Ali in Africa; a peace corps adventure

7 aout 2011
So whenever you get an email from me, or skype with me, or chat with me on facebook, it is because I am in the city of Ngaoundere. The voyage here usually takes 45 minutes total. Today, however, the journey was more eventful than others:

8 am left the homestead. I was traveling into the city to meet with my french tutor and have a lesson, so I wanted to head in early. I said good morning to everyone and headed onto the road...

...where I waited 25 minutes for a car to pass by. Because on Fridays the market is far away, all the cars are there. No problem. I sat and chatted with some peeps and when the first car going in the right direction passed, I flagged it down.

....so I am in the car, we pick up three other people. This makes 8 total. I believe this is an appropiate time to talk a little bit about transportation in C-roon. I have no idea how vehicles arrive in Cameroun, but they have already been used somewhere else like America or Euro. The "newest" of cars are still in rough shape, so you can imagine what my bush-cars are like. When I say that 8 people were in this used Toyato, I mean there are 4 of us in the back, 2 in the front passenger seat, the driver, and one other "mini-driver" next to him. My record so far for this type of bush-car has been 10 people: 4 in the front and 4 in the back plus 2 children. No seatbelts, windows don't often roll down, windshields are always broken in ten places...it's a great time. Anywho, so we're driving along and everything is going as it always does, until...

....the car stops. Ok. nothing new. the driver tries to start it a few times. probably needs gas. this has happened before...but what hasn't happened before is the car actually not starting again even when it gets pushed down a hill by some kind passerbys. The driver finds a guy on a motorcycle and sends him to get some gas. Ok, so maybe it was just the gas. The gas arrives, but still the car does not start. So the driver gets out, flips up the hood and starts doing all sorts of things. He tries to start it again, no go. Then he takes a crowbar and starts banging some metal pipe under the car. I'm like please no, if this car explodes, I am stuck right here between two women and one stinky man. He tries pushing the car backwards down a little hill, and it almost starts...but then dies again.

.....Then it starts raining. It is about 10 am now. I'm like this is ridic. Have patience Alison, have patience. Other cars pass by in the opposite direction but none come our way. The driver is still attempting banging under the car and under the hood but nothing works. Finally, a car in our direction arrives. The other-car driver also looks under the hood and bangs under the car, but he says there's no way he can fix it. At this point, myself and stinky man get out and go in their car. Second car driver attaches a rope between the two cars and we head off again towards the city; our now-car pulling old car. Old car still has all my stuff in it.

....So we're off and we reach a big downhill and first car driver is having a hard time navigating and hits the back of our car and the rope breaks due to the impact. So we all stop and re-attach the rope. That happens about 8 times.

....So we reach a police checkpoint/toll road. The rope breaks at the checkpoint (of course right) and the toll road boys help push car #1 so that it's not blocking other cars; inadvertently putting it in front of our car. A police comes over and starts blowing his whistle for us to move along so our car comes up behind car #1 and pushes it to a place where we have room to re-attach the rope. But this of course breaks off the entire bumper and rear headlights. Great.

.....So we're back on the road and we slowly make it to the city before Ngaoundere called Dang. At Dang, we stop and retrieve our things from car #1. Yes, finally. It is 10:45 am now. We leave car #1 and....right before we are in Ngaoundere, we hit a line of traffic and have to stop in the same spot that a huge truck is making a turn around us...and hits our car. I'm like you've got to be joking me. No major damage was done because the truck was moving slowly, but I just thinking in my head about how many bad omens there were to not go into the city today.

....I arrived for my french class at 11:20 am.
Total time of travel: 3 hours 20 minutes. Cost of trip: 1000 FCFA, about $2. Memories: Priceless