Starting the adventure: Kumasi, Ghana to Ouagadougou

Julia, Janine and I left our school group in Ghana to head for the countries of Burkina Faso and Mali. We were carrying MRE’s, granola bars, tuna and other food stuffs that the group had brought for snacks while in Ghana and had donated to us. We had our Lonely Planet guide book which gave us an idea of what we were going to do, but did little to prepare us for the adventure we were about to embark on. I had been to Burkina Faso with another medical student the year before. Neither of us spoke French, had visas or had any idea what was Burkina Faso before going. I swore that I would never be that stupid again…until this trip. At least we had a guide book, a French-English dictionary, and the phone number of my friend Rasmane who I met the year before in Ouagadougou. This year was very different though, I was traveling with two girls: Janine a military girl who had incidentally never been out of the country before and had a crazy upbringing in the south (which included living on the street for a year when she was 12) and Julia, a singer and a nurse with whom I had traveled to India over spring break. Julia is a sweet girl who has expectations and dreams of how things should be. She and I had some funny disagreements about life. I am like the “Peter Pan” song about a man that doesn’t want to grow up and be responsible, like the ex-boyfriend she wrote the song for. When I would talk about my commitment issues, she would become disgruntled as it was too close to home because I sounded like the ex-boyfriend that she still hasn’t gotten over.

Here we were a strange trio sitting in the bus station in Kumasi, Ghana waiting to start our adventure. The girls had planned an itinerary of what we were going to do and brought the French-English dictionary as if to feel prepared and in control of their journey which was just false security as the fates would have it. As this was my second trip to Africa, I had a sense of the African way of life only could worry to see how my traveling companions would react to the reality that we were about to step into. Our school trip to Ghana was like seeing Africa through a tour bus: we stopped in villages for our study, slept in air conditioned hotels, and our private bus driver left on the time that we were supposed to go. We were about to step into a world of less certainty: a world where buses leave when they are full and not at a certain time, where every price is negotiable and the bed for the night could be a mat in the dirt on the side of the road or a mattress on a roof.

Each bus that came into the station in Kumasi, I had to check to see if it was the one going to Ouagadougou. Finally at 5:00, 30 minutes after the time on our ticket, our bus pulled in. Julia asked if this was the bus going to wogodoogoo which a girl with an accent corrected her saying it was pronounced “wagadoogoo.” This made us laugh saying “typical French person always correcting strangers.” Ironically, this girl turned out to be Canadian and extremely kind. Janine and Julia sat by each other and I sat on the back seat which I had to myself (so I thought). We ate Ghanaian sugar bread and peanut butter for dinner. We stopped in a small town for a potty break. The girls used the female urinal which consisted of a tiled canal, I used the male urinal which was the same thing. I bought some onion crackers to the disgust of everyone else and started talking with a woman selling eggs on the top of her head. She didn’t speak English, but I used the few phrases that I knew in Twi, the local language to ask her how she was doing and that foofoo, beaten cassava with sauce, was delicious. I told her God be with her and we headed for the bus. The two French Canadian girls and a Swedish girl, the other white people on the bus, thought that I knew had to speak Twi fluently (That was only because I said the same phrases over and over with this woman.) I explained to them that I had no idea how to speak Twi. We introduced ourselves and the Canadian girls mentioned that they had been staying with a sister that had married a Burkinabe and was living in Ouaga and the Swiss girl said that she had been studying women in politics in Burkina Faso. We invited (practically begged) them to come to Mali with us so they could be our interpreters. They however were leaving in a couple of days and declined. We got back on our bus. We all eventually fell asleep. I used Julias purse as a pillow and slept on the back seat because my seat couldn’t recline. I thought I had the best place on the bus only to be awakened in Tamale, a city in northern Ghana, where my seat became full of people. I sat next to a man who explained to me in broken English that he was going to Burkina Faso to buy a motorbike and ride it back to Ghana. He had saved up $190 for the bike and found out through a friend of someone selling theirs. Because borders are fragments of colonialism that represented European interests and not divisions of culture or language, the people of northern Ghana are more closely tied to those in Burkina Faso than they are to the rest of their country. This is why he found a bike in Burkina rather than in Ghana. That night we got to the border, Paga, and slept on the bus until the border opened. We had told our French speaking friends about how we had not gotten visas before we came. The Swedish girl was pretty concerned. I explained that I had done this last year at a different border and if worse came to worse, we would just go back to Ghana. When we got to the border our French speaking friends explained our situation. We went to the Burkina police station and a very happy officer who had an English phrase book got us visas. The Burkina people are relaxed and happy. It is just is strange to me that they are the 3rd poorest country (according to some index that arbitrary ranks poorness and my guide book) and can still be so dang happy. We got back on to our bus after everyone had to wait for us, and arrived in Ouaga. We found out that there was a bus that went to Mopti, Mali that day and decided to get there as fast as we could so that we could start our trip. Our Canadian friends got us a taxi that took us to the bank and the “bus” station. We said good bye and begged them to come, which they declined again. We were left to be vulnerable, only relying on my two months of French lessons and the patience of African hospitality to get to our destination, food, and across the Malian border.