Survival mode

Leaving Bamako we were faced with two options: one, take the bus directly to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso or two, travel to the north of Mali and visit the famous Timbuktu before entering Burkina Faso from the north.

Easy choice! One would probably say. Timbuktu is a no- brainer, many people would love to see Timbuktu and never even get that close. In retrospect I often wonder whether we shouldn’t have done that but a few key factors had made us choose going straight to Ouaga instead.

The first factor was that we were by now heavily cash strapped. Team members would all have to pay extra money if they wanted to go via Timbuktu and most of them didn’t have it. The second factor was that we were quite frankly tired of long bus rides. The trip to Timbuktu is not straightforward, it’s an arduous journey in a cramped rickety old bus across dirt roads. This wouldn’t have been a problem, under usual circumstances, but the fresh memory of the Bamako Express, the excruciating heat, and a long dusty dirt road all counted against us going to Timbuktu. We weren’t even close to tourist mode anymore. We were slipping into survival mode. And in survival mode your capacity drops quickly.

So we made the decision and early next morning we got on a fairly comfortable bus to Ouagadougou, a 910km, 17h journey. This morning we were introduced to the famous West African coffee you buy at most bus stations. Ingredients: Nescafe, lots and lots of condensed milk and a little bit of boiling water. Combined with a piece of French pain smeared with butter it is exactly what the doctor would order. Divine! Traveling on the bus we would soon realise that we were exactly in the Lord’s will and in the right place. On the bus filled with French speakers there was only one other English speaker. A man called Immanuel (how’s that for an appropriate name?), a Nigerian football scout travelling all across West Africa in search for talent. We instantly connected and soon discovered that we share the same passion for the gospel. His father was a pastor in a church in Onitsha, Nigeria. He truly was an angel sent to us and would prove to be one a few more times in the future. I guess he could see that we were a bit low on cash- the dry bread probably gave it away! And at one of our stops he bought a whole meal for the team. Drinks, grilled chicken and his favourite food- fried banana. This was also our first introduction to fried banana and we instantly liked it. Not knowing that we would basically live of it later when we reached Cameroon. The chicken typically didn’t look like something we would usually buy. It had a strange blackish colour to it. But… we had survived the water from the open wells in Senegal and Luke 10 tells us to eat what is set before us, so we dug in. And not one of us became sick.

The border post between Mali and Burkina Faso was typically African. A random hut seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Exiting Mali was swift and immigration on the Burkina side was very friendly. We sat with them on wooden benches under a big tree while they inserted our details in the appropriate columns in their big book. From there it was another big push to the tongue twisting capital of Burkina, Ouagadougou. By the time we arrived it was close to midnight and we were tired. Bus stations don’t always feel like the safest place to sleep and are usually very dirty and muddy or dusty with little or no restrooms. So we resolved to look for a place to spend the night. Johan, like usual, was already cancelled, and resumed his sleeping position on his bag in the middle of the bus station. Again, in retrospect, we could have probably spent the night on the bus station, but right then it seemed like we needed a place to stay and we drifted of in groups of two into the city. It was only a few kilometres later that Wayne and I met an unsuspecting young man. He was very friendly and immediately agreed that we could camp out in their compound (before he realised how much space eight people with their tents take). The long walk back to the bus station to collect the rest of the team and our bags and then once again we marched the few kilometres through Ouaga to his compound. Eight pitched tents just about barely fit into the tiny yard, but at least we were safe. Of course the rest of the family were quite surprised the next morning when they had to step over tents to get to the front gate!

I haven’t mentioned this, but in Bamako we had realised that, if we wanted our budget to work out, we had to basically find free accommodation all they way from there through Burkina, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and back to Nigeria again before we flew to Ethiopia. And these countries were stretched out over a period of two months! Hence our quest to find free accommodation in Ouaga and why we didn’t just book into the first low budget guesthouse or room, even if it was just for one night.

We had to get our visa for Niger in Ouaga which meant we had to stay for a few days. Our tents cramped into the compound of our friend would not work. And we would be too much of a burden on the family’s water supply etc. Detlef and I set out the morning to look for the Niger embassy, which was a feat, since it wasn’t listed in any of the guide books, and to look for alternative accommodation. We found the embassy in the end, after a few stressful moments after people told us it didn’t exist. And, after begging and explaining for a few minutes, the Assemblies of God allowed us to stay on their church grounds. In the end they even insisted that we sleep in some of their rooms and we didn’t even have to sleep in our tents. Here we met wonderful people, including a pastor from Niamey, Niger who used to be a Muslim. In the end he turned out to be a valuable contact since he opened up his compound to us when we needed accommodation in Niger later.

After a few days the Nigerien visas were in our passports and we were on the next bus to Niamey, Niger, a 514km, 8h journey. Up to now the heat across the Sahel region was scorching and averaging around 40°C, it was about to get worse.

Above: completing immigration at the Mali/Burkina border

Above: the team with Immanuel. Johan, on the left, is clearly still asleep.

Above: me and a boy playing a local game in Ouaga, Burkina.