112.
Ivory Coast Border:
I give the border guards a “Playboy Magazine” centerfold bribe and they wave me through with smiles.
There is an official-looking Chinese in the Ivory Coast Customs House though, and he eyes me with suspicion.
I spend the night in a small hotel and next morning he is on hand to see me off when I take the first bus out of town.
The natives on the bus speak French. Way back in my head is a year of High school French. I only took the class because the cutest girls were there so I didn’t learn much French--but I find I can communicate somewhat with the other passengers who probably speak French as a second language too.
Actually, when I use French words, I feel like I am just like a dog barking in a friendly way—but the people I am barking at, bark back at me and some of the noise I understand so I guess that is what communication is!
My conversations in “French” are short but sincere.
I am carrying a bag of unshelled peanuts, some canned sardines and a bottle of sweetened tea so there is no problem with food or drink on the daylong trip.
The bus itself is a very small open-air jerry-rigged sort of thing—my knees are jammed together and there are the usual chickens underfoot. The rest of the passengers are in a high good humor and there is a lot of laughing and joking.
The road is dirt and the dust is red, so though I am the only white man aboard, we are all soon the same color: dusty red. We only pause occasionally to pee in the cane-fields bordering the road and at midnight we rattle into the capital city of Ivory Coast, Abidjan.
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