The tro-tro, the zemi and the taxi

In this part of the world, most people have no clue how old they are, so it was wildly appropriate that I celebrate my 28th birthday last week in Malanville, at the Benin-Niger border, with neither internet nor phone reception. After a full day in bush-taxis, crammed together in a dying Peugeot with 7 or 8 other people (not counting children), we treated ourselves to an air-conditioned room and some wine in Benin's northernmost market town. It was downright pleasant. That's the good part of spending a few days in the bush of northern Benin, where running water, electricity and asphalt are nowhere to be found. The slightest return to civilization is a celebration.

Over the past two weeks, I got my first taste of sub-Saharan francophone Africa, something I had been looking forward to for a while now: what exactly did the French do here? The ABC bus transport headed to Lagos dropped us off in Cotonou at the Stade de l'Amitie (the Friendship Stadium), our first big surprise here, for it is a wide and vacant space. In Accra, this would have been a brilliant opportunity for another loud, smelly and bustling market. In Cotonou, it remained a majestic, empty plaza with Olympic size stadium and swimming pool. The country may not be growing as much, but it’s got its government services figured out: the sewers are closed, the roads are marked and the streets are lit. And lo and behold there are sidewalks here. I never realized how important sidewalks were until I tried to walk the hundred yards that separate our hostel from the nearest restaurant on our roundabout, in Accra, at night. Believe me. Sidewalks matter.

Yet Benin, being an ex-French colony and all, could use a bit more entrepreneurial spirit. You know the situation is dire when two academics start concocting a list of business ideas in the streets of Cotonou. The list below is just a beginning…

a) A private bus company that understands the concept of reservations. The country abounds in cell phones, yet bus operators in Cotonou are incapable of communicating with those in Parakou to let them know that the bus is full, or that it has only 5 seats left. The guarantee of a reserved seat for a slightly higher price is an idea that has got to be exploited here. People end up taking the more expensive bush taxis once the buses turn them away so my guess is that they would be willing to pay for this.
b) A system of street vendors who sell not only coffee but also pastries. Right now the bakeries have no coffee and the coffee stands offer only stale baguette. Let's bring the coffee and the chocolate croissant together, people.
c) A company that sends out employees throughout the city to sell small change (I must credit this idea entirely to JAB). I cannot even count the number of vendors who turned me down because they didn't have enough change for my bills. Perhaps they would be willing to pay a small fee, a really small fee, for readily available small change? Perhaps they could make up this cost with all the once-forgone sales they would then acquire?

Logistical inefficiencies aside, Cotonou is a rather charming coastal city with beautiful beaches. The tro-tros of Accra are nowhere to be found, giving way instead to zemis – or moto-taxis – that flood the tiled streets and roundabouts. Everybody rides the zemis. If they don’t, they have their own scooters. And – I’m sorry to say – helmets are few and far between. Yet making up for this is the unique sight of middle-aged women in traditional dress and sunglasses, zooming by on their little motorcycles. Seems like I will fit right in…

After a week in Benin, travelling from Cotonou to the North – where apparently they are in dire need of some solar power – we crossed the Niger River into Niger early Monday morning. We headed North and West toward Niamey, moving farther into the dry, the hot and the bare. It’s hard to believe there is ever a rainy season here. We emerged from kilometers of bush and dust, potholes and broken road shoulders, and entered the city on a wide boulevard under an overpass declaring "Bienvenue a Niamey!"

This place is as intriguing and uncanny as it gets. If you look at a map of Niamey, you could almost mistake it for Paris. The Niger River runs right through it, dividing the city into a left and a right bank. The right bank is the university. The left bank is everything else.

In Niamey, the heat is dry and aggressive; the four-wheel-drives share the road with taxis and camels; the call to prayer wakes you up every morning at 5; the women run at the public stadium with hair, elbows and knees fully covered; the street vendors are convinced that if you don’t want to buy their strawberries then you might be interested in their pineapples and if not in their pineapples then perhaps in their mangoes and if not in their mangoes then for sure in their coconuts; the children greet you screaming “donne moi cadeau” (“give me gift”); and the taxis take you where you need to go only if it’s convenient for them. Everytime I lean into the driver’s window, tell him my destination, and wait anxiously for his response as he ruminates over the decision, I think to myself… how very French.

And yet of the three urban centers we have explored so far, Niamey has by far been the prettiest and most pleasant. With more space and fewer people, the city is a lot more manageable. The Southern Sahelian climate blows the trash away to the outskirts so it need not congregate in the city center. And the couscous is almost as good as my grand-mother’s.

We return to Accra on Sunday, bus transportation willing. Here ends our reconnaissance mission. Accra, Cotonou, Niamey. We will not be complete novices again. In each country, we have acquainted ourselves with local cuisines, modes of transportation and Nigerian embassies… just enough local knowledge and local contacts to come back and pretend we know exactly what we’re doing and where we’re going.