At the beginning of October I traveled down to Bamako to meet with staff at the Peace Corps office and do my mid-service medical exam. I travelled from Kenieba to Kayes on public transport, which wasn't too bad; it took all day but that’s par for the course. A few days later I traveled with Vieux in the Peace Corps car from Kayes to Bamako on the “southern route”. It was a long but uneventful trip, parts on paths that I never would have guessed a car could drive through. Vieux has been working for Peace Corps for many years and drives this route every month, so I had no worries on the trip down to Bamako. And having air conditioning and room to stretch my legs was so much nicer than taking public transport. The trip back on the same “southern route” from Bamako to Kayes is where the adventure really begins.
On the second day of the three day trip back to Kenieba, we arrived at a big swamp. The water level was pretty high the week before, but we crossed it then without a problem. Since the village is on the other side of the swamp, we couldn't ask anyone about the crossing, and we figured it would be as easy to cross as it was the week before. Well, Vieux drove into the swamp, but this time the water level kept getting higher and higher, above the wheels, above the engine vents, up the sides of the car! Now this is no average car; it’s a year-old Toyota Land Cruiser with a high clearance, made to get through the toughest of roads. But I can tell you that four feet of water will stop a Land Cruiser in its tracks. Vieux was smart enough to turn the engine off to keep it from flooding! So we were stuck, in the middle of the swamp, and we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Not long after Vieux turned the engine off, water began to seep through the floor of the car and a few minutes later, the inside of the car was flooded. We saved as much as we could including Vieux’s cassette tapes that were in the door pockets (yep, they still have tape players in these cars). I quickly remembered that my backpack was sitting on the seat behind me, which contained my laptop and iPod! Luckily I saved it before the water reached the seats, so the electronics were spared. My big backpack wasn’t as fortunate, and I ended up with a lot of wet clothes. Vieux left to get help from the village nearby, and I stayed in the car and rescued as much as I could from the incoming water.
After negotiating a fair price to help us get the car out of the swamp, (they wanted to charge $100 because they saw a white person in the car, but Vieux talked them down to $60), about 12-15 men came to help us get the car out. I got to steer while the men slowly pushed the car to the edge of the swamp. They couldn’t get it up the bank and completely out of the water. There was nothing close by for the winch to attach to either, so the car stayed in place until the mechanic arrived from the town a few miles away. Since the car was at the edge of the pond the water level was only a few inches high, so the water could slowly drain out of both the seats and the engine.
I got out of the car and waited in a family’s concession. By this point it was lunch time and they invited me to eat with them. It was not one of my favorite Malian meals: they call it nyé nyé kini, cornmeal with a gelatin-like consistency, and okra sauce with a snot-like consistency. Not particularly appetizing, but since we were going to be there for a while and didn’t want to offend the people who had just helped us save the car, I ate some of their lunch. I found out that only 200 people from 10 families live here, and the kids have to walk more than three miles and take a ferry across the Senegal River to go to school.
While we were waiting for the mechanic to come, we found out that the villagers had dammed the river! Since rainy season is coming to an end, they put up a dam to raise the water level in the swamp and create a pond. You can’t blame the villagers for doing this, as they can use the water for months to come. It only rains from June to October, so water becomes a scarce resource towards the end of dry season. It would have been nice to know this before entering the swamp!
All in all, we were in that village for about four hours before the mechanic showed up. He replaced the oil and did his magic, and soon after we were on our way. Obviously the car wasn't in perfect condition, and we even got a Little Miss Sunshine random beep going every once in a while. But miraculously we drove the car without any major problems the remaining six hours to Kayes, and continued the next day on the seven hour trip down to Kenieba.
After a nightmarish 24 hour bus ride from Kayes to Kenieba last October (the bus broke down and got stuck in the mud at least 5 times), and the deep swamp crossing this year, I've come to the conclusion that October is a tough month for travel in western Mali!
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