With his track record over the last few days since I’d first met him, I couldn’t be entirely at peace as to whether Guele would stick with what he’d promised me the night before and arrive on time to show me where I’d be able to take a shared taxi to Koro. Of course, I woke up as if he would, then I packed fully and went into the garden to have breakfast. Barbara wasn’t there, just as I expected. Wherever she planned to go today, she was the one least in the hurry of all my fellow travellers, including myself. So no wonder that after the gruelling ride from Essakane she slept in.
But Ibrahima was there.
He made sure to be in my company throughout the breakfast and until the very moment when Guele would turn up. Whenever he would. If he would. Eventually Ibrahima and I exchanged addresses and phone numbers and that was yet another proof that language is a barrier only when people let it be between them as such. But friendship can reach beyond that.
And to his credit, Guele appeared almost on time. Again, considering that this was Africa, he was right on time. Translated into Swiss terms, this would probably qualify as „to the second“.
He took me to a place not far from water tower and his office, and told me that there I could get my bush taxi to Koro. Of course, as almost always in Mali, the taxi would go “as soon as it was full”. Which could take anywhere between five minutes and two or three hours, depending on the demand on this particular route. Guele assured me that the Koro route was a busy one and that I’d be able to leave „soon“. Even if only two people had already bought a seat and I was the third one. And we wouldn’t be going before the vehicle was packed full, like that to Djenné the other day.
What could I do? Nothing much. I just sat around and waited. Then I stood up and kind of roamed around to stretch my legs, which in translation meant that I was taking pictures in secret, But that wasn’t as much fun as it would have been if I had been able to safely count on leaving at a fixed time, whenever it would be. So after a few pictures I stopped.
People gathered only gradually. You could by no means claim that this was a rush on the Koro-bound taxi. Rather it was more like a trickle. A passenger every fifteen minutes or so. At that rate, I could easily still be stuck in Mopti for the next two or even three hours.
Guele noticed my unease. So he came up with a suggestion:
„If you want, you can pay for more seats and then you can go immediately.“
When he suggested that, we were still waiting for two more passengers. I readily jumped on his proposal and he clinched the deal for me. I paid another eight thousand CFA francs, in addition to the four I’d already given for myself, and we were finally ready to go.
Guele introduced me to one young guy and said:
„He’ll help you.“
Thereby he meant that in case I needed any help or explanation along the way, I could turn to this guy and he’d be there to assist me. It was a young Burkinabe man who was returning home and who even spoke some English. Well, it certainly was a relief to know there was someone like him in the bush taxi, as well.
One of the passengers was a young lady, wrapped up in warm clothes as if we were heading up to the north of Norway in the deep of Scandinavian winter, and not even more to the south in the already baking hot Africa. That lady had already taken the front passenger seat and waited for the start of the trip.
Without ever asking me anything, and probably having assumed that by paying three seats instead of one I was automatically entitled to the most comfortable place in the taxi, Guele simply ordered the lady out. When she protested, he started yelling in that pretty ubiquitous African way and nearly dragged her out by her hand. Without further complaints she meekly yielded and took one of the back seats. Reverting to his polite self, Guele told me that I could now sit where the lady had been sitting.
OK, in a way he had a point. I had paid three seats and thereby by some reckoning could have laid claims on certain rights. But it nevertheless made me feel awkward and ashamed. I hated to see the lady kicked out and relegated back just on account of me. Three seats or no seats.
But nobody waited for any more explanations and it seemed that politeness and gallantry were not on top of the agenda here. At last not in this particular taxi. Nobody popped an eyelid and it seemed I was the only one who was sensitive to something which was simply a non-issue. Everybody else started pragmatically pushing into the vehicle and taking their seats.
So I got in as well.
Yes, everything considered, my three seats did buy me a relative luxury. Particularly compared to how I’d travelled to Essakane and back. I shook hands with Guele, he asked me to remember him and recommend him to „any“ of my friends who might want to visit Mali one day, and my trip back to Burkina Faso finally got under way.
