Into town to collect photos and new visas. Finally made it to the police station where we discovered that we’d been issued with only single-entry visas and we can’t get them extended so we have to buy new visas - more bloody money and more bloody photos!
Only a few kilometres out of the city we slammed into the brick wall that is Niger bureaucracy. An official collected our passports for exit stamps, which took hours. We saw him leave his office at one point and we could only sit there waiting.
Finally on our way, we followed the Niger River, seeing mostly millet crops but only small, cultivated areas. It's crazy that they employ so many men for petty officialdom of collecting forms and stamping them, when they could better utilise that manpower cultivating crops and producing much needed food. Myrta commented that it was probably a matter of knowing someone's brother who could get you a cushy job.
We passed only a few villages before a late camp. Several villagers soon appeared on the edge of camp, including two beautiful women, one very old, the other much younger with intricate tribal facial scars and a tiny baby whose eyes were rimmed with flies that she didn’t shoo away. Our truck lights attracted a swarm of insects too.
Sat around the fire until late listening to a symphony of frogs from the river.
Add comment
Comments