VIP travel to Bamenda is a nightmare come true

               

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s a fact but I sincerely believe words mean something. Each word captures a distinct construct. In fact I believe words have odours. They are not just idle creations but nets with which we capture our reality. Words conjure images. As the natural offspring of letters, they trigger a particular ensemble of expectations that must be met by their users? So pardon me for having a problem and maybe more with the so- called “VIP” travel offer of some transport agencies.

              Just like I have been accustomed to lately, I had to travel (from Yaounde to Bamenda) and so found myself at a travel agency. After inquiring about the most recent fare (I take nothing for granted, so I always ask), I was told CFAF 5650 for the standard bus and CFAF 6000 for the VIP bus offer. The latter was mouthwatering (or is it mindwatering?) as it brought back images of the comfort and serenity enjoyed while travelling VIP with agencies plying the Yaounde-Douala route. With this in mind, I decided to offer myself a treat and so I bought the VIP ticket. In retrospect, I think naivety and curiosity motivated my decision in almost equal measure. What else besides naivety can make you expect a VIP trip for extra CFAF 350? I was curious to know what a VIP trip to Bamenda felt and looked like (I wasn’t curious about how it sounded like because VIP trips don’t make or aren’t supposed to make any sound because they are so peaceful, I supposed].

               After paying, the dreary-looking car lot area, with no VIP-looking bus, that greeted my glance should have been the first indication that I should lower my expectations but I was too optimistic [or deluded in actual fact] to be my own journey pooper. What did I do? I overlooked this detail. It is only upon returning in the evening that my hopes started diminishing. Upon entering the agency grounds, something – a detail hit me – there was still no VIP-looking bus in the car lot, there were just standard untidy old buses stationed around. This is what hit me though: VIP-looking bus or not, weren’t both buses going to travel the same inconsistently comfortable road? Upon arrival at the untarred, potholed, scarred and deteriorated patch between Babadjou in the West Region and Akum in the North-West Region, was the standard bus going to trudge on painstakingly through the potholes while the VIP-looking bus develops wings, spreads them and soars over the rusty stretch, only landing to reconnect with the road and the standard bus where the road is hitchless? Opps, there goes a dent into my VIP treat. Eternal optimistic that I am, I put on a smile and hoped this realization would just be an aside in my trip. But the best was yet to come.

             Remember me telling you words conjure up images and expectations? A word like VIP brings along with it images of crisp cleanliness, calm, soothing silence and peace, a setting marked by politeness and courtesy. The preceding description has nothing to do with the mayhem that greeted me. The VIP bus I discovered when a luggage handler belched the boarding call was ... (how do I put it fairly; standard, mundane, uneventful ? [crappy sounds accurate]) crap. Inside I stumbled on greasy walls, mold-infested cushion seats, and rusty-aluminum edges here and there. Did I forget to mention the noise and my irksome co-passengers? I would be remit of my disappointment if I fail to mention “bush-meat feet” who added his smelly contribution to the edifice called my disappointment. He was the passenger seated directly behind me. Immediately after he boarded, a fowl pestilent rotting-meat odour stormed my nostrils. Shaken by this pungent onslaught  on my being,  I sniffed around for a plausible explanation only to stumble on this conversation between the bush-meat feet and his immediate neighbour:

“It seems like somebody has brought bush meat inside the bus” said the immediate neighbour looking around inquiringly.

“Eh eh, eh. No, it’s me. I have taken off my shoes,” Bush-meat feet replied in a hushed tone.

“Ah,” his immediate neighbour said with a tint of surprise as he tried to sneak peak at the guilty feet its owner was trying to hide by hurriedly rewearing his shoes.

“I think I will …… Let me wear them back” said Bush meat feet murmuringly.

“Yes, you should wear them and remove them when the car is moving. When the air will be passing,” added the immediate nieghbour. 

               This incident only helped to muddy my VIP experience. Fortunately, things only got worse. When I was about to relish some quiet time, a steady stream of hawkers started trickling in and out of the bus, taking turns in soliciting our attention. First came a young man who brandingly called himself "Pa Ngola" as he tried to dump his strange sweets with his standard refrain, “One packet 200, 3 packet 500. If you no get money nah, borrow  am time way you dee kam back so that you fee buy bonbon”. Hot on his heels came a bread seller, a toothbrush seller, and a merchant of salvation who ended on a high note, collecting an unsolicited impromptu offering. When they were done and the bus took off, I knew my VIP experience was in tatters but somehow I still found enough naivety in me to hope to salvage something. But the driver of the bus wasn’t going to have any of that with his rash and, let’s call a spade a spade, dangerously reckless driving, speeding along open stretches, flying over rugged patches, curving around bends, twisting and turning past potholes without the slightest reverence for road safety, passenger welfare or caution. If only this was the last beating my VIP trip had received, I won’t give up on VIP trips to Bamenda but there was more to come as upon arriving Santa, a voice raced into my ears and upon looking up I saw a man standing, apologizing for bordering us, sympathizing with us for the tedious trip and asking us to spare 5 to 10 minutes of our time so that he could share with us before delivering the standard pitch of African-herbal medicine selling sales men. This did it for me. This eroded any lingering hopes I had reserved that a VIP trip was possible from Yaounde to Bamenda, and even Douala-Bamenda now that I think of it. 

There is no and cannot be any VIP trip between Yaounde and Bamenda unless the Babadjou and Akum stretch is tarred, hawkers are prohibited from harassing passengers with their tangible and intangible wares, buses are sparkling clean and pimped [with working air-conditioning, TV sets and audio,] and safety-conscious drivers man these buses. Until all this is done then travelling VIP travel by road to Bamenda will always be dream or a nightmare come true. Sure you can accuse me of being unnecessarily demanding for giving just CFAF 6000 and yet expecting the world. But do not accuse me of raising my expectations when I see the word VIP. When one pays a little extra, one is entitled to a little extra and I am still wondering what is the little extra I got for paying a little extra. It certainly cannot be me arriving too early or in one piece. This is a given. Maybe the little extra was travelling in a bus with just two rows of seats on both sides of the bus instead of the bus with three and two rows respectively. If this is the case then it begs the question of whether or not we should revisit the notion of VIP in general or accept that there exists other subsets. VIP means something specific and should not be a word bus agencies use to exact [or is it extort] more money, no matter how small, from unsuspecting passengers like myself? “Les choses à verifier” someone would say.To put it more clearly, a VIP trip entails a safe, quiet, peaceful and bump-free ride but as things stand, this is not possible with the current state of the road entering Bamenda from the West Region. Even if one pays twice the standard fare, the VIP experience will be crushed the moment the cleanest air-conditioned, spacious and what-have-you bus hits the stretch in question.


*Pidgin for "One packet costs CFAF 200 and three packets cost CFAF 500. If you do not have any money now, borrow on your return trip so that can buy sweets."