A very good friend of mine is getting married next weekend. He lives in Georgia now, so I get to take a road trip (with another very good friend) all the way down there! Road trips are almost always fun, and this upcoming one reminded me of some of the road trips we took in Guinea. They were (sometimes) fun, so I thought I’d share a story or two.
Long-distance travel in the developing world is not the same as it is here: there are complications that would never have occurred to me. In the US, we expect that if we break down, we will have all the supplies and assistance we require within easy reach, even if they are expensive. We expect good, well-marked roads almost all the way to our destination; gas stations at reasonable intervals; food, water, and toilets readily available whenever we desire them; and we do not at any time expect to be required to defend our right to be on the road or to travel to a particular destination.
With few qualifications, none of these expectations could be met while traveling between African countries, or in many cases within an African country. Such was our experience in Guinea. The bit I want to highlight is the last one: barrages.
Literally, “dam” or “roadblock,” a more accurate translation in this case is “checkpoint.” They serve nearly no purpose in peacetime and, when I was there, Guinea had had a decades-long peace. They are staffed by bored, underpaid soldiers who had erected the most crude sort of barrier across the road, often just a brightly colored string or a series of tied sticks. So while I never understood why they existed, we quickly learned the procedures when encountering a barrage.
First and foremost, follow the lead of the driver (this assumes you are in a taxi – Peace Corps cars were generally just waved on through, even going around lines of waiting nationals). His demeanor and attentiveness were a huge clue for us. Being polite and proper are hugely important, particularly in this power dynamic, but anywhere in a culture that prizes so highly the quality of personal interactions.
Also, we put away anything electronic, particularly iPods, but anything American. The guards are going to want some sort of bribe, and you don’t want to give them any ideas about the nature of that bribe. (Though “bribe” is often too harsh a word, it is the most appropriate – “toll” is too soft and official-sounding.)
Bribing was something that Peace Corps Volunteers tried to avoid, too. Despite being comparatively wealthy, Peace Corps did keep us on a tight budget, and we wanted to avoid setting up the expectation that PCVs are easily parted with their money.
We encountered one particularly worrisome barrage on the long cross-country trip from Conakry to Kan-Kan. (My upcoming Philly-to-Augusta trip will take almost as much time, but cover nearly twice the distance. Ugh, those roads…) We hadn’t yet gone far when we were stopped and asked to pull off to the side. You’re expected to hand over your passport, but having surrendered those to Peace Corps (for just this reason – you really don’t want to have that confiscated), we used our PC identification cards.
It was not unusual, and it occurred here, for the soldier to collect the card from each passenger along with the driver’s paperwork (presumably vehicle registration, etc.). What happened to them varied: sometimes they were glanced at and handed back, other times they were studied carefully. At this barrage, they were all collected and taken to someone else to study, out of sight of our car. This instantly made everyone nervous.
Meanwhile, another soldier demanded that we open the hatchback, and we of course complied (really, we just failed to object as he opened it himself – we were still in the car). A more seasoned PCV in the front yelled back to me to watch him as he rifled through our things, so I turned around in my seat to “assist” him.
He immediately noticed our med kits – their cases were hard black plastic, and stood out easily in a country where a plastic bag is a sometimes precious commodity. He demanded to open it, but I was told to refuse, as he would certainly demand some of the medicine as a “toll.” I had my hand firmly covering the med kit, and he had his hand casually holding his rifle to his side (something I was acutely aware of, if not actively worried about).
I had let him know that it was medicine, but said it would all spill out if I were to open it. After much shouting in French and Sou-Sou (I almost spoke the former, and could say 3 words in the latter) between the soldier and our experienced volunteer in the front, a PC employee came over to talk with him. She had been riding in another car which was heading in the same direction, and had been (luckily) stopped near us. She carefully opened the case, explaining constantly how the medicine was for the next two years, and all had to remain with each volunteer. She did a great job, and we were on our way tout de suite.
A few hours later, that experience still fresh in our thoughts, we had another rough experience, but one that ended in one of the more surreal experiences I’ve ever had.
Once again, our IDs were taken out of our sight, but this time, something terrifying happened. In a country where being polite is highly prized, an officer (!) came up to the car and shouted as loudly and angrily as he could “I want to see each one of you, over there, one by one!” In French, of course – French sounds quite flowery and pretty when spoken between two Parisian lovers, but it can be pretty scary when it’s shouted by a man with a really big gun.
Quite nervously, we all followed the crowd toward a small hut on a low hill on the side of the road (again, there were the two other cars of PCVs that had been stopped at roughly the same time, but this time even the PC employee was stumped). These huts are very common, and during the hottest parts of the day, when the sweltering sun beats down mercilessly on the bored soldiers, the barrages become quite lax, allowing a quick pass-through to allow the soldiers an equally quick return to their shady hut.
Once inside, we were greeted, again quite loudly and angrily, by a man claiming to be a general (maybe, my French wasn’t to be heavily relied on at this point – suffice to say, he had decorations on his comparably well-pressed uniform). He had our stack of ID cards in his hands, and he barked out the top name in a voice that would any Marine drill sergeant jump.
“JAKE!” He pointed at the ground in front of him, and in my head I heard R. Lee Ermy follow up with “Front and CEN-ter!”
Jake walked up to the officer, who sweetly and politely said “Merci pour votre assistance.”
After laughing at the grand joke he had played on us, the officer gave a very moving speech thanking us for coming to Guinea and working to make his country a better place. He then handed Jake his card and told him to return to his taxi.
He called each of our names, with varying degrees of success, personally thanking each of us. It was a fun and moving experience, not the least due to the adrenaline coursing through my system.
Despite these two more colorful experiences (rather mild compared to some others I heard about), the barrages were largely uneventful – they served only to interrupt one’s music or already-fitful sleep. But more than that, they served to remind us that even something like a cross-country drive is a very different experience in Africa.
I’m quite looking forward to my upcoming road trip, where the most worrisome part is the traffic around D.C.
