Adventures of the PC
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2005
1
33
178
Trip End
Ongoing
Kandi, Benin
Saturday, August 6, 2005
Along the route back to Kandi, we had to stop to cool the engine, drop off food for some old man, and some other stuff...to be explained...keep reading.
About 30 minutes into the trip, we got a flat tire. It didn't take more then 10 mins to fix and we were on our way again.
Another 30 minutes later, we ran into this "traffic jam" type thing. There was a HUGE rut in the road due to rain. Vehicles were having difficulty getting through. Two large semi's were stuck, and so was a bashet (a taxi truck).
While we were waiting for the bashet to get unstuck, about 50 semi-truck drivers were standing around waiting for the traffic to clear. Being white, we (Lisa and I) attract a lot of attention. Naturally, about 20 of the men come over to "introduce" themselves. It's quite common here for someone to ask you to marry them...it's worth the try I guess. Lisa and I said we were already married to get them to leave us alone.
Somehow, the bashet was freed and then our car was let though. We walked to the other side of the rut, while our car was driven over it. I don't know how our car made it without getting stuck.
We got a good hour ride in before another flat tire occurred. Because it was the second time that happened, we didn't have a replacement tire. It took the taxi driver 2 hours to come back with a good tire!
While we waited for the driver to return, Lisa and I played with the kids who were sharing our taxi. The weather wasn't too bad, so that was good. There were clouds and it wasn't hot.
Once the driver returned and we were on our way again, it only took us like 15 mins to get into Kandi. Aagghh...we waited 2 hours for a flat tire when we were only 15 mins out of town. (We couldn't have walked it easily though; people here are crazy fast drivers, that's why it only took 15 mins.)
The driver was really nice by dropping Lisa and I off directly at the Peace Corps workstation. Normally, he just drops everyone off at the taxi station.
We thought our adventure for the day was over now that we had arrived back at the workstation.......................
We showered, had a beer, and explained to the other Americans what we went though on our taxi ride. Around 5pm, a friend of the Volunteer's showed up to invite us to a graduation party. (Someone had gotten their license to be a hair stylist.)
We walked to the party.....THROUGH A MARSH in a DOWNPOUR of rain. I though we were going to take a zemidjan, but no...the Volunteer's friend knew a "short cut". (We were running late to the party.) It was soo gross...I thought it was just a field, and that we had to cross a small stream, only the stream was just the beginning of a big field of water knee deep. Marjory unhealthy, I'm sure. On the bright side, the water wasn't cold, and I didn't see any bugs, snakes or leaches.
We arrived at the party SOAKING wet and dirty. Everyone there was really dressed up, so it was really uncomfortable. The people gave us chairs and food when we got there. I don't have any idea what the meat was, so I wasn't about to eat it. Lisa ate mine to make it look like I actually ate something.
On the way home, we took some dirt road....I don't know why we couldn't have taken that to begin with!! It was the same distance....
Since we really didn't fill up at the party (and we had made dinner cooking plans), we made dinner when we arrived back at the workstation. We made PIZZA and garlic bread!! Everything (as it has to be here) was made from scratch, except the cheese. The volunteer knows some nun who sells Swiss cheese, so we had some of that. It's the only type of cheese available that will actually melt. Oh yeah, for dessert, I made a Pineapple-Upside down cake....it actually turned out really good tasting (even though it looked horrid).
