Transportation in Burkina Faso

We rode with a school group to a destination. This is a typical bus in Burkina Faso. To my knowledge, no mass transit exists at this time except for the green taxi's.

There are some semi trucks. I wanted folks to see that while things are very different, there are some similarities to the western world. There is a lot of other neat stuff in the picture I will comment on later.

Our trusty Mercedes. As you can see just because it is a Mercedes, these people are not living high. They do need our help, but just as importantly, our friendship and ideas. Here we are in the car repair. Big difference from what we are used to eh? This picture was very difficult to get. I will post on picture do's and don't later.

Typical family off for a ride on the motor scooter. Note Dad's work clothes and the baby tied to the mother. This is typical. I meant to get faces too, but I wanted the family actually moving. In the movement the faces were lost.

A man traveling to or from his little street side store. He is carrying goods on the back of his bicycle. He is dressed in traditional Burkina male attire.
By the way, this is the front of my American friend's house. The shack out front is a little hut for the driver and guard to sit in to escape the sun and heat.

This is a green taxi. This is a typical street scene during a busy time of day.

Donkey cart! He is hauling sand.

What a topic! There are a few late model vehicles. Most of them are 4 wheel drive because even busy roads are not paved and can be impassable especially during the rainy season. I did ride in a couple of the newer cars. One was with my friend from the US. Her family had a Toyota station wagon and they employed a driver. (more on that in a bit) The others were families whom cars were provided by the place of employment. One was the government, the other was Catholic Relief Services.
Everyone else was driving themselves and most had what Americans call old rattle traps. (Now we proudly own the hoopty, so buckets of bolts if they run good, are nothing to stick your nose up at.) I think most were Mercedes which does say a lot about how good the cars are, but I think they are stripped out in the home country and then shipped over. Once here, whatever seats can be found are bolted in. No adjustment options, some were missing windows, seat belts-what are those? Comfort controls, tape decks (remember those?) etc were long gone. The people who did have them really cherished them.
Now people are very proud of their cars no matter what shape they are in. They have helped a country who is not industrialized for the most part become mobile. The weather conditions there are mild-temps never dip below 60* F so no heat or missing windows is really not a bother too much.
I watched people a lot. I mean after all I was there to understand the life our girls live. People lucky enough to have cars kept them immaculate. Not easy with all the red sand/clay and no vacuum cleaners. They also lock them religiously no matter where they are. I assume hot wiring is a popular hobby for the dubious characters in the community.
People were very generous about rides. Some, I think, wanted to be a part of this American person who came all the way to Burkina to stay with the people. But I think it is just how things are, too. If you need a ride, someone who has transportation is pretty cooperative about getting you where you need to go.
Motor scooters are very popular and plentiful now. I did see a few motor cycles on the last day. And mopeds are also plentiful, but motor scooters rule. They are what most people have.
Bicycles are owned by most everyone, even the very poor.
And people still walk...a lot and a long ways by most American standards. However, I doubt you would ever see an extremely obese person there. You just have to get too much exercise!
Then there is the green taxi's. They cost about 30 cents which is not small change in Burkina. They will take you wherever you need to go. Rakieta uses the green taxi to go back and forth to school.
My favorite of course, was the donkey carts. They use them like we use pick ups and dump trucks. I assume you would hire a donkey man for things like moving concrete or bricks. Although maybe the brick and concrete people keep their own supply of donkeys and carts much like a concrete business keeps a fleet of trucks here.

In my mind, I think transportation methods rank very high in the minds of the people. So I think they will forfeit food to save or pay for a mode of transportation. In fact I know that to be the case because Rakieta's family is hungry quite often, but they have motor scooters and her dad has even somehow ended up with a car. I am not sure if it runs. I do know he can't afford to learn to drive or put gas in it yet so it sits in the compound to be admired. They live very far out so his logic is that they need the car even if they can't use it yet.

I'll post separately about the roads in part 2.