If you’re willing to indiscriminately pick up hitchhikers, you’ll never be lonely driving in Africa. My truck was usually packed with hitchhikers. My record was driving 14 hitchhikers simultaneously (several were on the roof rack). Since I spent about 2,000 days in Africa, I could conservatively estimate that I picked up 3,000 African hitchhikers.
Rural Africans often walk everywhere. In Guinea, cars are rare and most can’t afford to pay for a ride anyway. Women carry a shocking number of things on their heads. Men rarely carry much.
Whenever I saw anyone carrying a heavy load, I offered them a ride. Few would turn me down, especially once they saw that my truck was carrying half of their village.
Around sunset, I would ask my hitchhikers if they knew a safe place to camp. Often, they would invite me to stay with them.
For example, in Tegunda, Mamadou Kaira Kamera invited me to stay in his two-house compound. Each house was for one of his Fulani wives. He set up a surprisingly modern two-person tent for me to sleep in. Mamadou’s two wives, his parents, one of his mother-in-laws, two of his brothers and at least a dozen children lived in his compound.
The lean Mamadou wore a Muslim cap and outfit. The curvy women covered themselves with colorful cloth. When the mafe hako bantara (cassava leaf sauce) and rice were ready, the family segregated themselves by gender and encircled the large platters.
Mamadou, as head of the household, got a special plate with extra meat, as did I. We were also the only ones who had chairs. Everyone else sat on mats. After dinner, it was time to play.
While the females cleaned up the dishes and gave the leftovers to the livestock, the men played checkers. The handcrafted board and pieces were made of wood. One player had squares, the other had circles. Since there was no electricity, a single dim flashlight illuminated the board. I brought out my high-powered light for filming. Everyone marveled at how it lit up the scene. The kids surrounded the checkers board while the men competed. They lacked a table, so the two opponents balanced the board on the knees as they faced each other in their chairs. Children quietly observed the match. They were extremely well-behaved.
In high-income countries, we spend the evening staring at screens. In contrast, entertainment in low-income countries is simpler, more social, and, fundamentally, more human.
The next morning, they offered me deep-fried balls of dough and tea. One of Mamadou’s wives breastfed under a mango tree. The oldest women picked through dried beans and rice to remove pebbles and other impurities. One house was built with bricks in 1989 and the other in 2010. You could still see the concrete between the bricks. Only the metal doors that protected the entrances had been painted.
Inside, the homes were dark since there was rarely any electricity. Still, they had two TVs and a satellite dish. They would use a generator when they needed electricity. Twice a week the family would watch TV until the fuel ran out.
The beds had mosquito nets. They had two motorcycles. Children sometimes cried but were surprisingly docile overall. Their cornfield was next to the compound. Phone service first came to their area in 2012. Before leaving, I asked Mamadou what he thought of his country. He said, “We have gold, minerals, and fertile soil, but there are no jobs. We haven’t found a good president to lead us.”
A farmer reveals what he will do when he gets rich
Although Guinea’s population is only 15 million, it’s the size of the UK. Because Guinea’s roads are so disastrous, it would take me a few days to Sierra Leone. I rarely got out of second gear because the roads were so uneven. The roads near Lisan were typical. It took me two hours to drive 18 kilometers. It would take three and a half hours to walk it.
A 45-year-old hitchhiker named Salemu Drami invited me to film his farm. He had a medium build. His ears protruded. He had a buzz cut and a faint mustache. One tooth was missing; the others were misaligned. He wore a brown lightweight jacket. His yellow shirt and blue pants were torn. Like any sensible farmer, he wouldn’t wear his best clothes when he’s working in the field. Instead of wearing rubber boots during the rainy season, he wore pink flip-flops. He had one wife and six children. His father had four wives and “about 20 children.” When I asked if he was his father’s fourth or fourteenth child, he said, “I have no idea.”
Unlike most Guineans, Salemu could speak English. That’s because from 1993 to 1998, he lived in the capital of Liberia during its civil war. He was making “good money selling clothes and cosmetics.” When business slowed, he returned to Guinea to “make a good future plan.” Key to that plan was growing coffee, mango, and palm trees on his farm. As we walked through brooks and over wooden fences, he explained, in his broken English, why ideas are more powerful than money, “Because to give me cash money is not a help. Because if the cash money finish and I don’t have another idea to get money, it’s still difficult.”
A 40-meter wide brown river rolled by his verdant property. Brown rivers are abundant in Guinea. His neighboring farmers cleared vegetation with machetes because they didn’t have tractors. I’m no farmer but, compared to American farms, the Guinean farmland looked disorganized. Instead of efficient rows of plants, there was a chaotic and seemingly haphazard mix of species. Perhaps there was a science and a logic to their designs, but it didn’t look that way. I asked Salemu what he would do if his farm became successful. He said, “If I get the opportunity to get another wife, I will need it.”
I said, “Why do you need another wife?”
“I need another wife in case one is not there, the other one will be there. If the other one is sick, the other one will be well. So we can put our hands together and help each other. I don’t want three or more wives because the expenses would be much on me. Two is enough for me.”
“How will your wife react when you tell her you’re getting a second wife?”
“She will be happy because I will tell her. If she says that she’s not happy, I will try to find another one. I don’t see my wife much. She far. I no fuck my wife while she’s breastfeeding because if I do, baby get sick. So I need another wife.”
