Amadou had a good onion harvest. In Niger they are well and exported to neighboring nations. He decided to do without intermediaries and sell them directly in the Fada N’Gourma market, in Burkina Faso. He climbed the sacks in his motocarro. They protruded everywhere. Attached with strings, they formed a kind of balancing puzzle. They gave the impression that they were going to spread at any time. But it was not so. The road was long and the speed at which it could circulate slow due to the load it transported. He ate from the cassava and fruit flour that he carried in his ditch. He boiled tea at each stop he made. When the night arrived, he lay on a raffia mat next to his vehicle. Thus, spending the minimum, with a lot of patience and continuously asking Allah to go as planned, Amadou came to his destination on the fourth day of having left his home.
In the market things went well. Niger onions are highly appreciated. He could get good money for them. After thinking a little, he decided to invest his profits to multiply them. There he acquired plastic objects made in Ghana. Cubes, sweeps, plates, glasses and, above all, teapots (widely used in mosques for ablutions or in homes to go to service). It was a good business. Back to his house, he would travel the towns and markets in the area to sell them and get a good benefit. With him he could expand onions planting next year and thus get greater profits.
Amadou loaded the new sacks in the motocarro. Again he organized a fantasy that challenged the laws of gravity. He launched with the same plan that had taken him there. I hoped to be back at home in four days. He wanted to see his wife. They had been married for a year and she waited for the first child. Therefore, he worried to make money to take care of his family. “We are a young marriage that we want to give our children a life much better than ours,” he said.
About 50 kilometers from his town, a river wheel was punctured. Amadou could not continue. If he left the vehicle to go looking for a mechanic, they would steal the load. If he stayed there, he would never get home. That is why he stopped the first vehicle that passed by after more than six hours of waiting. Thanks to the driver’s translation, the traveler who goes to him can know the story of Amadou.
There is a workshop at half an hour on the way. The driver takes Amadou up there. The traveler is sitting in the shadow of the motocarro reading and watching. Two hours later, they return with the mechanic and a replacement wheel. The traveler follows the route with the plastic teapot that the merchant has given him in gratitude.
In the upper image, the carromato of Amadou loaded and with the punctured wheel. Photography: Chema Caballero
