I sometimes have flashbacks of my life in London, getting on the Victoria Line down to Euston station, trying to get a seat, flicking through the latest issue of Metro, reading my horoscope… just in case... I can get a little craving for a steaming cup of cappuccino...
Going to work in Ouaga is quite a different experience, and not much of a routine. Well, to start with, for the first 3 months, I did not have an office, as such, I was making a lot of field visits, traveled to different cities, as far out as Banfora near the border with Ivory Coast, or Fada N Gourma on the road to Niger. I was keeping in touch with the office using cybercafés or posh 5-star hotels with free wifi connection for the cost of an overpriced orange juice. In May, my prospection came to an end, no more time for wandering around crowded markets and chatting to women about their everyday life and work, it was time to sit down and write some grant applications, so I decided to sublet a desk in one of the microfinance institutions, I had visited. It promised to be fun to find out more about office life burkinabé style!
Because I have not been brave enough yet to ride a motorbike in the chaos of Ouaga’s busy streets… I came across too many bloody road accidents, and this was a bit of a put off… I rely mostly on taxis to get around. Once you figure out, that they have their own routes, pretty much like a bus, it’s a great way to get around. Taxis here are lime green, with windscreens held together with bits of brown tape and missing door handles and more often than not faulty brakes. If it’s a good ride, a cab driver can get up to three people in the front seat, four at the back and a goat and a couple of bikes in the boot. It’s quite cheap, about 200 FCFA (0.30 euros or 20 pence) pe
r journey, unless you want to get out of town, when you have to negotiate the price. It’s an entertaining way to get around town for sure, until you start to calculate how much it costs the driver to rent the car, no matter how run down the Peugeot or Mercedes is, and pay for petrol… it takes a lot of passengers to earn a living and feed his family… something to meditate upon, while you might not take the shortest route to your destination.
It can take me anything from 15 to 50 minutes from the time I step out of the house until I reach the office, depending on how many neighbours there are to greet, how many kids to chat to, and what scenic tour the cab driver takes us on… Going to work here is anything but boring.
Going to work in Ouaga is quite a different experience, and not much of a routine. Well, to start with, for the first 3 months, I did not have an office, as such, I was making a lot of field visits, traveled to different cities, as far out as Banfora near the border with Ivory Coast, or Fada N Gourma on the road to Niger. I was keeping in touch with the office using cybercafés or posh 5-star hotels with free wifi connection for the cost of an overpriced orange juice. In May, my prospection came to an end, no more time for wandering around crowded markets and chatting to women about their everyday life and work, it was time to sit down and write some grant applications, so I decided to sublet a desk in one of the microfinance institutions, I had visited. It promised to be fun to find out more about office life burkinabé style!
Because I have not been brave enough yet to ride a motorbike in the chaos of Ouaga’s busy streets… I came across too many bloody road accidents, and this was a bit of a put off… I rely mostly on taxis to get around. Once you figure out, that they have their own routes, pretty much like a bus, it’s a great way to get around. Taxis here are lime green, with windscreens held together with bits of brown tape and missing door handles and more often than not faulty brakes. If it’s a good ride, a cab driver can get up to three people in the front seat, four at the back and a goat and a couple of bikes in the boot. It’s quite cheap, about 200 FCFA (0.30 euros or 20 pence) pe
r journey, unless you want to get out of town, when you have to negotiate the price. It’s an entertaining way to get around town for sure, until you start to calculate how much it costs the driver to rent the car, no matter how run down the Peugeot or Mercedes is, and pay for petrol… it takes a lot of passengers to earn a living and feed his family… something to meditate upon, while you might not take the shortest route to your destination.It can take me anything from 15 to 50 minutes from the time I step out of the house until I reach the office, depending on how many neighbours there are to greet, how many kids to chat to, and what scenic tour the cab driver takes us on… Going to work here is anything but boring.
And if you thought, it might be a bit unsafe…. Wait until you are in Cotonou, Benin, where it’s zemi-johns that whiz you around town, hair rising at the best of time and plain suicidal during rush hour, you can easily spot them at the yellow shirts their drivers wear. Saying all that, I’d rather play kamikaze anytime in Cotonou, than being stucked for two hours on the Northern Line…
1 commentaire:
Don't Leitita - we want you back here - eventually.
I know someone who went around Delhi on the back of a scooter (you can guess whom) but she says that the bus trip "over the top" to Leh in Tibetan Kashmir really WAS scary!
Stick with the "Tube" if I were you?
Enregistrer un commentaire