by phil | Oct 27, 2010 | Mali, Stories, W. Africa
2AM on the BT N Segou. A sheet of urine sails over my head. This is the third time tonight. Like a letter dropped into a post box, the flying saucer of piss fits through the two foot opening between the railing and the roof of the boat’s upper deck, landing in...
by phil | Oct 15, 2010 | Mali, Stories, W. Africa
When two Malians meet for the first time, they greet and introduce themselves. Then they insult each other. In this way, Mali has avoided Civil War for centuries. The insults are based on family names and they are mostly hilarious. When a Keita meets a Coulibaly, the...
by phil | Sep 29, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Mali, Stories, W. Africa
1,200 km separate Abidjan and Bamako. Given the nonsense that goes on with overland travel in Africa, this journey was practically interstellar. In the station, veiled Mauritanian women, bearded men reading the Koran, children adorned with beads in their hair. Most...
by phil | Sep 17, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Stories, W. Africa
Faty, one of my couchsurfing hosts, invited me to a village two and a half hours west of Abidjan. Getting there involved the standard components of overland travel in Africa: poor driving, absurd delays, ten too many police checkpoints, and several different forms of...
by phil | Sep 4, 2010 | Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Stories, W. Africa
My last post ended with a shared taxi on the way back to Takoradi. A British volunteer, an American journalist probing oil companies in Takoradi, and myself. Before getting in the car I had one of those unpleasant near vomit burps that scorched my esophagus. Things...
