Letters from the QM: July 2013

Wednesday 31 July 2013

Viven : How we crossed from Burkina Faso to Benin

Dear Viven,

We miss the freedom of Archer, but so far it seems that crossing African borders when in a bus or train is a lot easier, faster and hassle-free. This may also have to do with the fact that we have so far been traveling exclusively through the Pays de l'Entente (a single customs zone consisting of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger and Togo).

The information in this letter is accurate at the time we crossed the border on Wednesday 31 July 2013. We are one British and one Canadian who, due to a change of route, are currently traveling in a circle from Abidjan through Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Ghana, returning to the Ivory Coast in time for a flight to our destination, Tanzania.

Visas

Visas were required, and available both in advance or (apparently) at the border. We decided, as usual, to acquire them before travel in order to save money and hassle. We visited the Benin consulate in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Monday 1 July. The consulate is on Rue des Jardins, which is the main road passing through one of Abidjan's principal embassy zones (Ghana, Togo, UK and other embassies are nearby).

The consulate accepts visa applications from 9-11am, Monday to Friday. We had to dash around in search of a printer for our hotel reservation, and arrived at 10:45am. The application was submitted with payment and without question through a kiosk facing a small courtyard behind the metal gate. We were told to return at 3pm with our receipt. We returned on time and our passports were ready with new Benin visas: two months, multiple-entry, commencing on the date of arrival.

Language
Benin's official language is French, and it is both widespread and commonly spoken. We have met no one who speaks more than 'small-small' English.

Money

Benin uses the West African Franc (CFA).

Time Change
Benin is one hour ahead of Burkina Faso.

Our Route and Means of Travel
We traveled by minibus between Ouagadougou and Tanguieta. In order to ensure our seats (and that the bus would indeed go), we purchased our tickets the afternoon before traveling at Ouagadougou's Gare de l'Est. Each ticket for the 6:30pm departure cost CFA 8,000. We arrived the next morning at 6am, and the bus did not leave the station until 7, and because of picking others up and rearranging the large luggage load strapped above, we did not exit Ouagadougou until 7:30.

The journey was start-and-stop as a result of dozens of gendarme and police checkpoints as well as to drop-off and pick-up other passengers. The minibus was crowded for most of the way, and at one point we picked up a load of schoolkids, taking them about an hour down the road. At this point, the 15-seat bus contained 29 people, though it was fun to play with the kids who weren't so interested in just starting ahead.

Only one other passenger stayed on the bus with us all the way to Tanguieta. We arrived there at 6pm (one hour later because of the time change), making the whole ride about ten hours long. The other passenger was also going to our destination, Natitingou, and we shared a 45-minute taxi with him, during which Al sat on my lap and by using the back storage space we were somehow able to fit 13 people into a five-seat car. We arrived at 7pm.

The Border

Exiting Burkina Faso and entering Benin was easy, simple and fast. We arrived at Nadiagou, the Burkina Faso exit point, at 2:30pm. The other passengers of the minibus simply showed their identity cards to the police officer, and after we went inside the office to have our passports stamped. There were no questions, problems or dirty looks. All in all, this took five minutes.

At 3:10pm we arrived at the entry point for Benin, a town named Porga. The process was the same as above, except now we had our passports returned through a gridded window. This also took no more than five minutes.

What We Needed

In Abidjan

Money: CFA 40,000 (24,000 each)
Printout of hotel registration
Photocopy of first three pages of passport
One passport photo
Five minutes to apply, four hours to process

For the bus

CFA 16,000 (8,000 each)

At the border

Passports with visas acquired in Abidjan
Five minutes each for entry and exit

Happy trails,

QM

Tuesday 30 July 2013

o : Ouagadougou

The Amphitheatre

Musee National
Ouagadougou

Burkina Faso

Dear o,

I write to you from the stepping-up stone seats of the outdoor amphitheatre at Burkina Faso's national museum in Ouagadougou. It's a beautiful day and the sun is out, and we have the entire outdoor acreage of museum all to ourselves. We came here after tiring ourselves out yesterday with Ouagadougou's vast Grand Marché. Rebuilt in 2003 after a devastating fire, this place is a multi-level, stadium-sized maze of stalls with every trinket you can imagine. But after a little time there, it felt too much like an onion (thanks, Peer Gynt). We wanted to peel away the layers of hustlers, of made in China 'tribal' figures and necklaces, of the men with carts who carried this merchandise and dumped it off, stall by stall, out of cheap plastic bags, straight from whatever foreign factory does a better, faster, cheaper job than the villages of West Africa. There was no centre, no core, no seed. The market is but a series of layers, peeled away until nothing is left.

There is no show being acted out in front of me, but I still like to make my theatrical pilgrimages wherever I can. Below the Pantheon in Athens, built into Palatine Hill in Rome, or dug out from the earth in Chester, England: at these sites I can imagine what once was performed, what will be again, and perhaps another story of the place and its people. This amphitheatre is, of course, not an ancient archaeological site, but a recent development project, slapped onto a this walled-in park of dirt, grass and future plans.

The show I see in my head is composed of the characters who made this site: the funder, the designer, the shoveler, the concrete-pourer, the electrician. I wonder about their motivation, about why they built this place, what it means to them, what it is trying to say, and what the story is. I imagine these things because, for whatever fault of my own, I can't seem to divine it from this place. I can't find the narrative here, and the only characters I have seen are the staff who look they want to bang their heads against the wall when we interrupt their day of doing nothing.

In front of me is patchy grass, a few trees, a tin-roofed, half-contained hut, and a wall separating this place from the traffic and and the people it purports to represent. The wall is quite fascinating: red, brown and yellow paints over an intricate, swerving design on both sides, a trick to the eye and to the mind to deceive what is within.

The museum is composed of about ten stand-alone buildings, pavilions that thrust out from the ground and partly dome up towards the sky. They are not unlike the traditional thatch huts that pervade the sub-Saharan landscape, but bigger, oddly coloured pink and brown, and always alone. The huts, the real things, are much more fascinating, much more original, and they are never by themselves. But maybe that wasn't the intent here. I wouldn't know.

When we entered the gate we found the administration building to buy our CFA 1,000 tickets, a transaction made outside the door. I could see that inside was a small foyer with a glass-topped model of the museum. I asked to step inside. Why? she demanded. I pointed to the model. She looked at me like I had asked her to pull eleven hairs out of her head, one by one, and then waved me on without emotion or kindness.

The model is a not so much a 3-dimensional snapshot of the museum, as a plan for its future. The pavilions are all there, more darkly and naturally coloured, still separate but somehow extensions of the landscape instead of adjuncts to an architect's mind. The grounds, though, are completely different: the walls are no longer the monolithic, inescapable feature of the museum, but a short, stout and thin borderline; there are trails carved out of gardens, forest, wilderness; the whole thing appears as a single, connected village, and you can see the way its people would network, move, circle and play.

We left the foyer and began our tour, pointed on by the ticket-seller who seemed at once relieved she was done with us, and nervous that we were about to whip out our spray paint to graffiti the buildings.

Only three pavilions were open to us. Two were collections of masks and statues, the other an exhibit on the importance of cotton to Burkina Faso's history. The masks and statues, mostly made of wood, were remarkable in and of themselves. A glaring, cavernous-eyed, jagged face next to a sweet rounded, almost clownish mask. A two-foot high statue, upright on both legs instead of a platform, pulling all the world to his chest, and laughing about it. There were a few plaques with French descriptions here and there, but their words were cold and distant, as if inconvenienced by being read. At the centre of one of the pavilions was a collection of virility and fertility statues, puffing out long-pointed breasts or holding long penises pointed up and down. The figures were arranged face-out of a tall metal cage: a boxing ring. I am still at odds with myself over whether or not this was intentional. I hope it was.

The cotton exhibit pavilion was a collection of reconstructed artefacts and baskets of unused cotton, all thrown together into a motley assortment of, well, cotton. The single staff member stalked the room after we walked in and stared as if we were going to pocket some of the cotton. There were no plaques, descriptions, aids, anything. Not being an historical specialist on the economic and cultural significance of sheep to the history and sociology of Burkina Faso, I felt woefully ignorant in this room, and though I appreciated what its arrangement, selection and presence might have meant, it didn't take me long to leave.

Both the cotton exhibit and the artefact pavilions contained interesting pieces to themselves, but the sum was far greater than the whole of the experience, and each time I left a pavilion, I felt nothing new, nothing changed, nothing moved. The most lasting feature of all was the television in the first pavilion, in front of which the two staff sat and watched the Hajj in Mecca, live. Thousands of people circled the great black cube on elevated platforms, pouring out through archways and building that beautiful momentum of a crowd with one focus. There was a story there, and it wasn't trying to hide itself. I wanted to sit and watch.

"Should we get a guide?" I asked Al before writing you. Though we didn't speak about it upon entering, we knew what each other was thinking: we didn't want a guide for any number of reasons. Paying however much, maybe even more in cadeaux, being awkwardly alone, still seeing the same small set of things, and above all, having to ask one of the miserable, offended-by-us staff to show us around. "No," she said, and that was it: we both knew why.

Are we just here at the wrong time of year? Are the main exhibits shut, or being moved or renovated? Are we missing the key ingredient of a guide or a performance in this amphitheatre? Or have I just been to too many other museums to resist throwing up my oh-so-sophisticated judgment against this place? I'm reminded of New Zealand's Te Papa in Wellington, Canada's Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, and Paris's Musee Quai Branly near the Eiffel Tower: all with powerful narrative, a substance beyond, under, through the pieces, and in the case of the Quai Branly, an astonishing collection of artefacts from Burkina Faso itself.

And, I know, those museums have a lot of money. Maybe this one isn't finished yet, behind schedule or forever delayed? But I have to wonder where they money came from to build this place, and if it was from some of the same pockets. This doesn't feel like a grassroots idea, but a thoroughly foreign cultural concept imposed on the bare ground within a high wall in Ouagadougou, trying the nominal amount to accommodate the local taste: dome shapes and wall designs, and let's throw in a few masks and some cotton as well. As people, as architecture, as history, as space, as even the grounds, this does not feel at all like the little of Burkina Faso I've seen. I am somewhere else.

I am completely ready to admit my ignorance, stupidity and closed-mindedness in the heart of this place, here on a seat of the amphitheatre. I am willing to be admonished for being shallow and impatient, for not spending enough time by the penis vs. breast fighting ring, for not being a spectator to my own assumptions. Even that I'm always looking for conflict in my life and travels, for a problem or an issue at which to flail out and whine (would you rather I just listed all the lovely flowers that make me feel fuzzy inside?). But the Musee National de Burkina Faso isn't trying very hard to convince me.

As far as I can tell, I'm digging my way through the layers of another onion. Forgive me for not going all the way to the centre, and let me know if I keep missing a harder core.

Yours,

The Grand Marché, Ouagadougou

The National Museum, Pavilion No. 2

The National Museum,
with the administration pavilion to the left

The Fertility Ring

Sunday 28 July 2013

Viven : How we crossed from the Ivory Coast to Burkina Faso

Dear Viven,

We're back on the road! Though, not the on the route we originally intended, and not with Archer.

The information in this letter is accurate at the time we crossed the border on Sunday 28 July 2013. We are one British and one Canadian, currently traveling in a circle from Abidjan through Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Ghana, returning to the Ivory Coast in time for a flight to our destination, Tanzania.

Visas

Visas were recommended, and cheaper, in advance. I visited the Burkina Faso embassy in central Abidjan (in the Plateau area) and by myself applied for both visas. I arrived at 10:30am, received the forms at the reception office near the front entrance, and after filling them waited until 11:15 for the officer to arrive. She summoned each applicant in one at a time, and I entered her office at 11:30. She corrected the forms, took the payment, and told me I was too late to get the visas on the same day, as is normal, and to return instead at 9am the next day.

All information was displayed in the visa and passport application building in the courtyard-organised embassy grounds. Visa applications are to be submitted from 8am to noon, Monday to Friday, and picked up that afternoon between 3 and 3:30. The fees schedule was as follows:

0-3 days (transit): CFA 12,000
1-90 days: CFA 24,000 (single-entry) or 31,000 (multiple-entry)
6 months: CFA 30,000 (single-entry) or 39,000 (multiple-entry)
12 months: CFA 43,000 (single-entry) or 49,000 (multiple-entry)
1+ year: CFA 59,000 (single-entry) or 66,000 (multiple-entry)

I returned the next day at 10:30am, waited a few minutes for the officer, handed her the receipt from the day before, and got the passports with 30-day single-entry visas.

Note I was able to both apply for and receive the visas without Al being present.

Language
Burkina Faso is part of French West Africa, and though there are 69 other languages spoken in the country, the official French is both widespread and commonly spoken.

Money

Like the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso uses the West African Franc (CFA).

Our Route and Means of Travel
We traveled by train between Abidjan and Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou.

I spoke with a couple security officers at the Gare de Treichville on Friday 26 July, and was told that though the station was closed today, it would be open tomorrow and the direct train to Ouagadougou would leave at 9am. A sign at the station confirmed this, and named two departure stations: Treichville, and Gare de Ouagadougou.

We turned up on Saturday morning at 8am and found the station was still closed and quiet. An official told us, no, all trains leave from the other station, Gare de Ouagadougou. We got in a taxi for CFA 1,500 and crossed Abidjan, arriving at the correct station at 8:30 - only to be told, the train would depart at 11am. We bought the tickets (Second Class) for CFA 24,000 each, filled out a fiche de controle next to the ticket booth, and in order to ensure our seats, boarded the train early.

Our tickets turned out to be wrong: they were for Koudougou, not Ouagadougou. With the help of the kind man who sat across from us, who seemed to know everyone on the train, including staff, we merely had to pay a CFA 2,000 difference just past Koudougou.

The journey took 36 hours, arriving at Ouagadougou at 9pm the following day. The train was fairly clean and about 80% full for most of the journey. The windows opened down a little ways, just enough to buy food or drink at the rapid whistle-stops, and the carriage-top fans worked on the first day, but for some reason did not operate on the second. On the second afternoon a man a few rows ahead of us became ill, perhaps in part because of the heat, and lay unconscious on the floor for a few hours until an ambulance picked him up at Koudougou. Several men took turns fanning him, while police, train security and other staff walked by, took a few notes, and stared. When he was carried off the train, a puddle of his vomit and feces spread on the floor and stunk up the car. We moved with the rest of the people, and returned an hour later after it had been cleaned up and disinfected. Most others didn't follow us, so we each got a whole bench to ourselves. Being small, Al enjoyed this; but I can't say that two hard metal seats were much more comfortable than one.

The Border

We arrived at the Burkina Faso border town of Niangolako at 7:30am of the second day, Sunday 28 July. Burkina Faso police had already come through the train to collect passports. After 20 minutes, our names were called and we received our passports with entry stamps. The train departed Niangolako after one hour, at 8:30.

Visas are apparently issued upon arrival by train in Burkina Faso. In the office where we waited for our passports to be stamped, a sheet of paper on the wall gave the following prices:

1-3 days transit visa: CFA 24,000
Single-entry: CFA 47,000

Next to this office was another room, marked "Visas". We did not notice anyone apply.

Yellow Fever vaccination certificates are supposed to be required for this border crossing. At 5pm of the first evening an official on the train advised passengers to have their certificates ready, but there was no follow-up, and we were not asked to present them at the border.

Also, we never received exit stamps for the Ivory Coast. They were not issued on the train, and we only stopped to enter Burkina Faso, not exit the Ivory Coast. I can only assume we should have acquired them before departure from Abidjan?

What We Needed

In Abidjan

Money: CFA 48,000 (24,000 each) for visa fees
Two one-page application forms (in English and French) filled per applicant
Passports
Passport photos, two each
About an hour

For the train

CFA 48,000 (24,000 each) for train tickets, plus CFA 2,000 for correction charge as a result of incorrect destination
Food and water, or money to purchase either at stops or in the bar carriage (only rice and beer available)
Books, music, cards, conversational skills, and sitzfleisch sufficient for 36 hours of travel

At the border

Passports with visas acquired in Abidjan
One hour

Happy trails,

QM

Train Carriage No. 2, empty

Train Carriage No. 2, full.
Stand at the windows for the sake of the heat.

The train

One of the many whistle-stops

Sunset, Day 2

Koudougou

Monday 22 July 2013

Twilight Hunter : Paris, Part II - Sunset

Dear Twilight Hunter,

The bottom photograph is perhaps the only one worth anything, and like a few others taken at night, it's not even twilight. I hesitated to attach it, but here we are. The Eiffel Tower was sparkling on the hour, and the searchlight swung around for me and my camera at just the right moment. Whether it was the photo setting, the precise second I pushed the button, or just my shaky hands, I caught something that is - for lack of a better term - pretty damn cool.

The Eiffel Tower, seen from the Pantheon,
5eme arrondissement

The Val-de-Grâce military hospital,5eme arrondissement

The sun above the Tour Montparnasse,
seen from the Jardin de Luxembourg,
6eme arrondissement

View from the Arc de Triomphe,
8eme arrondissement

Waiting for the Bastille Day Fireworks,
Jardin des Tuileries,
facing the Place de la Concorde,
1eme arrondissement

Bastille Day Fireworks,
1eme arrondissement

Montmartre,
18eme arrondissement

Tour Montparnasse between the tree trunks,
Montmartre,
18eme arrondissement

Montmartre,
18eme arrondissement

View downriver on the Seine,
from the Eiffel Tower,
7eme arrondissement

View of the Champ de Mars,
from the Eiffel Tower,
7eme arrondissement

Sunset from the Eiffel Tower,
7eme arrondissement

Eiffel Tower, approaching dusk,
7eme arrondissement

The Eiffel Tower, from the Arc de Triomphe,
8eme arrondissement

The Eiffel Tower, from the Arc de Triomphe,
with some serendipitous camera magic,
8eme arrondissement

Friday 19 July 2013

Twilight Hunter : Paris, Part I - Sunrise

Dear Twilight Hunter,

You wake up and it is still dark, though the eerie purple city light shines like day would on another world through the up-slanted window. The endless, restless romance of the street has quietened just enough in the hour before dawn to make you uncomfortable. You can't help it, you're pulled out. You find yourself dressed, in the dirty, musty courtyard of your block of flats, tugging on the enormous green door, then out onto the damp street. The late-night card sharks have gone home, leaving upturned garbage bins and whole decks of miniature cards bent out of shape and soaked in the puddles. The sky is turning white up above, behind the seven-storeys and the oaks. You walk faster, you bump into the silent denizens who sneak out of alleyways, you are desperate to find an open space to see the dawn before it's all given away.

You arrive at Montmartre, or Montparnasse, or Champ de Mars, and you get the view, but really you've missed it. The true twilight is behind you, where you rushed and squirmed away, between the 19th-century stones, under the orange streetlight, a few feet above the ancient catacombs. It was in the whiskered stare, the bridge kiss, the ghosted bench. Paris's true dawns are never caught by the camera or on a height. The lens can only suggest a better mist.

Rue des Cloys
18 arrondissement

Boulevard de Magenta
10 arrondissement

Sacré-Cœur, Montmartre
18 arrondissement

Montmartre
18 arrondissement

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Archer : Thank-you

Dear Archer,

You ended, after all, with a bang. 'Bang' being a euphemism for 'accident', or vice-versa. It felt more like the former to me, because a speeding taxi ploughed straight into your left side, right below where I sat. In mid-air I prepared for my bones to shatter, my blood to spurt, my skin to rip. And then we landed, caught our breath, and I saw that your whole frame had barely shifted, and we were both uninjured. My door wouldn't open, so I climbed out the window, and walked towards the completely ruined taxi, its front crumpled right up to the windshield. I waded through the smoke to ensure the taxi was empty, and then helped the gathering men unhook the batteries and shut down the totalled car. I looked back to you, Archer, chauffeured by Al to the side of the road; from a distance you looked almost fully intact. You were still running. That's when I realised you had saved my life.

We bought you a few months ago, just north of London, for a few hundred pounds less than the asking price, and a few thousand pounds less than our maximum budget would allow. Though you weren't in perfect condition, it only took a matter of days to learn that you were a steal. I don't just mean that because of your engine, design, make, and size. You were also one damn good looking automobile.

Almost immediately after we took possession and brought you up to north Wales, the comments started to come in. They were nothing compared to the flattering things we'd later hear in Africa (where it was less about the compliment, more about the covet; at least a dozen people offered to buy you on the spot), but they were very kind nonetheless: your great size, long enough to lie in; your model series, the famous Hilux; and of course, your gigantic engine. Everyone winked when they talked about your engine.

We also heard a few stories about the world-renowned Hilux. The only line of trucks used in the Arctic: Hilux. Militaries around the world, when they learn the inadequacies of Land Rover: they use the Hilux (this was confirmed at that Guinean military camp we drove through, remember?). Once, someone left their Hilux on a beach, let the tide come in to submerge it totally, and when the tide went back out, they got back in and drove away. And, some car show in the UK was once testing trucks, and dropped one of each of the best ones from the top of a six-storey building. All the trucks were destroyed beyond repair, save one. The driver walked up to the fallen truck, opened the door, got in, turned the key, and drove out of the hollow building. That truck was a Hilux.

Our hearts beamed and our faces blushed when we talked about you across Europe and Africa. I waited for the question, "what sort of truck is this?" I think you got us out of a bribe or cadeau a couple times at least, not because the official was so impressed, no. Because he couldn't shut me up about you.

I'd like to think you had a good time before we came along, but I know that's not absolutely true. You were built in Japan, in 1995 (you are a 1996 version), but not loved enough to remain there. Maybe you were one of too many in your homeland? Or maybe someone saw in you a bigger profit? In any case, you were shipped to the UK, with your Japanese-language instruction manual and sun-visor safety warnings intact; and you were sold, and driven, and sold, and driven, and sold, and driven. A few years ago you were stolen, driven all the way down to the Balkans, recovered, returned, and sold once more. Your chassis number was scratched off at some point in this taste of grand theft auto, which has caused us a couple headaches. Eventually, you ended up in the hands of a friendly man in Hatfield, who had a blast with you around the British Isles, pushing your mileage past 200,000, but for one reason or another he couldn't afford the luxury anymore, and had to list you on AutoTrader.co.uk. That's where we found you, like a child floating in a basket. A big child, yes. It must have been a reinforced steel basket with ballast systems and a good keel. Anyways, you made it down the stream, up to Wales, and now down here, to the Ivory Coast.

Now, I don't want anyone to think we made it this whole way without our share of problems. We all know that you're a hot item, a real scenery-buster with lots of torque and crimson red charm. But tough guys like you, the real ones, they shoot from the hip and come clean. Your odometer has not worked from the day we bought you to now, which has meant me writing the mileages and fuel intake down on loose-leaf paper, calculating distance and efficiency. Your propeller shaft was already worn out when we got you, and had to be replaced in Spain. Your handbrake was never that good, even after a repair in Menai Bridge. And since the African voyage? Engine oil leak, steering fluid leak, broken antenna, faulty brake discs, busted front frame, overused shocks, cracked front windshield and sunroof window, damaged universal joint, damaged front-right wheel frame, damaged frame pads, poorly installed batteries, poor electric cable connections, dead right turn light (I admit this one was totally me, when we jammed that tree into your frame on the road that wasn't a road, remember?) and just recently, a dead starting battery. All this before the accident. And all this natural, the punches and kicks and even the cheap-shots you took in the 10,000-round fight to get us where we needed to go.

The last hit was a full-on body blow, out of nowhere, with no chance to duck or block but only cringe, and even after two days of looking at your wounds I'm still surprised you can read this letter.

Yesterday morning was to be our last in Grand Bassam. We had our last breakfast by the beach, and the night before had finally packed all of our stuff into boxes and bags: one set to be carried with us overland to Gabon, from where we plan to get a plane over the bureaucratically-impassable Congo to our destination, Tanzania; one set to be shipped on ahead of us (Al's scuba kit, my files, a pair of jeans, etc.); and one set, the biggest, to go back with you to the UK. We had only one hour's drive, first to the parcel shipping office, then to drop you off at the Port of Abidjan, Quay 17. We were to have our carnet de passages stamped one last time at the dystopian-sounding 'Bureau 9' before handing your keys over to the pier controller. He was then supposed to drive you onto the ship bound for Tilbury, rolling on and rolling off. Back in the UK you'd be sold by family, for as close to the price we got you for, and we'd most likely never see each other again. And I wouldn't have fully appreciated you.

As we pulled out onto the pot-holed road from the hotel and restaurant strip, which has been our home for the past three weeks, I inserted The Doors into your stereo, for good measure and better nostalgia (they broke you through some of the toughest roads). Jim Morrison was singing 'Love Her Madly' when the metal crashed and the tires screeched.

After we turned out onto the highway for Abidjan and I looked left at the taxi a second before it hit. I think you know how I felt in that brief moment. But in retrospect, I find it interesting that the cab driver didn't put on the brakes, and didn't veer off into the ditch. By doing one of these, let alone both, he could've avoided hitting you altogether. But he didn't, and I wonder if he was just playing on his phone; or, maybe he saw you, saw the chance, and didn't stop it. Maybe he'll get a big insurance payout? Maybe he sacrificed his car, which is a write-off, and risked his own health for a nice stack of settlement cash, which our insurance will surely cover?

I couldn't say, but either way it shows what the driver thought of his car. I want you to know, as we now come so close to parting, that I would never do that to you. I would never hurt you for money.

Give you to someone else for money, well, that's different. And that's what we're doing. You see, this whole episode may have worked out for the best. We didn't pay for the shipping to the UK, and 30 minutes after the accident when Al was at the police station and I was guarding your open passenger window which wouldn't close, a mechanic arrived and offered to buy you. He asked how much, and I said more than we got you for plus the money we paid for the new shocks. He gave a tentative yes. So now we've cleared you through customs (I have to admit, Archer, that we listed you as scrap-metal... it's just for the paperwork, I promise) and are now negotiating with the mechanic, who is taking his time, presumably, to find the funds. We'll have to ship a load of boxes to the UK, but overall, we should come out ahead, much better than anticipated - all because you took the hit.

Now, I think the mechanic has friendly eyes. He's kind and considerate, and really likes the look of you; he's perhaps more desperate to buy than we are to sell, thinking of you (as everyone does) as a winner. He'll be good to you. He will need to do a few things: heal your wound, of course, but also move the drive-side from right to left, which I can imagine is a big operation - and which justifies the ruthless scrap-metal description. When he's finished, he might sell you, or he might keep you. Perhaps that's up to you and your behaviour. But while I can't promise that your new owner will take as good care of you as we have, I can say they'll fall head over heels. Not literally, of course.

Whatever happens, I hope they don't remove the flower-necklace we draped over your rear-view mirror. It suits you, Archer. We'll miss you.

Good luck,

QM