Travelling in Rural Africa

One of the many adventures of living in a remote place is travelling. Since I've been in this line of work, I have appreciated the ease with which I could travel in normal times. Getting from point A to B now takes a lot of planning and consideration. To get out of Uvira, the town I am currently in, I have to travel for 3 hours to another town called Kamanyola, then cross the border to Rwanda to a town called Kamembe.    

Kamembe is a small town that has a national forest of 1020km2. There are two exit/entry points from the Democratic Republic of Congo into South Kivu : 1) Kamanyola, which is around 46km and around 1hour and 15 minutes from Kamembe airport and 2) Bukavu which is 20km from the Kamembe airport and about a 40 minute drive. Typically, I would spend the night in Kamembe then fly to Kigali the following morning. It is a 40 minute flight, but a 5 hour drive to Kigali where I can fly from. This option is more practical for me than going to the capital (Kinshasa) to access the international airport. It is equally a two day trip.

See my previous post about some of my first impressions of the DRC.

The State of Nigerian roads

I travelled to my village in Benue state at the end of last year and one major observation, is that I would put the state of the roads on top of my list, before any other factor if I were in the position to give a report on what the likely causes of accidents might be, which is at an astoundingly high rate.

We got into Benue state and went through Makurdi, but after Makurdi, some parts of the road were in a worse state than I can remember. The road from Gwer local government area (LGA) to Aliade LGA and Taraku LGA were horrible. If we were talking only about pot holes, that might have been less grave, but I am talking about deep pot holes that have also eroded.
 
Certain parts of the road were not motorable and drivers on that side would have to swerve into the other lane of oncoming vehicles to avoid any tragedy. This in itself is extremely risky but drivers are left with no choice. 
That brings me to another point…I am yet to understand why some federal roads are not dualised! It’s just one strip, so people going in both directions know to be on their side of the road. No dividers, nothing. This makes it pretty easy for countless accidents to happen. Between Otukpo and Otobi (where there is a Federal Government College), the erosion is epic, a part of the road has been eroded into one lane!

Them Drivers

The rage steaming through blood shot eyes,
the chaos because of such horrible drivers,
no sense of direction, no adherence to driving rules,
hurry...simply no patience!
They all just want to hit the road and in the bid to get on fast,
they only succeed in causing jams everywhere.

Sirens blaring, whips held high.
It's disturbing, absolutely crazy!
What are they? Drivers or Uniforms?
Does that make them any more 'CITIZENS' than anyone else?

Traffic rules are broken and there are simply no consequences.
Auto crashes all around the city everyday,
bodies pulled out, rushing to hospitals...
How bad can it get???
Driving in Abuja, hmmmm
Gets worse by the day, seems like a constant car race.


First published in June 29, 2009

A day in traffic

On my way home one day, the whole place started to darken.

A storm was on the way.

It started lashing down, the heavy downpour was the heaviest in a few weeks.

The street hawkers ran for shelter under a bridge

But a few remained hawking right there in the rain

I saw someone buying a drink from a guy who was completely soaked.

The person rolled down his glass just enough to take the drink and took the glass up so quickly.

I could see the rain pouring but like I was not convinced, I rolled my glass down just a little and the rain slapped me to wind up quickly. And as is normal with rain, traffic slows down due to poor visibility.