The River

I spent my first night out of Dosso still in Niger, in a Germa village named Makani after I got an especially nice hello from a guy on the highway. I screeched to a stop and asked him if I couldn’t pitch my tent within the walls, but he had to summon Douwda Noma to communicate in French. Douwda is a young guy who went to work in Lome and picked up some French there. He arranged everything, showing me where I could place my tent and recognizing that perhaps I needed a bit of “repose”. First they brought me a pillow and a mat and a mattress for under the tent however, since they couldn’t accept that I might sleep on the ground! I went to sleep for a few hours and awoke to a hazy view of the moon and the sound of pounding mortars (2 or even 3 girls to a pestle), a TV, kids laughing, goats, birds, and crickets. The Germa sounded like music, a girl hummed a few lines of a song over and over pleasantly, a man issued orders: the sounds all blended like water in a stream, like this was a dream.

I found water and food next to the tent, manioc and onion sauce and couscous and green sauce, and it was too much for me to eat. A girl told me to save the manioc for morning, and took away the other pots. Later a younger guy showed me an area surrounded by mud brick where I could wash from a bucket, and then I went back to sleep. I left a kite for the kids and a little tapestry I had bought in Dosso for the cook, took some pictures of Douwda and the local crew, got an address to send them to, and was back on the road before it got hot.

River Niger

I reached Gaya in early afternoon, and found a store that sold sweetened yoghurt in bags: I can’t get enough of the stuff and downed three. The road follows the river for a bit and then it was the douane (customs) on the Niger side of the bridge.

River Niger

I didn’t have any paperwork from my entry at Assamaka, so I skipped that office and went right to a mountainous woman sitting at a plain wooden table who very efficiently checked me out of the country and wished me a bon voyage. I skipped customs on the Benin side too, and here an officer at a similar wooden table stamped my entry. I felt quite welcome.

Bridge to Malanville

At Malanville I downed (2) 60cl Coca-Colas, (2) yaourt Hollandais and a liter of water. Dehydration had apparently precipitated negative cerebral effects: who knows what I was thinking. All that sugar seems to just make the dehydration worse.

Abridged thinking

Motel Alfa Kouare

Salima Saka runs a very tidy place, made me a nice dinner of couscous and onion sauce with meat, and I really appreciated her sensibilities. I left early again to beat the heat.