Two Days, Two Buses, Two Books, Too Much Fun!

The bus pulled into the crowded bus stop. The long rectangular area had
many people milling around. Vendors selling fresh bread, oranges, and
the like. Others hawking pens and tissues or hats and undershirts. Manny and
I were almost to Cotonou. For Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb 17 & 18) we were once again
going to the busy city to put in our papers for our resident card. We would have
saved money and had only one of us go, but when you put your card in, we
found out, you have to have your fingerprints scanned, so we both had to go.
As the bus stopped for the last stop before Cotonou, I thought about how wonderful,
this trip had been. We took NTS bus which doesn't play very much music and when
it does has few speakers thus reducing the maximum volume. Other buses have
a speaker above every seat and the ride can become a headache. Manny and I have
become somewhat of bus experts, as we have ridden of the 10 bus lines availabe
we have ridden 5. We had decided NTS was the best, until this trip. At the stop,
the NTS official guy riding with us informed us that our bus had given up the ghost
for now and we would have to ride on a smaller bus that was coming. Seemed odd to
us since up until that point the bus seemed to be going quite well. Oh well, as Manny
would say, "This is Africa" and we filed off the bus, we were about to find out just how true Manny's statement is.
Sure enough the tailgate was up, revealing
a dirty engine, that apparently was not working. There was arguments from passengers,
the short wait for the mini-bus left some time for tempers to rise and questions to ask.
As we were about to leave, someone pointed out that there were already other people
getting on as passengers on our broken bus, odd. Then the reality struck, as we continued
to Cotonou, we passed the NTS bus destined for Natitingou broken down, the front axle
jutting out, one end lying on the ground. People anxiously gathered outside waiting. For what?
For our bus. Since we were only an hour or so away from Cotonou we had been chosen as the scapegoats.
Instead of wasting all the money to rent another bus to take people the longer distance to Nati, they chose
to rent one for us to go the shorter distance to Cotonou. Makes sense, but the problem was they lied.
They told us that our bus was broken, but it was not. I can't blame them, had they told us the truth
they may not have lived to see another day, okay it is not that bad, but is pretty serious. Africans are not
bad people, they just have grown learning survival, with so much poverty the mindset becomes my survival,
I have to get mine first and then maybe help others. That means the idea of sacrificing our bus
for the others with the broken bus who have a much longer trip left ahead of them, is counterintuitive.
I did not appreciate the fact they lied. Needless to say on the way back we took the bus run by
the Postal service (yes kind of odd, the government post makes extra money with a bus service). But thinking
about it now I realized that in the mind of the bus company NTS they did not have much of a choice but
to lie, doesn't excuse it, but is it understandable? Anyway, next bus trip we may take NTS, the risk of
lieing I will exchange for the peacefulness of the ride. We were able to get to immigration on time still
and handed in all our papers for the resident card, praise God. Now they can't kick us out of the country,
that's awesome. It was a bit tiring to sit on the bus 8 hours for two days in a row, but in the end worth it,
we get to stay here in Benin and I almost finished two books!