The drive between Bongatanga and the border was strikingly different from anything I had seen before. Although it was only 20km, I realized that it had been dark for the last several hours drive, and perhaps the landscape had been like this for some time.
We were now in the Sahel. There are 4 climate zones in West Africa. Going northwards from Accra you have the coast, followed by the mountains and rainforests, then the Sahel, then the Sahara. So the Sahel is a transition between the rainforests and the desert. It looks a little like the Australian deserts - red soils with spinifex like grasses and stunted trees. However what struck me was the fact that all buildings were now mudbrick, hundreds and hundreds of them over the 20km. They seemed to be mainly family size, and were not clustered into villages, just evenly distributed every few hundred metres or so. They were only about 2m high, with thatched rooves, and almost all had round turret like structures with thatching at the corners.
It was also the middle of the Harmattan. This is the annual sand storm from the Sahara that blankets the whole of West Africa in a grey haze. The sky has not been blue since I got here. It looks grey and overcast, but there are no clouds. Everything gets covered in a sandy dust.
There were no cars apart from the buses and odd vehicle along the highway. But there were lots of bicycles. Children and adults were riding ancient bikes aong the dirt tracks connecting houses. Every now and then, you would see a tall shady tree. Underneath were 10 to 20 people sitting under it, on the ground or occasionally on a wooden bench, listening to a central standing figure. Beside the tree was a row of bicycles. I wondered if that was what a school looked like here.
There were also donkeys, cattle and pigs roaming around. Donkey and cart was very common, the cart being an industrial type with a car axle and wheels, as you might see in India, but either pulled by a donkey or by a few people. A couple of times we drove through a small shanty village, which had cement block walls and tin roof stalls. Not surprisingly, there were a few bike repair shops and lots of activity.
The dress code was becoming a little more Bedouin. On our bus, we had a very elderly gentleman dressed from head to toe in a colourful Arab costume and headgear. Several times during the night the bus stopped by the side of the road to allow him a restroom stop. A teenage boy assisted him from his seat and out of the bus, which took easily 5 minutes from seat to door, as he was quite frail. No one minded at all though, and there was a lot of respect and sympathy for him. He made apologetic gestures but everyone was very reassuring. I have noticed a reverence in the way people treat the elderly in this part of the world.
At 8:30am we reached the border. The border was actually a pair of borders, Ghana and Burkina Faso, separated by a 300m no mans land. We pulled up next to the Ghana immigration block, and disembarked the bus, handing over our passports as we did so to a military type standing at the door. We were then directed to an office block to fill out a departure form and have the passports stamped after a brief interview. All quite smooth, but it took an hour to process the whole bus. I was processed early so spent time wandering the no mans land. It was actually a small busy village, with hawkers, money changers and food stalls. I already had CFA’s on me; CFA (pronounced see-fars) is the central african franc, the common currency in several West African french countries, including Burkina Faso. There are around 500 to a cedi, and I needed a lot more coffee before even contemplating my first purchase.
We then got on board the bus again, and drove to the Burkina Faso immigration complex. Again, our passports were collected on disembarking the bus. But the comparison to the Ghanean border could not have been more different. The immigration hall, literally, was a few rows of wooden benches under a thatched roof. The structure was made of a dozen sticks, not rounded poles but uneven sticks, 6 to a side. Each stick was just 2m high and was forked at the top. The forks supported cross sticks, and a rough thatching that gave shade but would not be rainproof. You needed to duck under it as the height of the roof varied, sit on a bench, and wait. Nearby was a single room concrete office where the passports were processed. Again, Chris and I were processed quickly as we had visas. You can get visas here, however as the english girls and a couple of others found, it means filling a form and waiting for an hour. After getting our passports back, we were free to wander over to the bus. There was a complete luggage free for all. All the bags had been removed from the bus and lined up for a customs inspection. There was a long table under shade, and apparently the thing to do was to accompany your bag while it moved along the table and customs officials opened them. I assume they were customs officials, guys in old colourful t shirts all look the same. I eventually found my case on the other side of the bus; apparently it had already been processed and returned. The inspection was like a crowded noisy market, customs staff and passengers all jostling and shouting.
We were also suddenly in an english free zone, it was french or nothing. I found something extraordinary that has persisted. The Burkinasé are very easy to understand. The french accent here is basically parisien, not discernibly different to my ear at least. People speak slowly and clearly, and all the french protocols for geetings and requests are in place. What is unusual is that I have trouble following Liberian english, which is fluent english but with a strong local accent. But I had no trouble following the burkinasé french.
We eventually got on the bus again, after a total of 3 hours border crossing. The drive to Ouagadougou was more of what we had seen. Sahel, countless mudbrick houses, bikes, donkeys and the odd shanty village. At one village, 2 soldiers got on with AK47’s for a ride to the next village. They were polite and friendly and seemed to know the driver.
Apparently Burkina Faso is nearly the world’s poorest country. You really dont need to know that, as you can work it out just by looking. There are 15 million people in a country half the size of France. Unemployment is 80%, literacy is 20%, and life expectancy is 50. Most people survive on less than a dollar a day, although what people in the mudbrick buildings would do with a dollar is not clear. It seemed very subsistence living out there.
150km later we finally reached Ouagadougou, around 2pm Saturday afternoon, just on 24 hours after leaving Accra. Despite the long and arduous journey, I was glad to have taken the bus. It was certainly an amazing experience, and just to have slowly taken in the countryside and mud houses was sensational. Even the delays with the bus, and later at the border, had been a vibrant experience and not an annoyance at all.