Not Quite Chinatown

The Chinatown Bus between NYC and Boston would be luxury travel in Senegal. Like many poor countries here the public transportation system is best (i.e. euphemistically) called “informal.” At the Garotiere, the inter-city shared taxi depot downtown, we were able to avoid most of the men that shout and tug at you and your bags trying to get you in their car even if they are going south and you want to go north. We paid US$6 each for the right to grab one of the seven seats in a sept-place. We got lucky that the car only needed us to have seven passengers so we didn’t have to wait for more customers going our direction to show up before leaving. I had the honor of sitting in the back between two friends who had each claimed one of the corners. I had to lean forward as they tried to talk behind me, meaning I got screamed at in loud Wolof from alternating sides for the first hour and a half of the trip. Finally they had to get up to pee or buy something at which point I got to sit back as each both of them leaned on me and now the screaming was in front of me. Every time the car stopped we would get swarmed with vendors selling mangoes, cheap cookies, cold water in plastic bags and calling cards. When we got off at Kebemer, the small town we had to switch to another car, we got more dudes trying to take us places for outrageous prices although the worse was definitely to come.