A Tour on a Whim
They say we should all be whimsical like a child. Honestly, I think this is a bad expression, because after being here for a while I see that ‘being whimsical like a child’ means hitting another child with a stick because it seemed like a funny thing to do at the moment… or to take something just because you want it, and then cry when you have to give it back (and then get beaten in front of everyone, of course). I do think we should all be whimsical though… but maybe whimsical like a… dog? Bird? Maybe the saying should simply be put, “We should all be whimsical.”
Anyway, this comes up because I did something crazy on a whim yesterday. I decided to bike from Boukoumbe to Tanguieta, then Tanguieta to Natitingou today, and then tomorrow I hope to do Natitingou – Boukoumbe. To give you an idea, I think the Boukoumbe – Tanguieta road was about 65 kilometers… so about 45 or 50 miles? It took a grueling 4 hours and 57 minutes, to be exact.
It was funny how the ride progressed. I started out at lightning speeds, flying through sand spots, throwing up a dust trail… but that only lasted about 20 kilometers. After that I kept a moderate pace, and I started looking around a bit… but then I got scared. After about the 22km mark I hit a village called Manta, and it basically was the last sign of human existence for about 15 or 20 km. No problem, right? I decided to stop in this stretch and take a Snickers Marathon power bar break, and that’s when I started getting freaked out. I was standing there with my oober nice PC American, sent-from-the-States Trek bycicle, my ipod headphones in, my CamelBack backpack on, chewing to myself when I see a spot of red in the bushes about 20ft in front of me. Then, the spot disappeared, then reappeared within a few seconds. It was a red t-shirt! Coincidentally, Creedence Clearwater Revival happened to be playing at the moment, “…Better run through the jungle. Better run through the jungle. Better run through the jungle, don’t look back again.” I found this to be good advice, so I jumped on my bike and finished my Marathon bar while pedaling at all new speeds.
There was only one possibility of who would have been all the way out there alone, wearing a shirt like that: It was a Fulani cow herder. The Fulani are very interesting people. They are migratory people, muslims, who never, maybe rarely, speak French. You can recongnize them because they always have very intricate facial scars. Their women are incredibly beautiful for their ceremonies, because they braid white sea shells into their hair, along with beads and other things, and they cover their arms with about a foot’s worth of silver metal bracelets while wearing the traditional clothing. Anyway though, they move from one place to another in the brush with their cows and their families, and they don’t like strangers. The non-migrant people here usually don’t like the Fulani, because they seem to have a reputation for being thieves and bandits. I don’t know how credible that is, but I do know there are certain positives and negatives to being migrant. Negative: Because you move around a lot, people can blame you for their problems knowing that you would just disappear at the first sign of ill will. Positive: Because you are migrant it is much easier to steal and just get away with it. I took the safe root and decided that I wouldn’t let my red-shirted friend prove which was correct.
Back to my bike trip: By about the last 20km I was really starting to hurt. I had run into a new geological area, which meant my red-dirt and gravel roads had turned into a path of compacted white clay with interludes of fine sand, great for sinking into. The clay was bumpy, which turned my *cursed* buttocks into a finely ground meat, while the sand would make me stop and get off to pull my tires out and onto the next patch of clay. It was tedious, but I just kept looking to the mountains next to me and thinking how incredible it is here, and also how glad I was that I’m not male. Also, I was really out in the brush. None of the people I came across spoke French, and most probably had never seen white skin before. To give you another idea, no one passed me from either direction for a good 20-25km!
I passed quite a few people in my last 15km, but very few spoke French. 10km before arriving I hit a town called Tayacou, where a friend of mine lives. Unfortunately she had just left for Tanguieta on her bike as well, so I painstakingly finished those last 10km to the big town of Tanguieta. On arriving I went straight to the white-person store (I usually call them yovo stores), and bought myself some shortbread cookies and a coke, which I scarfed while I called Yesenia.
Yesenia came and, after a beer, showed me the way to the volunteers house where we were crashing. I had arrived right at dark (18:00), so it was good to have someone there who knew the way. I showered and fell asleep soon afterwards, only to awake to burning calves in the middle of the night. The hard cot I was sleeping on didn’t help either.
The next morning I got up to turn off my phone alarm in the other room, only to find I was walking like a toddler! My muscles eventually loosened, so I decided to try to bike to Natitingou as planned. It is a paved road between Tang and Nati, so I thought it would be easier. Ha! I was ready to kill myself on the first hill. Plus, everyone I saw asked me for money, and some of them seemed scary enough to take what I wouldn’t give them (and I never give anything, by the way). Luckily that was all my imagination… although children were relentlessly chasing after me and grabbing on to my bike as the shouted, “Give me candy!” I got so fed up with it, and so tired, that after about 15km I was ready to flag a taxi. No one passed me for quite some time though, but the next person that did stopped for me, and I got in. I made it half way, a good 20km or so out of 45. …and of course we made the other 25km in 15 minutes!
Since then I’ve eaten and showered and written this post. Tomorrow I plan on finishing my triangular tour by biking the last 45km back to Boukoumbe. We’ll see if I feel up to it tomorrow!
Other than this, things are going well for me. I’m working with people on personal financial plans and I’m about to start a Training of Trainers session, which would give a group of people the information needed to teach others about certain business practices, like marketing, accounting, or personal finance.
There have been other exciting developments lately as well. I’ve started a new garden, where I am also going to start a compost pile. I had the mud bricks for it made 2 days ago. My garden is going well, but there are termites that have moved in to eat all the cow refuse that I’ve used as fertilizer, which means they are also munching on my seeds. Also, I had something or someone kick up about half of my garden one night, making it all feel a little pointless.
Another crazy development: I had a complete stranger (white, British, female) come ask to stay at my house if necessary, because she was moving to Boukoumbe and couldn’t find a place. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I said, “maybe.” Well, of course she ‘moves in’ for a visit 3 weeks later, making me have to feel like a jerk when I had to kick her out a week and a half after that. It just didn’t work, and I didn’t want to be too associated with this stranger. If people see two white people together all the time, they just assume that if one is nice or not nice that the other is or isn’t to, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that. Plus she was using my house like I was the stranger… but I won’t get into that. I’m trying not to rant about it anymore.
That’s about all of my news though. I hope all of you are doing well, and I hope the weather’s not to cold! Best of luck to you.
Sarah
Anyway, this comes up because I did something crazy on a whim yesterday. I decided to bike from Boukoumbe to Tanguieta, then Tanguieta to Natitingou today, and then tomorrow I hope to do Natitingou – Boukoumbe. To give you an idea, I think the Boukoumbe – Tanguieta road was about 65 kilometers… so about 45 or 50 miles? It took a grueling 4 hours and 57 minutes, to be exact.
It was funny how the ride progressed. I started out at lightning speeds, flying through sand spots, throwing up a dust trail… but that only lasted about 20 kilometers. After that I kept a moderate pace, and I started looking around a bit… but then I got scared. After about the 22km mark I hit a village called Manta, and it basically was the last sign of human existence for about 15 or 20 km. No problem, right? I decided to stop in this stretch and take a Snickers Marathon power bar break, and that’s when I started getting freaked out. I was standing there with my oober nice PC American, sent-from-the-States Trek bycicle, my ipod headphones in, my CamelBack backpack on, chewing to myself when I see a spot of red in the bushes about 20ft in front of me. Then, the spot disappeared, then reappeared within a few seconds. It was a red t-shirt! Coincidentally, Creedence Clearwater Revival happened to be playing at the moment, “…Better run through the jungle. Better run through the jungle. Better run through the jungle, don’t look back again.” I found this to be good advice, so I jumped on my bike and finished my Marathon bar while pedaling at all new speeds.
There was only one possibility of who would have been all the way out there alone, wearing a shirt like that: It was a Fulani cow herder. The Fulani are very interesting people. They are migratory people, muslims, who never, maybe rarely, speak French. You can recongnize them because they always have very intricate facial scars. Their women are incredibly beautiful for their ceremonies, because they braid white sea shells into their hair, along with beads and other things, and they cover their arms with about a foot’s worth of silver metal bracelets while wearing the traditional clothing. Anyway though, they move from one place to another in the brush with their cows and their families, and they don’t like strangers. The non-migrant people here usually don’t like the Fulani, because they seem to have a reputation for being thieves and bandits. I don’t know how credible that is, but I do know there are certain positives and negatives to being migrant. Negative: Because you move around a lot, people can blame you for their problems knowing that you would just disappear at the first sign of ill will. Positive: Because you are migrant it is much easier to steal and just get away with it. I took the safe root and decided that I wouldn’t let my red-shirted friend prove which was correct.
Back to my bike trip: By about the last 20km I was really starting to hurt. I had run into a new geological area, which meant my red-dirt and gravel roads had turned into a path of compacted white clay with interludes of fine sand, great for sinking into. The clay was bumpy, which turned my *cursed* buttocks into a finely ground meat, while the sand would make me stop and get off to pull my tires out and onto the next patch of clay. It was tedious, but I just kept looking to the mountains next to me and thinking how incredible it is here, and also how glad I was that I’m not male. Also, I was really out in the brush. None of the people I came across spoke French, and most probably had never seen white skin before. To give you another idea, no one passed me from either direction for a good 20-25km!
I passed quite a few people in my last 15km, but very few spoke French. 10km before arriving I hit a town called Tayacou, where a friend of mine lives. Unfortunately she had just left for Tanguieta on her bike as well, so I painstakingly finished those last 10km to the big town of Tanguieta. On arriving I went straight to the white-person store (I usually call them yovo stores), and bought myself some shortbread cookies and a coke, which I scarfed while I called Yesenia.
Yesenia came and, after a beer, showed me the way to the volunteers house where we were crashing. I had arrived right at dark (18:00), so it was good to have someone there who knew the way. I showered and fell asleep soon afterwards, only to awake to burning calves in the middle of the night. The hard cot I was sleeping on didn’t help either.
The next morning I got up to turn off my phone alarm in the other room, only to find I was walking like a toddler! My muscles eventually loosened, so I decided to try to bike to Natitingou as planned. It is a paved road between Tang and Nati, so I thought it would be easier. Ha! I was ready to kill myself on the first hill. Plus, everyone I saw asked me for money, and some of them seemed scary enough to take what I wouldn’t give them (and I never give anything, by the way). Luckily that was all my imagination… although children were relentlessly chasing after me and grabbing on to my bike as the shouted, “Give me candy!” I got so fed up with it, and so tired, that after about 15km I was ready to flag a taxi. No one passed me for quite some time though, but the next person that did stopped for me, and I got in. I made it half way, a good 20km or so out of 45. …and of course we made the other 25km in 15 minutes!
Since then I’ve eaten and showered and written this post. Tomorrow I plan on finishing my triangular tour by biking the last 45km back to Boukoumbe. We’ll see if I feel up to it tomorrow!
Other than this, things are going well for me. I’m working with people on personal financial plans and I’m about to start a Training of Trainers session, which would give a group of people the information needed to teach others about certain business practices, like marketing, accounting, or personal finance.
There have been other exciting developments lately as well. I’ve started a new garden, where I am also going to start a compost pile. I had the mud bricks for it made 2 days ago. My garden is going well, but there are termites that have moved in to eat all the cow refuse that I’ve used as fertilizer, which means they are also munching on my seeds. Also, I had something or someone kick up about half of my garden one night, making it all feel a little pointless.
Another crazy development: I had a complete stranger (white, British, female) come ask to stay at my house if necessary, because she was moving to Boukoumbe and couldn’t find a place. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I said, “maybe.” Well, of course she ‘moves in’ for a visit 3 weeks later, making me have to feel like a jerk when I had to kick her out a week and a half after that. It just didn’t work, and I didn’t want to be too associated with this stranger. If people see two white people together all the time, they just assume that if one is nice or not nice that the other is or isn’t to, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that. Plus she was using my house like I was the stranger… but I won’t get into that. I’m trying not to rant about it anymore.
That’s about all of my news though. I hope all of you are doing well, and I hope the weather’s not to cold! Best of luck to you.
Sarah
posted by sarah at 7:03 PM
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