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The Roads Between Us: A Journey Across Africa

It’s never a good sign when the bus won’t start. But that was how our day was going, not far from the Senegal border, where I’d finally arrived after several days of traveling from Burkina Faso through Mali.

Surely, it couldn’t get any worse.

“All the men! Outside!”

There were many men—and women—on the bus from across the region. There was Aliwaliou, the thin trader from Guinea with stomach problems. There was Omar, the soft-spoken teacher from Ivory Coast. There was Yousof, the eager businessman from Timbuktu. And there was Kennie, the loud, friendly Nigerian on her way to anywhere but Nigeria.

MORE: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Mapped—The Roads Between Us: A Journey Across Africa | Interview with Jeremy Weate: Off the Map in Nigeria

Together, we’d arrived in Kayes at midnight the previous day, then slept on rented foam mats, under the stars in the bus park. The next morning we dutifully got on the bus, and waited for the driver to blast the horn, rev the engine and start rolling forward, so anyone who wanted to go could jump on. Instead, the driver turned the key, and the engine rolled and died. He did this a few times before he stood up and made his announcement.

We climbed down, walked around behind the bus, and started pushing. Omar was standing next to me. He smiled.

“Now you are an African!” he said and laughed.

We pushed. The bus inched forward. The driver popped the clutch, and the engine roared. The horn blared, the bus rolled forward, and we all ran around and jumped on, as we crossed a wide river and drove on toward Senegal, where we stopped at the customs office. Usually this meant a quick stop for paperwork and payments. But as I listened to the driver talk to the officer, I could tell there was a problem. I could hear words like border and closed and tomorrow, none of which seemed like good words to hear. 

There was some grumbling as we climbed back on the bus. Some of the other passengers said the border was, in fact, closed. Others shook their heads in disgust. I didn’t really believe it. I thought this must be a formality—probably a kind of bargaining, some bid to raise the rates on an unspoken price. You can’t just close a border, can you?

The driver turned around and started driving back across the river into Mali. He pulled into a dusty parking lot, turned the engine off. Everyone started climbing down.

“Why can’t we cross?” I asked Aliwaliou.

“There is an election,” he said, “so they have closed the border. We must wait until tomorrow.”

“So what can we do?”

“Nothing,” he said, and shrugged. “We wait.”

I looked around the parking lot just off the main road. It was surrounded by low, one-room brick houses, shops and food stands. There was literally nothing to do.

I walked around till I found a shop where they hooked my phone up to a car battery to charge it, then went back to the bus. There, I saw Yousof sitting with three Mauritanians, and a guy from the Gambia. They were eating mutton and baguettes, and motioned for me to come share, which I did. Later, Aliwaliou and Omar and I walked down to the river while two of them argued about the meaning of Barack Obama’s election.

It was strange. It all should have been maddening, infuriating. And yet it wasn’t. In my memory, that afternoon was one of the best times on my entire trip. It may even be one of my fondest memories of Africa. All afternoon and evening, there was nothing to do but talk, sit, eat, and watch Jean-Claude Van Damme on a TV powered by a whining generator that kept shutting down during the good parts.

The reason, I think, is because of something Kennie said. Early that afternoon, I’d sat down with her. She spoke hardly a word of French, but was having a fantastic time laughing with two women who spoke no English.

“You know,” I said, “the bus isn’t leaving today.”

“Yes,” she said. “They say there is no way. The roads are closed. But it’s okay, because like this, I am making friends. We are family now. The road is closed, but the road between people is open.”

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