Travel in Togo

In the US we take getting around for granted. Most people have cars. Others, like me who at 23 is still licenseless, use public transportation to get where they need to go. Paved roads connect almost every house, shopping mall, and school.

In Togo there is one paved road that runs from the capitol in the south to the most northern border with Burkina Faso. There is nothing else. If you turn off this main road you turn onto pot-holed, dirt roads that can become impassible during the rainy season.

To make travel in this country even more difficult imagine a population that can not afford to send their children to school for $8 a year. Then ask yourself if that population owns cars.

There is no public transportation. There are no local airports, no local or national bus routes, no subway systems. The way people get around here is a wonderful thing called a bush taxi. In my opinion it is wonderful wonderful capitalism at work at its best. In a market economy if there is a need of a service, that need is filled by an individual who hopes to profit.

A bush taxi in its simplest form is a car that drives along the national route picking people up along the way and then dropping them off along the route closer to their final destination. That sounds fine.

In reality bush taxis are cars that have been out of service in the US or Europe since the late 80s that are shipped to Africa and sold for a couple hundred dollars. These are held together and driven until they literally FALL apart on the side of the road. I was once in a bush taxi that had to stop 4 times to pick up different pieces of the car that had fallen (muffler, hub-cap, some pipe from under the car, and a strip of metal about 6 inches long… Guess none were that important.)

It makes sense for a driver to want to fill his car as full as he can with people. I have been in a basic 4 door sedan that is meant for 5 (driver plus 4) filled with upwards of 11 to 12 people. That works out to 4 up front (two in the driver's seat and two in the passenger seat… sometimes three in the passenger seat) and anywhere from 5-7 people (and we arnt talking small children… We are talking full grown adults) jammed into the back. There are also larger passenger type vans that normally hold 15 people. They have the front section (cab) and then 4 rows of benches. I have seen these cars filled with as many as 30 people. There are no seat belts, no air-conditioning, and only rarely a window that will open. You have no idea how after being crammed into the back seat with 5 other people for 4 hours you CRAVE the luxury of Economy Class flight.

For example, if I want to travel to see my friend who lives 40k away I walk to the main road. I stand and wait for a bush taxi to pass in the direction I want to go (there are only two ways to go in a place with only one road.) He stops, I jam into whatever space I can find and we are off. It takes a car about 25 – 30 minutes to travel 40k (about 25 miles) in the US. Now imagine that you were driving a bush taxi where you have to stop every few miles to "show your papers" (wink wink) to the police at a checkpoint, not drive over 30 miles an hour for fear of hitting one of the pot holes (craters), and stopping every few minutes to pick up or drop someone off. That normally 30 minute car ride turns into a hellish two hours. Try to imagine not being able to get out of a crouching position for hours at a time. For the longer trips (it takes about 6 hours to get to the capitol from my city) there are no bathrooms. Every once in a while the car will pull over next to a field and everyone (women included) get out and do their business.

While it is never fun to be stuck in a car with 29 other people, 4 chickens, and a goat it is amazingly interesting. No one complains. It is just the way life goes.