By TAMBA JEAN-MATTHEW
DAKAR
After plying the streets
of Dakar for nearly 60 years, the French-built Renault (Saviem-G4)
buses are expected to be retired soon and a few of them sent to a Paris
museum.
The buses are arguably the oldest public
service vehicles to be found anywhere on the continent, but are kept
going thanks to skilful mechanics who mostly improvise while scrounging
for spare parts.
Gifted artists give them a resplendent facelift.
All
the gears that were originally attached to the steering wheel have been
converted to sit on the floor, while even the gearboxes as well as the
front and back axles, fuel tanks, pumps and filters are reconditioned
many times, or modified altogether.
NO TRACE OF ORIGINAL
The
only original parts on the buses are not even the windshields, many of
which have been modified in several ways to fit the frames. Rather, they
are the aluminium frames.
But even these have been
reinforced with metal bars and their rough and unpolished edges have led
to severe injuries to less careful or unsuspecting passengers.
Quarrels, insults and even fist-fights are a permanent ordeal inside the buses.
Such
tribulations are caused by passengers who sustain injuries or damage to
their clothes, or crews who refuse to hand over change to passengers,
or pick pocketing, or arguments and gossip on politics, or overloading,
or when rainwater penetrates and soaks passengers through the rusted and
perforated roofs during the rainy season.
Inside the
permanently overloaded buses, passengers wear plastic bags over their
heads and prefer to stand rather than sit on the wet seats when it
rains. The buses are slow but ironically are called carrapides
(rapid buses) even though they can spend up to three hours to reach a
destination other state-owned buses spend only 45 minutes to get to.
Many
of the buses have no windows to protect passengers from rain, though
fortunately Senegal is a country where the rainy season is short.
A
very annoying feature of the buses is the frequent and random stops
they make to pick up and drop passengers, which causes traffic jams. The
buses are known not to respect signal lights.
And
despite the several deadly accidents they cause, the owners of these
buses, which some people call “roaming caskets”, still believe their
jalopies have a place in the public transport system.
This has been fuelling the war of words between the government of Senegal and the often well-connected owners.
The
precise ownership of the 1,000-plus buses is usually kept secret, but
is attributed to a chain of invisible but influential former and current
government functionaries.
Even drivers — the majority
of them younger than the buses — believe their vehicles should be
considered relics, fit only for the museums.
But all
indications show that the state authorities are most likely to win the
ongoing tug-of-war, the latest in a series that have been on and off for
decades and through which the carrapides have usually prevailed.
A car rapide on the streets of Dakar.
GOVERNMENT'S TAKE
According
to Mr Alioune Tine, a Transport ministry official, the government will
offer commuters an alternative through modern Indian and Chinese-made
buses operated on a work-and-pay basis.
This time round, the government is determined to make the buses a thing of the past by 2018.
“The carrapides
have outlived their usefulness after having rendered immense service to
this country and its people, including foreigners who visit us. But it
time they went away definitely,” Mr Tine said.
There
are people who believe the government lost previous battles with the
“roaming caskets” because of black magic. Such superstitious types
suggest that paraphernalia like cow, sheep, goat and camel tails, or
corrie shells sewn around leather amulets, or even the left-foot shoes
of children, have considerably reduced or prevented more deadly
accidents.
Environmentalists and health activists have
in particular laid the blame for pollution and respiratory problems
faced by Dakar residents squarely on the carrapides.
In
France and elsewhere in Europe, the buses and their traditional yellow,
blue, green and red colours — which correspond to the national colours
of Senegal — have been seen as the symbol of the country.
Elderly European tourists who first glimpsed the car rapides when they were young in the 1950s, watch the buses in amazement whenever they visit Dakar.
When
the termination of the buses was initially mooted, the well-placed
owners moved fast to still the rumour, apparently while pulling strings
behind the scenes.
GLORY DAYS GONE
Mr
Alain Epelboin, the director of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, told
Radio France International that the Renault Saviem G4 buses had once
upon a time been very useful in Europe before they were sold to Africa.
“The
technical, mechanical and other skills, including painting and
designing and a series of magical protection and aesthetic objects,
which are unique to the Senegalese culture, have kept these buses up to
date,” he says.
“But ours is to safeguard and showcase
material and immaterial cultures and so we are performing our role by
looking forward to doing just that with the Senegalese car rapides.”
The
French conservator’s dream will come true soon when, on October 17, one
of the buses is shipped back to France and exhibited in front of the
Eiffel Tower.
This story first appeared on www.africareview.com