20. Niger: Kantchari - Niamey - Maradi

Kantchari--Niamey, Niger, Thursday, December 23, 1982

(DAN) Everybody started stirring at 05:00 because the people who had slept outside started banging on the bus doors. They were wanting their water containers to wash for prayer.  The border does not open until 08:00, so we had a little time to check out our surroundings.  Most of the traffic on the road is between Niamey and Togo, so there were about 12 semi-trailer trucks, ostensibly from the port in Lome spending the night, as well.  We also met many similar trucks, completely empty, going toward Lome. Justin says that it is shorter to through Benin, but is just too costly due to all the bribing necessary, The trucks return empty from Niamey because (allegedly) Niger’s only export is uranium and it is flown out.

Waiting for the flag to be raised at the Haute Volta – Niger border

We actually started across the border soon after 8:00, but we were delayed over an hour because an official spotted a bag full of hats on top of the bus. He never did get up to look at it, but he detained us all the same.  Some money must have changed hands because we eventually moved on to the next Haute Volta border check which was for the passengers.

There was quite a distance between the two border checks. They are paving a road, so there were a lot of detours. We pulled into the Niger border post about 11:00, and right away things did not look good. The two vehicles ahead of us had disgorged all their passengers and baggage, and they were all lined up in the sun getting inspected by a group of soldiers.  We weren’t allowed off the bus at first, and then they made us line up without any of our bags, not even our money-camera bag.  Then they separated out the “whites” and took us to a shed to fill out papers.  We were able to secure our valuable bag because it had our bics (ballpoint pins for the paperwork).  Then they made us unload our bags, line up, and three or four soldiers went through them. They were thorough in that they went through and messed up everybody’s already bulging bags.  We were further delayed because the soldiers were charging 2000 CFA/black person, and the people were trying to get by with smaller bribes. They never really threatened any white person.

We finally pulled out of there at 13:30, but about 20 km down the road, we had to stop again, this time for “customs.” We found out that 12 of the Niger men were traveling together and did not have the right papers, so at each stop they had to negotiate a bribe.

Our sixth and last stop was about 20 km out of Niamey.  It was the military again, and they once more had everybody unload all their bags and went through them.  That took another 90 minutes. At the same post there were two Land Rovers piled high with firewood, and while we watched, they had to unload it completely for the soldiers, then load it back up, leaving some of course for the soldiers. Where do the soldiers get their right to take, take, take!

 Our route across southern Niger in yellow (Map from Nations Online Project).

 We finally crossed over the Niger river about 17:30, so 9.5 hrs to cover 120 km from the border! To make the day complete, as we pulled into town, the driver happened to hesitate at an intersection, and a policeman motioned for him to pull over. We pulled over, but the policeman paid no attention to us, and since we hadn’t done anything wrong, we started off again. At the second intersection, the policeman caught up with us on his motorcycle and pulled us over in a storm of righteous fury.  When the driver handed him the folder of vehicle papers, the brass simply took the driver’s license and roared off on his motorcycle again. The driver could not risk driving anywhere without a license, so he sent a young man after the policeman with a couple of thousand CFA’s.  More than an hour later the young man came trotting up with the license, and off we went[1].

We had had the foresight to have our bags put at the back so that when we went through town, we got off near our potential hotel instead of going way out of town to the ever-distant gare.  Geoff[2] suggested the Hotel Domino, and Justin was headed in that direction, so we went together. It turned out to be full.  I tried another hotel about a km away, the closest, but it was closed. In the meantime a truck had arrived from Agadez  in the interior of Niger with a Swiss couple, an English woman and a US woman.  The Domino, which was more a bar than anything else, finally offered to let us bed down on the floor of the bar, but it did not close till after 23:30, so we sat around talking till then.  We also got to watch the first open drinking of the trip since Spain.  They were really going at it, including Justin who claimed to have made a business deal over some car.

Niamey, Niger, Friday, 24 December, 1982

(HELENA) Our main purpose for the day was to see if Maureen had gotten to Niamey for our Christmas reunion, so we set off first for the post office to see if there was a message at Poste Restante.  Nothing, so we set off for the U. S. Embassy.  We went suspecting it would be closed, but we wanted at least to try. On the way we stopped by the Surete to get officially stamped into the country. It was a long way out to the embassy, but we got to see a very beautiful, if ritzy, section of town. Someone offered us a ride when we were almost within sight of our destination, but we gladly accepted.

We were right; it was closed, but we were allowed to talk to the marine on duty. He was quite friendly and when he couldn’t find anything from Maureen, he let us leave a message for her.  Rather disappointing. We walked back to town through a different, beautifully shaded part of town.  (See comment below for explanation about Maureen.)

Our other object was to find a place to stay. We walked a ways to the “Moustache,” also suggested by Geoff.  Full!  While at the post office, I got up my nerve to ask (at Dan’s strong suggestion) a young English-speaking woman if she knew of a place to stay.  She sug­gested either the Hotel Rival (we found it to be beyond our means) or the Peace Corps Hostel. We had to do a bit of asking around to find the landmarks she had given us, but we found it. The volunteers told us to come on over, so we returned to the “Domino” to get our stuff.

For several days we’ve been toying with the idea of phoning Mother and Daddy (collect, naturally) for Christmas. We decided to try this afternoon so that we could get you at a decent hour.  Dan asked about reversed charges and gave the number. The woman was not very accommodating, to say the least. First she said that Daddy would not accept the call.  We could not quite believe that. Then she said the USA would not accept it.  Dan tried to get two people to translate for him, but the woman did not really want to help. I have a feeling that she did not want any trouble so near to closing time.  So, people, we tried and were disappointed mightily. Oh yes, the second thing she said was that the Peace Corps would not accept the call.  I do not know where she got that; she must have assumed we were PCVs.

We returned to the “Domino,” picked up our bags and left a note for Maureen. We spent the evening talking to the different volunteers that came in and out.  There is a big map of Niamey on the wall here. According to Dan’s calculations, our day’s wanderings added up to TWENTY-FOUR KM!

Just a mention of some of the people we met at the “Domino,” The Swiss couple were the “typical” European traveling type, rather sloppy-looking with clothes bought in their travels.  She had a diamond in her nose, and they were very nice. They slept on the floor of the restaurant with us. When the mosquitoes got to buzzing around, Dan offered them the use of one of our Banjul mosquito nets. We all got up and set them up using chairs.  The mosquitoes here must be larger or are less persistent because we all slept well the rest of the night without their coming through the meshes of the nets.  The couple came down through Algeria and plan to go somehow to Zambia, Zaire, and Zimbabwe. They are experienced travelers as they have spent 6 months in a commune in New Zealand and time in Australia. 

Niaimey, Saturday, 25 December,1982

(DAN)  Merry Christmas!  It was a leisurely day for us, We did not have the makings for break­fast, so we went out and bought a holiday cafe au lait.  We both had a hankering for French toast, so we set out in search of the ingredients.  Things are much scarcer in Niamey than in Haute Volta.  Finally we rounded up eggs, evaporated milk, margarine, squash, and lemons but could not find bread though it was only 11:00.  We had to settle for the half loaf left over from the Ouagadougou trip. It all turned out very well and was a pleasant Christmas dinner.

In the afternoon we had the place to ourselves because the Peace Corps Volunteers who are staying here were all at a big party; however, toward evening three PCVs arrived, a couple from Ghana and a woman from Haute Volta, and we spent most of the rest of the day talk­ing with them.  We took the couple to our latest “watering hole” for a plate of good old couscous, We even broke down and had meat with it,.

It was interesting to hear about Ghana, as there are a lot of horror stories and no travel­ers go there anymore. The economic situation is terrible. The money is so worthless and the exchange rate so artificially high that every third pay check for PCVs is paid in CFA in either Togo or Abidjan.  The volunteers are allowed to travel out, pick up the check, and buy all the things they cannot get in Ghana. Public transportation has all but completely broken down, and the only way PCVs get around is to go out to police stops and have the police make a vehicle give them a lift. They can get bread once a month, etc. A different twist is that Joe, a math teacher, claims that the current strong man, the Hon. Captain Rawlings is really well-intentioned but has no control over the situation. Ghana was the first “lib­erated” black country in Africa and was in the best shape-until the early ’70’s. Apparently it was a lot better off than Nigeria before oil, so no telling what kind of mess Nigeria would be in now without the oil. We continue to hear that Nigeria is a place to avoid--dangerous and prohibitively expensive.  We shall see.

Niamey, Niger, Sunday, 26 December, 1982

(HELENA)  We spent much of the day trying to read. “Trying” because there was a constant stream of arrivals that would always have a terribly interesting conversation going. The two nights we have been here, Dan and I have changed rooms because the place was filling up.

For supper we went around the corner with Joe and Karen, the volunteers from Ghana, and had chicken on top of some sort of “tow.” Tonight we^’re to sleep in a room with the two of them. We’ll see how the mosquitoes will treat us. Our other problem here has been the ceiling fans; they keep the mosquitoes away, but they are NOISY.

Niamey, Niger, Monday, 27 December, 1982

(DAN)  This was only our second working day in Niamey. We hit the streets early and headed to the Peace Corps office. Our most urgent business was with the embassy, but we were not sure if they were open or not.  The hostel does not have a phone, so we wanted to use the phone at the office to find out embassy hours.  We passed the Centre Culturel Americain, however, so we called from there instead.  Yes, they were open.  We wanted to see if we could change money at the embassy.  The CFA has been rising rapidly against the dollar, and the embassy always changes at the highest possible rate. We have been advised to deal on the black market in Nigeria so as to offset the artificially high exchange rate and price. Since we were changing a large quantity, we needed a favorable rate. We were very lucky that on our trek out to the embassy we ran into Roberta, a very nice  PCV here who was going out to change money, so we were able to change through her.  While there we also got accordion-style passport extenders for our nearly full passports and checked to see if Maureen had been by.  She had not.

Walking back into town, we got a lift with an anthropologist on contract with USAID.  We would have liked to talk further.  We went by Peace Corps to pay our bill, but the proper people were not around. We ate lunch at a Senegalese restaurant and shared a plate of chebujin for old times’ sake. Then we headed along the riverside to kill time during the siesta.  As in Dakar, the neighborhood along the waterfront is not “developed” at all.  In the case of Niamey it is a long row of rural housing among irrigated vegetable gardens.  Mommy, never fear that we are not holding to your absolute in processing raw fruit and vegetables[3].  In Orodara they put their vegetables through rinsing with plain water, but we still felt as if we were sinning when we ate them.

We wanted to go through the impressive National Museum but found that it did not re-open after siesta until 15:30. Next we went to the post office.  It, also, was closed until 15:30, so we sat and waited.  While I queued for stamps, Helena queued for the Poste Restante. I finished first and decided I would tease Helena about the way she was standing on her tiptoes care­fully watching the woman flip through the letters.  It was a good thing she did be­cause there was a letter from Mr. Ottemueller for us, and the clerk would have passed over it if Helena had not spotted it.  It was addressed to “Helena and Dan Robison” and was filed under “H!”

It is a fortunate we got the letter because it has some news that will take some getting accustomed to. First of all, Mr. Ottemueller (our contact for volunteering in Nigeria) will not get back from the States until January 21, three weeks after we are scheduled to arrive.  Secondly, he does not get along with the Nigerian veterinarian in charge of the entire area.  This man has written letters to the authorities asking that Mr. Ottemueller not be admitted to the Range Management Scheme.  In other words we shall not be able to do the work we had planned.   He says, however, that the Methodist missionaries in Jos are interested in using us until Mr. 0. gets back and that he will have other things for us to do. If there is not a good situation, we may be moving on much sooner than planned.

We went back to the museum-zoo, but the museum part was closed because it was Monday. The zoo part was discouraging, as are most.  One area had about 20 very dry turtles and no water.  The crocodile pond was spotted with beef liver that had been around long enough to be swollen and discolored.  The entire complex is housed on several hills in downtown Niamey and has about six museum buildings, each larger than the National Museum in Ouagadougou.  An area with traditional Niger cattle was more interesting.

Niger National Museum and Zoo.  Traditional cattle native vegetation.

 We had fried egg sandwiches for supper. The evening passed in a haze of Peace Corps conversation.  One pair of newcomers who are volunteers in Ghana had just traveled overland from Douala, Cameroon, over one of the routes we want to take. The news they brought was good.  It is possible, and Nigeria is not half as bad as it is made out to be.

                                                                       Niamey, Niger, Tuesday, 28 December, 1982

(HELENA)  Today is Mohammed’s birthday, so everything was closed again. Out of the 5 days we’ve been here, 2 have been holidays and one has been a Sunday.  I must say it has been pretty conducive to reading a lot and listening to a lot of Peace Corps talk.  This morning we managed to get around early enough to get all of our washing done.  There is a wonderful clothesline, but things are set up in such a way that you are tacitly expected to have the guardian wash your clothes. We are still not comfortable with the guardians that each expatriate house is expected to hire[4]. We washed the clothes ourselves, somewhat guiltily.  We knew we would soon be gone, so we would not have to feel guilty for long.

We went around the corner for lunch.  We shared a plate of rice with spicy peanut sauce and a plate of yams with a delicious sauce.  We have taken to using our own silverware, but otherwise we are improper enough to eat out of the same plate and drink from the same bottle or our water-purifying glass[5].

The evening was spent trying madly to finish whatever book we were reading, again a dif­ficult task because of all of the interesting conversations going on around us.  Paul was a rather “interesting- looking” sort with a medium-length braid and a bandana covering his head.  The first time we saw him, he was wear­ing some sort of very baggy pants that were tied at the ankles. He didn’t seem at all friendly at the time, but today he complimented Dan on his pack additions. He apparently worked a while at a back pack company and made a pack of his own.  Once again, Mother, your handiwork was much appreciated.

I discovered that he has been here five months. He is in forestry, but to his disappoint­ment he has been put at a mostly desk job here in Niamey.  His work is funded by the Niger government, so not a great deal gets done. He is from New Jersey, studied in Vermont, was in Colorado for a year  and thought the PC was sending him to Nepal. He is disappointed in his location, but he thinks it is good to send people to a place they know nothing about or of which they have no preconceptions.

We also talked with Mary who has also been here five months. She lives and works with another volunteer at the “W” National Park that is 1/2 in Benin, 1/4 in Haute Volta, and 1/4 in Niger.  She has virtually no contact with local people. She studied wildlife in college so is happy in that she is working in her field.  Thus far she has only done some controlled burning.

We have finished our 2 kilos of Dakar peanut butter, so Dan had the brilliant idea of making dulce de leche.  He bought the condensed milk and we put it on to boil for 1/2 hour. Obviously neither one of us has had much dulce de leche experience. Sitzel (a middle—aged volunteer in Ghana who moved to the USA from Norway in the sixties and is now traveling with a young male volunteer from Ghana, Malcom) advised us that we should boil it for at least 4 hours. Anyway it was sweet and it was some sort of milk product. Yesterday we found some good FRESH pasteurized milk, our first since Las Palmas. Too bad we discovered it right before our departure!

Niamey -Maradi, Niger Wed, 29th December, 1982

(DAN)  We had been told that hitchhiking is good in southern Niger, and since the Niamey-Kano route is supposedly well-traveled, we thought we would try.  We did not wait ten minutes when a van with four young French people pulled up, Yes, they were glad to take us, but they were headed down to Benin so could only take us as far as Dosso. We piled in and had our most comfortable hour of our entire trip.

The two men are doing alternate military service in Nigeria teaching agriculture in “technical schools.” The two women are their girl friends visiting them on their vacations.  They spoke good English, and we had a constant conversation all 110 km. They had a pretty neat set-up, tooling around Niger, Benin, Togo and Nigeria in a nice van.  Last year they “did” Cameroon.  They told us not to try hitching in Nigeria because of the dangerous drivers.  They were so nice that they drove a couple of km, out of their way to leave us at a police stop.   That was before 11:00 hrs.

By around 16:00 hrs, we decided that we had had beginner’s luck, and that it had run out. Countless vehicles had passed by, but not the right one.  One “Overland Vehicle” came through, but the police just waved him through.  There were quite a few private, luxury vehicles driven by “locals,” but there is something forbidding about the plush Peugeots with immaculately long-robed men at the wheel. We finally got a ride on the back of a Mercedes Benz tractor trailer carrying rice to Zinder, (still in Niger).

We thought we were set when about 10 km down the road the driver stopped “to fix a flat tire” but really to charge us. He first wanted 12,000 CFA or roughly twice as much as it would have cost us to take a taxi from Niamey to Maradi. We finally settled on a fare slightly less than what it would have cost us paying in a truck all the way.  So much for our attempt at hitching!!  He knew he had all the leverage. There we were, out in the middle of the Sahel, the sun was getting low …

The land we traveled through was very reminiscent of southern Mauritania, very dry, eroded, scrubby Sahel. As in Mauritania, the population of both people and animals was in­credibly high. There was hardly a moment when you could not see a good-sized compound any direction you looked. The population is much higher in fact than in the fertile grassland around Orodara where we could go 10 km. without seeing a house.  In general, the population seemed to increase the drier it got the farther  north we went between Orodara and Maradi. We speculate that it is much easier to make a living off of grazing animals even in the Sahel than by tilling the soil in the Guinea savannah area.

We spent a rather cold night on the back of the truck even though we got out my sleeping bag. We arrived at the outskirts of Maradi around 04:10.  The driver dropped us in the country, a good distance from town (north side) and seemed so pleased with the whole idea that he shook my hand three times. Helena and I put our packs on the sand, spread a rain poncho, covered ourselves, and tried to sleep until it got light.

Maradi-Kano, Nigeria, Thursday, 30 December, 1982

(HELENA)  For once we had NO problem in hopping out of “bed”. We were on our way walking by 6:30, the day was not even completely light yet.  We were a good way out of town, so it took us more than an hour-and-a half to get across town to the police check point.  Maradi was larger than we had expected.  Just as in Niamey, we saw quite a few new-looking public buildings. Our consolation for the cold and longish night was a good hot mug of cafe au lait with bread.  Amazing how that never fails to cheer us up!

We wanted to have some sort of idea of the cost of a taxi to Kano, so Dan asked at the auto gare. Yesterday we learned that it is always to our advantage to know the going price for public transportation. That way if we are unable to hitch, we at least will not pay more than other people do.

The policeman treated us rather gruffly when we arrived to drop our packs at his door, but we filled out forms, and he told us to go wait across the road, and he would ask for a ride for us.  Sure enough, we were just starting to move across the road when he told us to get into the back of a pickup that he had ordered to take us. Hmm, but it was a ride. It turned out that they only took us the + 40 km to the border, so our hitching luck was once again short-lived.

Our benefactor was a very unwilling one, so he dumped us unceremoniously at one of the busiest (if not the busiest) borders I have ever seen. We quickly did our passport business and proceeded to sit from 9:00 to 12:15.  Car after car went by, but they were all either public vans or station wagons, or more Mercedes Benzes with unapproachable-looking men in robes and caps. Ever since Niamey we have been seeing men with the tall, starched, embroidered hats that almost all of the men in Kano wear with their matching robes and tapered pants. It gives them a distinguished and elegant air.  Dan approached many drivers, but no one was even remotely interested.  We finally paid to go in a Peugeot taxi.

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[1] In retrospect our brief exposure to Niger was our worst experience of uniform-on-civilian corruption on the trip and really ever since.  The gall of forcing obviously poor people to get off a bus and then to charge them to get back on still sticks in my mind 30 years later.

[2] Geoff (Crowther) 1980. Africa on the Cheap. Lonely Planet Guide 1^st edition

[3] Soaked for at least 10 minutes in clean water with iodine

[4] A friend of ours working in Mozambique in 2012-2013 is expected to hire three watchmen on rotation.

[5] We were travelling with a water purifying glass in two pieces, allegedly developed by NASA.  The two pieces were arranged one way to travel, and another way so that you could pour water in the top and have it filter while you ate.  We have never seen anything like it since.