Beneath a Baobab: Stories from Sénégal

“Yeggal” Get on. A ride in the Car.

I wrote before that I would know I was really “Senegalese” when I could comfortably and independently take their famous Car Rapides to get around. Now I use them and their more standardized buses daily to get to and from work. I know I blogged the first time I rode in a Ndiang Ndiaye, very similar to a car rapide, but my ride today has inspired another entry. I want to take you with me in this unique form of public transportation.

First, you must be able to differentiate between a Ndiang Ndiaye and a Car Rapide. A Ndiang Ndiaye is an all white 40-passenger van, with two columns of benches. There are seats that fold down in the middle aisle, so you can have 5 people per row. The accepted and practiced etiquette is fascinating, everyone always moves up to the seat farthest forward as they open up, so that the new passengers can sit down. The vans load from the doors in back. You grab onto a ladder (which grants access to the roof), step onto a board and then into the vehicle. (Sometimes men will run after a car, grab the ladder, and then jump on. The best is when four or five do this all at once, especially when the car is really full. The car seems to gobble them up as they one by one squeeze their way in and disappear into the interior. If there are already too many passengers, they hang off the back with the apprenti (French for apprentice).) I’ll try to take some pictures of this.

Car Rapides are a bit different. They are painted half yellow (top) and half blue (bottom) and then have beautiful images painted on the sides and hood. (Often the hood and grill of the van depicts two eyes, and then the word “Alhamdulilaay” written in the middle. This means, “Thanks to Allah.” It’s funny when these vehicles seemingly stare you down on the road.) They, too, load their passengers from the back. In car rapides, there is a main cab section where the driver sits and a bench, which can uncomfortably fit up to 3 people. Metal bars separate the cab section from the rest of the interior. The wall of bars is lined with a bench that can seat over 6 people, and then there is a row of benches facing this first row. Passengers finagle their legs and bags so that every thing fits. Behind these two rows of benches, benches line either side of the car. In the states we would never try to fit more than 4 people on these benches, but here they squeeze in 5 or 6. It’s unbelievable, and also uncomfortable. But no one grimaces or complains.

So anyway, to catch my car today, I waited at a bus stop, also used for Car Rapides and Ndiang Ndiayes. After hailing a car and getting in since it was going in the right direction, I asked the apprenti where they were going as a final destination. I explained where I wanted to go, and about five other people in the car all joined the conversation, debating with one another whether I should get off at one stop to take another car, or keep going. (Mind you this all occurred in Wolof!) But at least five people, if not more, were discussing with me, the apprenti and one another, trying to determine my best route.

You can always ask for help in the US, but there is rarely quite the same sense of community collaboration. Maybe it’s because tourists/strangers aren’t quite as conspicuous as I am here. Or maybe it’s because our system of public transportation is much more organized with designated routes, and placards on every train or bus indicating the line number and direction of travel. They have buses of this sort in Dakar, but their Ndiang Ndiayes and Car Rapides have no such indication. Instead, there is just the apprenti hanging precariously off the running board, holding on to the open door calling out the vehicle’s destination point. To stop the car, he taps a coin against the metal side. There are few predetermined stops. The stops are generally decided by when someone hails the car, or a passenger requests a stop. And you pay your fare of 15-20 cents when the apprenti asks for it.

Today, one of our apprentis was wearing an old worn-in plaid sport coat that was too big for him with faded grey dress slacks. A black beret completed the outfit. He looked to be 12 years old, though he was probably 17, but he reminded me of a newspaper boy from the 50s. He stood on the ladder, leaning his head to the side of the car calling out “Fann, Fann,” the neighborhood to which we were headed.

It is amazing to me the community ethic that forms within a car rapide. It manifests itself in other ways too. An older woman got in and her shawl was dragging on the ground. A woman already seated, picked it up, held it while the first woman situated herself, and then re-draped it over her shoulder. Or two women got off, and they each had big plastic basins with them that they’d stored under the benches. The two apprentis swiftly picked them up and placed them on the women’s heads, without even seeming to think about it. It is second nature to them, though it was something I had to learn to do while in the village (help a woman put a basin on her head, that is.)

The visual images are incredible too. The cars are beautiful on the outside, but often more than worn-down on the inside. Benches have tattered blue vinyl covering, the Styrofoam stuffing sticking out left and right. Sometimes, small squares of Styrofoam are tied together, in a puzzle-like fashion in order to make a bench seat. The paint is chipped and the metal is rusted. There can be pictures, or tattered curtains or pieces of fabric decorating the interior, but some cars are completely bare. But then there are the people. It’s a fabulous juxtaposition, the women with their heels and make-up in their incredible boubous, foulards (head wraps), and shawls, all made of brilliantly colored fabrics, sitting inside these crowded decrepit vehicles. And it is amazing how they wiggle in to fit 5 to a bench, especially because many of these women are not small by any means. They’ve got jaay fonde, Wolof for a very well–rounded bottom. I haven’t quite mastered the straight face all these women maintain when squished together. Today, one woman left an empty bench with little legroom, to come make herself the fifth person on our bench. I think half of her left butt cheek was sitting on my right thigh. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling, or even laughing. But I love these little adventures in the car rapides, where everyone is willing to help one another, no one complains, and there is certainly no shortage of good people watching.

posted by Hannah Gelder @ 4:34 PM