The Walk Home

I could take the bus, but I prefer walking home after my language sessions.  The forty minutes give me a chance to process, to decompress without being jostled by the rush-hour hordes on public transportation.

The first few blocks coming from the language center are always packed.  People wait for buses, and then there's a mad collective scramble to get on.  Someone is always hanging on the side when they pull away.

I step between business men, students, mothers with babies on their back, my natural speed-walking pace slowed down somewhat.  When the crowd is thick, I pull my already small shoulders closer together and doggedly wiggle my way through.

Two rond-points, one right next to the other, are congested with traffic.  Nobody is following the signs, of course.  At this time of day, there are often officers directing traffic with shrill blows of a whistle, much gesticulation, and shouting.  Drivers get impatient sometimes and forge their own paths, cutting across lanes and onto sidewalks.  Moto drivers are the worst.  I've been nearly run over by them more than a few times.

After the second rond-point, I turn down a side street that takes me into a quieter neighborhood.  Here, bougainvilleas cascade over walls.  They come in a dozen colors - more than I ever knew existed before I lived here - and they're a bright spot against the endless sand and sand-colored buildings.  A horse cart rumbles past, stirring up a tremendous dust cloud.  I cover my face with the dangling tails of my headscarf and cough repeatedly.

The phone credit vendor on the corner sees me and calls out a greeting.  I reply and turn again, this time to follow another main street.  The sidewalk is wider and there is little danger of getting run over here.

I pass the Catholic school, a supermarché, some fruit and vegetable stands, and various shops.  Some sell ready-made clothes, some are tailors' shops, some sell cosmetics and handbags.  A creepy mannequin stares out one of the windows and even though I know it's there, it still startles me.

The sun beats down, merciless and inescapable.  My shirt clings to me and I feel sweat trickle down my neck, but I'm more than halfway home.  The sidewalk ends and I trudge through the sand.  I can feel it coat my sticky feet, rubbing underneath the sandal straps.  I distract myself by looking at the roadside nursery, full of all kinds of dust-covered plants in brightly painted pots, and then at the makeshift goat-pen a little farther along.

A bus screeches past me - one of only two lines into Hann Mariste - and judging by the sound of its brakes, this is one of the buses from the older line.

I need bread so I stop by one of the boutiques.  For 100 CFA (about 20 cents), I get a crusty baguette wrapped in newspaper.  I could stop by the bakery, but their bread is different and I've grown accustomed to the airier baguettes - the ones with crust so thin it shatters everywhere when you cut it - that the boutiques sell.  It's the kind Angèle always buys.

The gas station is within sight.  I'm almost home.  I cut through the parking lot and briefly entertain the notion of popping into the little superette for some jam, then decide against it.  I just want to get home and change into fresh, unsweaty clothes.

Past two more boutiques, some boys kicking a soccer ball, and a girl getting her hair braided on her front steps, and then I turn the last corner in this sea of sand.

My neighbors wave and we chat for a bit, little Simeon coming over to shake my hand as he always does.  I head inside and up the stairs to my fourth-story apartment.  The sun is dipping lower and the rooms are in shadows.  I flip on the kitchen light and listen to the collective dinner sounds in my apartment building - mortar pounding rhythmically, onions sizzling, and pots clanging - while I fix my own meal.