overturned craft .
—Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2002
FIVE
That Train Is Very Bad
I N ONE OF THE QUIRKS of African travel, there are few direct, nonstop international flights between major African cities. Which is why, to get to Bamako, Mali, from Nairobi, I had to fly through Addis Ababa, and the leg from Addis was twenty-four hours late. Around me in the gate were the shock troops of globalization. Groups of Chinese, the new merchant class of Africa, in black shoes and white socks and formless brown jackets clutching Naugahyde briefcases. Filipinos in flip-flops and T-shirts. And ten Sri Lankan seamen, bound for a ship in Dakar, Senegal, in crisp polo shirts and ironed blue jeans. “We will land and go straight to the ship,” said their leader, the first engineer. “We’ll go to Poland and then the Caribbean; it will be at least seven months, maybe a year, before we see our families again.”
“That must be hard,” I said, thinking of my own life and family, and how despite all my travels I’d never been gone more than two months before.
“Yes,” he said, “but remember: you never know when you will die, so you must be happy all the time.”
We dropped into Bamako at 2:00 a.m. and even in the middle of the night it was searingly hot, baking, in a city that looked like it had been hit by a bomb. Potholes and dust and dim lights, the smell of smoke and garbage and bodies asleep on every sidewalk, in front of stores, as if they’d been out walking and had just suddenly collapsed. I’d come for a train: the line from Bamako to Dakar was legendarily bad. And the moment I stepped out of my hotel in the morning I was adopted by Guindo, one of the city’s thousands of licensed guides. “What do you want?” he said. “A trek in Dogan country? Buy some masks?”
“Can you help me get tickets on the train to Dakar?” I said.
For a second his face looked blank. “Yes,” he said, “it’s maybe possible. But I think that train is very bad.”
If the city seemed hot and ramshackle in the night, it was fifty times worse in the day. Guindo walked fast, and we skipped past piles of rubble and garbage and smoldering fires and broken-down cars filled with sand, past legless and blind beggars in 120-degree heat that was so sharp it burned my skin and mouth, through dirt streets thronged with men in pointy-toed slippers and women in silk turbans. There was nowhere to hide or to get away from the chaos and throngs. Crowds and heat and dust and noise, the streets bumper-to-bumper with crooked matatus with no glass in the windows, the smell of excrement and sweat and smoke.
The railway terminal was empty; the train wasn’t here, and no one knew when it would return or depart. “No one knows anything,” said a man Guindo cornered. “There are no fixed dates. Maybe it will leave on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. You will know when the train is here when the train is here. You must come every day. My friend, this train is very bad.”
“I don’t think you should take the train,” said Guindo, as we walked away. “I think it’s not too safe. How about a bus?”
When I insisted on the train, Guindo said he would go to the station every day and, when the moment was right, get my ticket. He wanted the money—about thirty dollars—up front, and I reluctantly handed it over back at my hotel. “You don’t worry, Carl! I will call you.”
It was Monday; the train was officially scheduled to leave on Wednesdays for the forty-eight-hour journey, but I figured, if anything, it would be leaving late. I called Guindo late the next morning to see if he was on the case. “No, Carl, the train is still nowhere,” he said. But at 5:00 p.m. my phone rang. “The train is almost here,” he said, “and it is leaving soon. Tonight. I have your ticket! You must be fast; I will pick you up right now.”
Guindo arrived a few minutes later in a taxi so broken I had to hold the door shut. It was over a hundred degrees
—Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2002
FIVE
That Train Is Very Bad
I N ONE OF THE QUIRKS of African travel, there are few direct, nonstop international flights between major African cities. Which is why, to get to Bamako, Mali, from Nairobi, I had to fly through Addis Ababa, and the leg from Addis was twenty-four hours late. Around me in the gate were the shock troops of globalization. Groups of Chinese, the new merchant class of Africa, in black shoes and white socks and formless brown jackets clutching Naugahyde briefcases. Filipinos in flip-flops and T-shirts. And ten Sri Lankan seamen, bound for a ship in Dakar, Senegal, in crisp polo shirts and ironed blue jeans. “We will land and go straight to the ship,” said their leader, the first engineer. “We’ll go to Poland and then the Caribbean; it will be at least seven months, maybe a year, before we see our families again.”
“That must be hard,” I said, thinking of my own life and family, and how despite all my travels I’d never been gone more than two months before.
“Yes,” he said, “but remember: you never know when you will die, so you must be happy all the time.”
We dropped into Bamako at 2:00 a.m. and even in the middle of the night it was searingly hot, baking, in a city that looked like it had been hit by a bomb. Potholes and dust and dim lights, the smell of smoke and garbage and bodies asleep on every sidewalk, in front of stores, as if they’d been out walking and had just suddenly collapsed. I’d come for a train: the line from Bamako to Dakar was legendarily bad. And the moment I stepped out of my hotel in the morning I was adopted by Guindo, one of the city’s thousands of licensed guides. “What do you want?” he said. “A trek in Dogan country? Buy some masks?”
“Can you help me get tickets on the train to Dakar?” I said.
For a second his face looked blank. “Yes,” he said, “it’s maybe possible. But I think that train is very bad.”
If the city seemed hot and ramshackle in the night, it was fifty times worse in the day. Guindo walked fast, and we skipped past piles of rubble and garbage and smoldering fires and broken-down cars filled with sand, past legless and blind beggars in 120-degree heat that was so sharp it burned my skin and mouth, through dirt streets thronged with men in pointy-toed slippers and women in silk turbans. There was nowhere to hide or to get away from the chaos and throngs. Crowds and heat and dust and noise, the streets bumper-to-bumper with crooked matatus with no glass in the windows, the smell of excrement and sweat and smoke.
The railway terminal was empty; the train wasn’t here, and no one knew when it would return or depart. “No one knows anything,” said a man Guindo cornered. “There are no fixed dates. Maybe it will leave on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. You will know when the train is here when the train is here. You must come every day. My friend, this train is very bad.”
“I don’t think you should take the train,” said Guindo, as we walked away. “I think it’s not too safe. How about a bus?”
When I insisted on the train, Guindo said he would go to the station every day and, when the moment was right, get my ticket. He wanted the money—about thirty dollars—up front, and I reluctantly handed it over back at my hotel. “You don’t worry, Carl! I will call you.”
It was Monday; the train was officially scheduled to leave on Wednesdays for the forty-eight-hour journey, but I figured, if anything, it would be leaving late. I called Guindo late the next morning to see if he was on the case. “No, Carl, the train is still nowhere,” he said. But at 5:00 p.m. my phone rang. “The train is almost here,” he said, “and it is leaving soon. Tonight. I have your ticket! You must be fast; I will pick you up right now.”
Guindo arrived a few minutes later in a taxi so broken I had to hold the door shut. It was over a hundred degrees
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