outside, and I was drenched. It hurt to breathe. This time the station was crawling with people and noise, bursting with heat. A sea of African humanity: women sitting on blankets, guarding huge piles of sacks filled with potatoes and mangoes, covered the platform, their batik boubou dresses a riot of blues and golds, their heads wrapped in scarves, with dangling gold earrings and hennaed feet. Men in shimmering green kaftans with bell-shaped sleeves lugged boxes filled with what looked like salad bowls. The train wasn’t here and the sun was dropping. The platform reeked of rotten vegetables and fruit and sweat. Trash two inches deep covered the wavering tracks, and vendors hawked padlocks, paper fans, cheap flashlights, and little rolls of toilet paper.
Suddenly I heard a grinding, rumbling, clanging sound. “The fucking train,” said Guindo, patting me on the shoulder. “Good luck, Carl,” he said, vanishing into the dim, crowded evening, like he was running away from the police. The train inched slowly in. It looked a thousand years old. Like it had been thrown off a cliff, beaten up, torn apart for scrap, and pasted together again. It had rusty holes in its sides and mud spattered across its flanks. I’d asked for a second-class ticket, which Guindo had bought me. The tickets actually had seat assignments, and when I fought my way through bodies and noise and boxes and crates and bags, my seat, my row, was destroyed. The seatbacks were there, but not the seats. I looked around; there were no others. An old man, toothless, thin, desiccated-looking in a soiled shirt, grabbed me by the arm. “Follow me,” he said. We climbed and squeezed out of the carriage, walked past two cars, and into one marked FIRST CLASS in faded letters. Its condition was identical to the other, except it had cabins, each with four bunks topped with a yellow, pitted, crumbling rectangle of foam.
Night had fallen. The inside of the train was pitch black, and as hot as a toaster oven. People were shouting and loading goods through the window. Mosquitoes buzzed around my face. In the lower bunk next to me sat a thin, dark man from Dakar, returning there after a trip buying dozens of big clay pots to resell in the capital. At 7:30 p.m. the train jerked, slid forward, jerked to a halt again. I leaned out of the open window in the hallway, gasping for air. More people, more shouting, more boxes and bags loaded through the doorways and windows. The train lurched forward again, and this time didn’t stop. We were on our way, moving at ten miles an hour. Suddenly the power came on, the dim lights in the hall and my couchette revealing a world of dirt. My mattress was so stained it looked like a bullet riddled soldier had died on it. The walls were smeared with brown. Piles of dust covered the floor. Everything was broken, crooked, askew. A thin man in a shimmering green robe and beard arrived, and in the room he piled ice chests and gallon jugs of water, a single-burner stove, plastic trash bags, and bundles wrapped in twine.
I had to pee badly, but the bathroom at the end of the hall was filled to the ceiling with boxes. Desperate, with my roommates talking out in the hall, I slid the door of my couchette closed, turned off the light, perched on the edge of my bed, and pissed out the window.
Suddenly there was a tussle, and down the hall marched a short, stocky bulldog of a man in rolled-up blue jeans and a plaid shirt, crashing through the hallways like it was an NFL line of scrimmage. He was five foot seven, 200 pounds. “Confusion!” he yelled, when he burst into the room and saw me. “You speak English? Where are you going and where is your home?”
“Yes. Dakar,” I said. “The United States.”
“I am Papa-si!” he said, thrusting out a big, warm, dry hand, before crashing down the hall again for more bags and boxes.
I felt exhausted, dirty, overwhelmed, and lay down on the mattress, imagining malaria and bedbugs and robbers,
Suddenly I heard a grinding, rumbling, clanging sound. “The fucking train,” said Guindo, patting me on the shoulder. “Good luck, Carl,” he said, vanishing into the dim, crowded evening, like he was running away from the police. The train inched slowly in. It looked a thousand years old. Like it had been thrown off a cliff, beaten up, torn apart for scrap, and pasted together again. It had rusty holes in its sides and mud spattered across its flanks. I’d asked for a second-class ticket, which Guindo had bought me. The tickets actually had seat assignments, and when I fought my way through bodies and noise and boxes and crates and bags, my seat, my row, was destroyed. The seatbacks were there, but not the seats. I looked around; there were no others. An old man, toothless, thin, desiccated-looking in a soiled shirt, grabbed me by the arm. “Follow me,” he said. We climbed and squeezed out of the carriage, walked past two cars, and into one marked FIRST CLASS in faded letters. Its condition was identical to the other, except it had cabins, each with four bunks topped with a yellow, pitted, crumbling rectangle of foam.
Night had fallen. The inside of the train was pitch black, and as hot as a toaster oven. People were shouting and loading goods through the window. Mosquitoes buzzed around my face. In the lower bunk next to me sat a thin, dark man from Dakar, returning there after a trip buying dozens of big clay pots to resell in the capital. At 7:30 p.m. the train jerked, slid forward, jerked to a halt again. I leaned out of the open window in the hallway, gasping for air. More people, more shouting, more boxes and bags loaded through the doorways and windows. The train lurched forward again, and this time didn’t stop. We were on our way, moving at ten miles an hour. Suddenly the power came on, the dim lights in the hall and my couchette revealing a world of dirt. My mattress was so stained it looked like a bullet riddled soldier had died on it. The walls were smeared with brown. Piles of dust covered the floor. Everything was broken, crooked, askew. A thin man in a shimmering green robe and beard arrived, and in the room he piled ice chests and gallon jugs of water, a single-burner stove, plastic trash bags, and bundles wrapped in twine.
I had to pee badly, but the bathroom at the end of the hall was filled to the ceiling with boxes. Desperate, with my roommates talking out in the hall, I slid the door of my couchette closed, turned off the light, perched on the edge of my bed, and pissed out the window.
Suddenly there was a tussle, and down the hall marched a short, stocky bulldog of a man in rolled-up blue jeans and a plaid shirt, crashing through the hallways like it was an NFL line of scrimmage. He was five foot seven, 200 pounds. “Confusion!” he yelled, when he burst into the room and saw me. “You speak English? Where are you going and where is your home?”
“Yes. Dakar,” I said. “The United States.”
“I am Papa-si!” he said, thrusting out a big, warm, dry hand, before crashing down the hall again for more bags and boxes.
I felt exhausted, dirty, overwhelmed, and lay down on the mattress, imagining malaria and bedbugs and robbers,
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