the car we bought

Here it is!  Our new car!  Our dog is still checking it out, but we're very happy with it. :)
It's a 2012 Toyota Highlander Limited, V6, 4WD, dark grey color, with good air conditioning and one of those cameras for backing up. Pretty great.

getting home from Togo

  It was a long trip for us to get home from Togo.  It took us 6 days, but it took the car 7 days!  The travel to get to Lome on the bus took 31 hours, and the driving time in the car was 28 hours, it was just split up over all those days.

 

We passed through some towns and villages, but mostly saw a lot of this (above) - crop fields and nothing.  It is still rainy season, so everything is beautifully green and there isn't so much dust, so that was a plus.

This is the "Pyramid" in BoboDioulasso, Burkina Faso, but I see a Christmas tree!

We waited in this lot for 11 hours, mostly sitting in the car.

Here is what it was like:

Day 1: We couldn't leave from Lome early in the morning as we had hoped.  We actually had to wait there an extra day before leaving for the paperwork to be done to get the car out of the port.  We finally left at 1:15 on Thursday afternoon.  We drove until 10pm, which wasn't great because that meant 4 hours of driving after the sun set, but we needed to get to a friend's house to spend the night.

Day 2:  JP took the car to our friend's mechanic to get a few things looked at in the morning, so we didn't leave until after lunch.  We got to the border at the top of Togo to enter Burkina, and the Burkina side said that we couldn't pass until the next day.  We had to leave the car in the customs parking lot, ride on motorcycle taxis with our suitcases to a crummy hotel, and spend the night there.

Day 3:  We sat in the car in the lot from 9-1 waiting for them to let us leave.  Then we drove until we got to Ouagadougou around sunset.  There we were able to stay overnight at a very nice mission guesthouse.

Day 4:  We drove from Ouaga to Bobo, only about 5 hours.  Then we stayed in another nice mission guesthouse for 2 nights because Monday was Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday of the year, so we couldn't cross the border to get home then. 

Day 5:  Just hanging out in Bobo waiting.  I bought some vegetables from a lady who brought them to the guesthouse.  I joked that I suddenly knew a new language because I talked with her in Bambara, but she speaks "Jula" which is very similar to Bambara but the Burkina Faso dialect of the trade language of the region.

Day 6:  We left Bobo and got to the border at 10:30.  We had to go through formalaties and pay some taxes to exit Burkina, that took about 45 minutes.  Then we had to go through formalaties to enter Mali.  At the Mali customs office they had us park the car in the lot and come in the office.  They looked at the papers we had and there was a guy who said we needed him to file papers there for us and he asked for $150.  I don't like that there aren't set prices for things, it's just whatever the guy can get out of us, but there is no choice but to have him file papers for us.
JP negotiated down to $100.  The guy left and said that he would get the stuff taken care of but that we'd have to wait until about 4pm because people go home for lunch break, so it would be done after that.  At 4 he told us that it would be done at 6.  At 6 he said that it'd be done the next afternoon.  Some guy in the capital hadn't showed up to work and so  his bit of the paperwork wasn't done. I was not impressed.  We were so close to home, and we'd already been waiting for a long time with nothing to do and nothing to eat.  JP had found some grilled meat to eat out in the street, but I don't eat meat, and there was nothing else.  Things weren't open and ladies weren't cooking because it was the day after the holiday and everyone was still in holiday mode and they probably had lots of leftover sheep meat from the day before.  We had some dried mangoes, so we ate those, but that wasn't really a meal.
There were no hotels to go to and we didn't want to sleep in the car in a parking lot with no bathroom.  And we didn't want to spend the whole next morning waiting and wonder if the paperwork would actually be done the next afternoon.  I went and had a chat with the customs office head man, but there was nothing to be done.
So we called some friends to try to get home.  It was already dark out.  I think we called them around 7.  They were to get the key to our house from our house helper and get our old car from the garage and drive to get us. Well, they got the car and started driving but on the other end of town realized that it wouldn't make it.  The poor old car needed a trip to the mechanic.  We called a friend with a car and asked if  we could borrow it to save us.  That friend agreed, so now our friends started on the road to come and get us after switching cars and getting some gas.  This all took a lot of time, and finally it was 11pm when they arrived to rescue us.  We had been in that parking lot for 11 hours.  We arrived home exhausted at 1am.

Day 7:  JP called and was told he could get the car, so he went and got a bus ticket and took a bus to the place where the car was.  He got back home at about 7pm.

Now we're glad to all be home!  We still have some taxes to finish paying and other paperwork to do to be done, but the hardest part is behind us.

my car thoughts and thankfulness

I got my driver’s license a few days after my 16^th birthday, and my first car a few weeks after that.  My first car was not very nice, but it was mine!  It meant independence and freedom and going places! 
Between ages 16 and 28 I owned 6 different cars, each one nicer than the last.  I seem to remember that my mom bought the first car; I think it cost $500.  But after that I paid for the cars myself with money from hard work.
And then I moved to Mali… and that meant making certain sacrifices. 

For my first year my means of transportation was my feet.  Sometimes I could borrow a motorbike from a friend.  For trips to the capital I took the bus.  All this was fine and I lived where I worked so it wasn’t really that difficult, but I missed the freedom and independence that owning a car gives.

Then JP and I were able to buy a motorcycle!  We were so excited and thankful to have a way to zoom around town.  Long trips were still on the bus.  For 4 years our motorcycle was our way of getting around.

Then for the past year or so we have had a car.  What a game changer!  It has belonged to 4 different expats in Mali and we were able to buy it inexpensively.  It is 20 years old and has to visit the mechanic pretty often, but we have been so glad to have a car.  We’ve been able to haul things around that would be pretty impossible with the motorcycle, and we’ve made several trips to Bamako without suffering on the bus.

Now we are so blessed to have our new car!  I think that because we went without a car for 5 years we are much more appreciative than if we had had a car all along. 
We are very conscious that this isn’t something that we deserve or have earned. We made a big effort to fundraise for a car last time we were in the states.  So many people were generous to give money for our car fund.  
We were able to get a car that is nicer and newer than we imagined we might be able to buy.  We will be able to drive on terrible rough roads with much more confidence now and not worry about breaking down in the middle of nowhere.  And the new car has good air conditioning!  It is only 5 years old, so hopefully we won’t see the mechanic on a regular basis anymore. I could ramble on some more, but suffice it to say that we are overjoyed and profoundly grateful.

buying a car in Togo

What an adventure! Today is our last day in Togo.  We thought we'd already be on the road by now, but paperwork takes longer than it seems like it should.  We are supposed to be able to get the car we bought out of the port tomorrow morning.  Then we'll have 3 days of driving to get home.  The sun sets at about 6pm, and it isn't safe to drive after dark, so we only have a limited amount of sunlight to drive in each day.  Which is fine with me, I think 10 or 12 hours a day in a car on African roads is plenty!

Here (above) you can seem some containers and cranes in the shipping port.  This is not where we looked at cars, the car lots are just next to here.

 

 There is every kind of car imaginable all crowed together and mixed up in the port lots.  We had a Togolese friend come to help us in the confusion, and he had 2 guys who work in the lots come with us, so we had a bit of an entourage as we went looking at cars.  Originally JP had said he thought I should stay at the hotel when he went out to look, but I was glad he changed his mind so I could come with.  We already knew what kind of car we were hoping to get, so the other guys had already scoped out what was available.  They had a list of the cars with thier prices and details, like V4 or V6, and colors.  So we only really looked at a few cars and we found the one we wanted pretty quickly. 

 Our car is front and center, there is a guy with a yellow "hat" doing something to the rear passenger door.  They had taken all the seats and everything out of the car when it arrived in port, so then they had to get it all put back together.

We fundraised for a car when we were in the states in 2014/15 and we are so blessed by the financial contributions of many people to our car fund.  We were able to get a better and newer car than we imagined we would be able to buy!  May it run well for many many years to come!

(Below) The seller is sitting at his desk and next to him is 3 stacks of money.  I think it's ridiculous that we would pay for a car in cash like this.  It's a car, not drugs or guns.  I don't think it's smart to go around town with a backpack containing thousands of dollars of cash! But that's how it's done.  I guess a bank transfer would take 5 days to process.  We already have to wait for other paperwork to process, we don't need more wait time!
It took several hours of running around to banks and waiting to get the cash out of our account. JP had already talked to the bank in Mali before we left saying that we'd want to get money from a branch in Togo.  But the first bank branch in Togo didn't know what they were doing, and JP had to call to Mali, and go back to the bank, and then get sent to the bank headquarters downtown.  Then there was a lot of sitting and waiting, like maybe they had to count all that cash several times.  The largest bill here is like a $20, so it takes a big stack to buy a car!

Anyway, we did buy a car! Hooray!  But we don't really have it yet.  Boo!
So, better pictures and more about the car are to come once we actually get the car off the port lot!

by the sea in Togo

Ok, so technically Lomé is on the Bight (bay) of Benin, not the "sea" but close enough, right?  It certainly is much different from landlocked Mali!
We came to Togo primarily to buy a car.  Cars are shipped into the port from Europe and North America.
As long as we were going to be by the sea, and especially because our 6th wedding anniversary was during our trip, it made a lot of sense to spend a few days at the beach enjoying the tropical paradise. (it is absolutely lovely, but I will admit that we stayed in a non-luxury $35 per night hotel and it was safe but surrounded by ghetto shanty towns!)
Here are some pictures from the beach:

 We could see the shipping port from the hotel's private beach.  There's a fishing dock just next to the regular docks, and men go out daily in these little boats to fish.

 Something about gazing out to sea makes one feel very small.  JP put his feet in the water, but saved his swimming for a neighboring hotel's pool.

 Here he is!  JP took swimming lessons in Minnesota when we were last in the states, so now he can swim a bit!  Me, I am like a fish, or a mermaid, or whatever.  I can't remember learning to swim, I think I just always could.  I would never win a race for speed or form, but I could comfortably dog paddle around all day.

 We had the pool all to ourselves.  It is just next to the ocean beach, so we could hear the crashing waves and feel the breeze.  I said it could only be better if we had some drinks in coconuts, and JP jumped out of the pool and found a guy to get us some.  I think they came from the trees right there.  After we drank the coconut water, JP had the guy hack the coconuts the rest of the way open and he ate the inside.  I didn't know that the inside is soft and squishy if the coconuts aren't very old, did you?

 Just about in the center of this picture is me!  I swam a few times in the rough salty water.  I love it!

 

I like this view!  We made some nice memories by the sea.

downtown Lome twice

When we crossed the border from Burkina Faso into Togo, I was able to get a temporary visa at the border pretty quickly and easily for $30.  They said that once I got to Lomé I’d need to go downtown to get the visa processed/extended for staying longer than 7 days in country.  We wound up paying more in taxi fees going back and forth to the visa place than the price of the visa!  It wasn’t so bad though, and it gave us a reason to go to downtown Lomé twice.

The first time we went I had to pay $1 for the visa application form and then go to one of many photo shacks nextdoor to get some pictures taken.  They require 2 passport size photos, but I’m not sure what they do with them; there wasn’t a picture copied onto the visa like I’ve seen for some other countries.  When the form was filled out and the pictures ready, I turned them in with my passport and was told to come back tomorrow to collect my passport.
Since we were already in town (which is a long taxi ride away from where we’re staying,) we decided to check things out a bit.  We went to the National Museum, for lunch, and to a grocery store.  The National Museum isn’t very big, but it wasn’t very expensive, either.  A guy who worked there was our guide, and we were the only visitors at that moment.  The guide took us through the 2 big rooms filled with old stuff and explained about Togo’s culture and history.  It was pretty interesting and took 1 hour.
We went to a cheap canteen restaurant place for lunch to have some rice and sauce.  Every meal of African food I’ve tried in Togo so far has been too spicy for me.  In Mali we usually have hot sauce on the side, but it seems to be mixed right in here!  Then we went and found a grocery store because I wanted to see what they have compared to what we can find in Mali.  I stocked up on a few items that are much more expensive in Mali, and JP got some potato chips. :)
The next day we took another taxi into town and I got my passport back without problem. Then we went to a really nice Asian restaurant which was a great treat.  I had read on TripAdvisor that the Artisanal village here is pretty nice and the sellers are surprisingly not aggressive, so we went to check that out.  It was indeed nice.  JP got a giant mancala game and I watched some painters working and got talked into buying one of their pictures.  We also walked around in the big central market and visited the Catholic Cathedral which is on one side of the market. 

 

Here is a shot from the window of the taxi of some of the vast stretches of beaches, just lovely.

bus trip = swollen feet!

Here is what one of my feet/ankles looked like after 31 hours on a bus: (they both were this swollen)

and here is what my feet usually looks like:

It took 3 days for them to go back to normal!

Big Bus Trip

Come along with us on our big bus trip!  I’ll tell you all about it…
 

On Friday we talked about trying to get tickets for the following Monday to take the bus to Togo.  JP made some calls and had a friend go to a few bus stations in Bamako to try to find some tickets on the bus.  It would be cheapest and easiest to get on a bus that would go straight through from Bamako all the way to Lomé instead of trying to piece together different segments of the trip.  So we would need to get a ticket in Bamako to save our places, but we could just get on the bus when it stopped in our town on the way.  Well, we learned that the tickets for Monday were sold out, and the next bus after that would mean waiting a few more days… or we could go on Saturday, as in tomorrow!
So a little change of plans there, instead of the whole weekend I had less than a day to get everything in order and set to go.  Saturday morning I was running around making copies, dropping off posters and fliers for upcoming English classes, going through the contents of the fridge to make sure that was in order, and getting everything else arranged for us to be gone for 2 weeks.  Oh, and packing suitcases.  All of the pre-travel preparations are for me the worst part of any trip, especially packing.
We were supposed to be at the bus station at noon on Saturday.  The bus had left from Bamako early that morning.  JP came home at 11:35 from getting his hair cut in town and jumped in the shower.  I’m not complaining, this doesn’t surprise me anymore, but his last minute-ness does add to my stress a bit.  The mechanic was outside waiting to bring us to the station at 11:40.
We somehow got to the station at noon and the bus wasn’t there yet. Phew!  We found a bench to sit on to wait.  We waited.  Then we saw a man making/selling sandwiches.  We hadn’t eaten lunch.  So we each got a sandwich.  The man cut everything (the bread, tomatoes, onions) with a big sword-knife.  I asked and he was fine for me to take a picture.

We ate our sandwiches and waited a bit more.  Finally at 12:45 JP went to ask the guy working for the bus company when he expected the bus.  The guy said that the driver had recently called saying they had broken down or had to replace a tire or something, and they were still about 3 hours away.  I said, “Let’s go home!”  We took a taxi home.  I was happy to be able to take a shower and have a rest.  It’s so humid this time of year in Mali that you can just sit still and be dripping in sweat even though it isn’t all that hot (mostly in the upper 80’s.)  I wanted to start the long trip feeling as fresh as possible.  I was expecting that there would be air conditioning in the bus, so once we got in the bus we might even feel cold!

At 4 we went back to the bus station (the mechanic came again to take us) and didn’t have to wait too long before the bus arrived.  They put our little suitcases under the bus and we brought our backpack and handbag up in the bus with us.  We found seats and sat down, and it was then that I looked up and around and realized that the bus did NOT have air conditioning.  I confess I experienced a little moment of panic and told JP that we should probably just get off the bus, that I didn’t think I could handle the expected approximately 30 hours straight of travel with no A/C.  The next available tickets were for 4 or 5 days in the future, plus they probably wouldn’t give refunds for the tickets we already had, so we stayed put. 
It was suffocatingly hot when the bus wasn’t moving and at least breathable if the bus was moving.  There were no windows that could open; the only air came from a vent on the ceiling that had to be propped open with old plastic bottles.  Except when it started raining and then they had to shut the vent so that water didn’t pour in.  Then it felt like we were suffocating again.  And it didn’t smell nice in there, so it was like gross stinky suffocating.

We had to cross 2 borders: the one between Mali and Burkina Faso, and then between Burkina and Togo.  That takes time when it’s a whole busload of people needing to get through.  We had to all get out and get back on the bus 6 times to show our passports.  At one place we all had to bring all of our luggage from under the bus and open it to show inspectors.

Thankfully the bus didn’t break down.  It was slow with all of the long stops, but it could have certainly been worse!  However, about halfway through the trip I was really regretting that we didn’t decide to fly.  It would have cost us at least $500 more to fly, but at that point I was thinking it would have been well worth it.
I made efforts at sleeping.  JP is a champ at sleeping on public transportation.  We found some rice and sauce to eat on the roadside on the way.  We didn’t find many places to go to the bathroom that could be identified as a bathroom. 
But JP did find a bathroom after much searching at one stop.  Everyone else was back on the bus after what was supposed to have been a quick stop, but JP wasn’t there.  I didn’t know where he had gone.  We all waited.  And waited.  It was at least 10 or 15 minutes of waiting that felt like eternity to me.  I was afraid they were going to make me collect our bags and get off the bus and then leave without us.  I could hear people saying in Bambara, “it’s the white lady’s husband,” and “maybe he is sick, “ “maybe he got lost,” and “maybe he has diarrhea.”  The bus company man came and asked me if I could try calling JP on his phone to figure out where he was.  His phone was on my lap, so that wasn’t going to work.  A few guys got out of the bus and went to do their prayers.  Finally JP came back and no one said anything to him and the bus started driving again.  He had been pretty sick and it took a long walk and lots of asking to find a bathroom (meaning a hole in the ground surrounded by walls and a plastic kettle of water as opposed to a bush.)  So that was the “exciting” moment of our trip.
Otherwise there isn’t much else to say.  It took us 31 hours to get there; it was midnight when we got to our hotel to sleep (after nice hot showers to scrub off all of the bus grime from a 31 hour trip!)  My feet/ankles/legs were ridiculously swollen, but I’ll make the next post to show you that.