I was in Labe for the past couple of days - I went to retrieve my camera I had left at Thanksgiving. When I got to Peace Corps, my camera wasn't there, causing disappointment because I had big plans for taking photos in my village to post in Paris when I will be online. One photo that I would have shot came unexpectedly in my travels from Labe back to my village on Friday night.
To get from Labe to my village, I take a taxi about 3 hours from Labe to Mamou. Mamou is a city that is filled with travelers - it is the gateway to other parts of Guinea. There are three large taxi stands, and you have to know which stand has taxis going to your destination. One of the stands is for taxis going to small villages - the taxi that goes to my village isn't even at that stand - its on a small sidestreet. And he's only there on Fridays, sometimes on Mondays. This is also the spot to find the car that goes to my neighboring village. When I got there on Friday afternoon, hanging around the cars were all sorts of familiar faces - one of the teachers from my school, all the people I had met last time I was waiting for a taxi including the Sierra Leonian who was talked Barak Obama with me last time I was in Mamou. In the span of the five hours I spent waiting for the cab to fill up, anyone who lives in my village or the neighboring one and was in Mamou that day stopped by the sidestreet to see who was there, who was going back to the village, who had bought what that day, where everyone had been and who they saw. I was in a big transit city but the sidestreet felt very small town.
Right before we were leaving, the bread guy who balances the tray of bread on his head and sings stopped by, and all of the passengers of my taxi bought a minimum of four loaves to take back to the village. The ridiculous amount of bread in the taxi became source of jokes throughout the next 4 hours of the ride among the 13 passengers. I was in a taxi with 4 adults in the backseat and one child on a lap (note - this taxi is the size of a civic.) The front consisted of a driver seat and a passenger seat (no middle "seat") but somehow 4 people plus a baby all fit on those two seats. The woman who shard the drivers seat was pregnant. And there were 3 people on the roof with all of the luggage. The kid in charge of tying down all the luggage had just done it for a second time after a woman neglected to point out her luggage, so when there were now 8 bags of 4 baguettes, he refused to untie all the luggage and put them on the roof. He strapped them to the top of the trunk. We packed in the car which I am estimating to be about 40 years old. I swear it is the oldest car in Guinea. I am amazed that it makes it up the mountain on the rocky, dirt road.
About five minutes into our drive, the road out of Mamou has a roadside stop that hopes to lure in those headed back to the villages. I figured there was no way we were stopping - we had just sat around for hours surrounded by this stuff - and starting the car each time was a process I figured the driver likes to keep to a minimum (it involves a serious push start.) But we did stop, and what did everyone start buying? More bread. The principal of the neighbouring village started it in all seriousness, and the ladies in the back began laughing hysterically that he was honestly buying more bread. They joined in after sitting for a few minutes, I mean, why not? The crew was in push start position when he then asked about the price of the sugar. We had been sitting next door to a sugar stand all day.
It was about 5:30 when we really got moving - by 6:00 we were off the main road and headed towards the villages. At 7:00, the car stopped and everyone headed to a tree that had a space cleared out under it for the Guinean rest-stop, evening prayer. Here, by 7:00, the sun has just set, and tonight, the full moon was rising over the mountains. It was large and beautiful African orange. This is the scene I wish I could have captured with my missing camera - I was on the side of the road next to the "vintage" car with the dozens of bread tied to the trunk, headed down a road headed toward the moon with nothing on either side but the tall grasses and the hills. The sky with dusk colors just hanging on while the moon took to the skies, and under a mango tree were seven men and three women facing northeast offering up the last prayer of the day. This is Guinea.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm sorry you couldn't take a photo, but you use your words well to describe it. Sudsy will enjoy this post, since he's had to do many push starts in his day, which I'm sure your dad can verify. Did you ever get the camera, or is someone else enjoying it now?
ReplyDelete