trust me on that one. Besides, they all talk much and promise you things before getting elected. However, once up there in the office, it’s all the same bullshit.“
The poor guy laughed a bit embarrassed. I guess he felt to an extent as if I had pushed him under a cold shower. After all, nobody likes having their dreams and hopes dashed. But unfortunately, that’s what the cynics are there for.
However, he seemed to like my choice of words. So he repeated, quite amused:
„Bullshit, huh?“
„Right. Just a bullshit,“ I repeated with a broad grin. So again we shook hands like best of friends and I turned to my computer.
