My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #6 See full map
One man whom we visited frequently had a house just off the main road, where we could sit and watch people coming and going. His livelihood was gained through uncertain means but delivering random parcels was apparently part of it. He had to courier a small package of medical supplies to a neighboring village and asked if I would like to join. It would be a long distance, by motorcycle, in uncomfortable conditions. Of course I instantly said yes.
Off we went across the long, flat roads towards a village that I learned was actually in Burkina Faso. This being an extremely rural part of the world there were no borders and crossing the frontier went unremarked. On our way there we were struck by a truly torrential thunderstorm. The flat, open savanna made the clouds seem immense.
We arrived in a village where he promptly planted me alone in a random family's courtyard and went about his errands. I sat there and watched the chickens scratching around. I was completely helpless, not knowing where I was or how to communicate with my hosts, who mostly ignored me.
On our return ride we found that a dry road bed that we crossed earlier was now a roiling stream of water around 20 meters across and deep enough that we would have to ford it. My companion was unperturbed. We rolled up our pant legs, took one side of the motorcycle each and walked through in thigh-deep water. This was sufficient to thoroughly flood the engine, which now refused to start. We tipped it high up on its back wheel to let the water drain from the exhaust pipe, and then jogged back and forth with it numerous times trying to get the engine to turn over. At some point a crowd of enthusiastic children joined us, running alongside and no doubt amused by the odd-looking foreigner in their midst.
After several tries the motorcycle finally started with a hack of blue smoke, and we made the rest of the way home easily, none the worse for wear.
One night near the end of my stay we wandered to the home of the village eccentric. My companion asked him if we could enter and he said yes, though I don't remember him actually saying a word. We entered the darkened first floor and climbed up to a rudimentary terrace on the roof, all framed in what looked like driftwood.
Here he had fashioned his own real-life Fortress of Solitude. In silence he watched us with careful eyes. The moon cast shadows that played off the gnarled branches to make fantastic shapes, silhouetted against the sky. It was a fairy tale house brought to life. Branches jutted out of the walls at all angles. He observed us closely, saying nothing. It seemed clear that he was harmless. In the West he might have been a hermit, or institutionalized, but here he had envsioned and fashioned with his own hands one of the strangest things I have ever seen.
The precocious boy whose compound we shared moved with the ease of a child who knew where he stood in the order of things. A grandson of the chief, a bright student, confident in his social standing, he had that self assurance that somewhere else would have made him the big man on campus. "Tu ne reviens plus," he told me with an air of finality on my last night, which even then struck me as being uncommonly mature for a boy to grasp: "You will not come back again."
One man whom we visited frequently had a house just off the main road, where we could sit and watch people coming and going. His livelihood was gained through uncertain means but delivering random parcels was apparently part of it. He had to courier a small package of medical supplies to a neighboring village and asked if I would like to join. It would be a long distance, by motorcycle, in uncomfortable conditions. Of course I instantly said yes.
Off we went across the long, flat roads towards a village that I learned was actually in Burkina Faso. This being an extremely rural part of the world there were no borders and crossing the frontier went unremarked. On our way there we were struck by a truly torrential thunderstorm. The flat, open savanna made the clouds seem immense.
We arrived in a village where he promptly planted me alone in a random family's courtyard and went about his errands. I sat there and watched the chickens scratching around. I was completely helpless, not knowing where I was or how to communicate with my hosts, who mostly ignored me.
On our return ride we found that a dry road bed that we crossed earlier was now a roiling stream of water around 20 meters across and deep enough that we would have to ford it. My companion was unperturbed. We rolled up our pant legs, took one side of the motorcycle each and walked through in thigh-deep water. This was sufficient to thoroughly flood the engine, which now refused to start. We tipped it high up on its back wheel to let the water drain from the exhaust pipe, and then jogged back and forth with it numerous times trying to get the engine to turn over. At some point a crowd of enthusiastic children joined us, running alongside and no doubt amused by the odd-looking foreigner in their midst.
After several tries the motorcycle finally started with a hack of blue smoke, and we made the rest of the way home easily, none the worse for wear.
One night near the end of my stay we wandered to the home of the village eccentric. My companion asked him if we could enter and he said yes, though I don't remember him actually saying a word. We entered the darkened first floor and climbed up to a rudimentary terrace on the roof, all framed in what looked like driftwood.
Here he had fashioned his own real-life Fortress of Solitude. In silence he watched us with careful eyes. The moon cast shadows that played off the gnarled branches to make fantastic shapes, silhouetted against the sky. It was a fairy tale house brought to life. Branches jutted out of the walls at all angles. He observed us closely, saying nothing. It seemed clear that he was harmless. In the West he might have been a hermit, or institutionalized, but here he had envsioned and fashioned with his own hands one of the strangest things I have ever seen.
The precocious boy whose compound we shared moved with the ease of a child who knew where he stood in the order of things. A grandson of the chief, a bright student, confident in his social standing, he had that self assurance that somewhere else would have made him the big man on campus. "Tu ne reviens plus," he told me with an air of finality on my last night, which even then struck me as being uncommonly mature for a boy to grasp: "You will not come back again."
No comments:
Post a Comment