Public Transportation, Africa-style

Ramadan has begun, but since I chose not to fast I haven't really felt the affects. (I'm sure we will when we try to go out this weekend, though...) A few other students chose to, even if they don't practice Islam. The thought of going without food or drink from sunup to sundown for an entire month seems less than appealing, especially in this heat. I also thought that it would mean less to me because I'm not Muslim. I am starting to see that this time is not one of deprivation, but instead a reaffirmation of faith and a time when one can truly reflect on religion, even if not a practicing Muslim. This lasts for a whole month, so I'm going to have to start to appreciate the 'cultural' experience.
Today I had my afternoon free so I went downtown with a small group of fellow CIEE students and one Suffolk student from Burkina Faso. This downtown adventure was just that, an adventure. The museum is called the IFAN Museum, but there is also an IFAN Research center. The first bus we took told us to get off at the research center and I made our friend from Burkina Faso ask around to figure out where we were; he discovered we were miles from our desired destination so we had to get back on the bus and continue downtown. At least it only costs a flat fee of 150 CFA Francs per ride, the equivalent of about 20 cents, which allows for mistakes. When we finally got there we discovered that we were the only people at the museum and the guard had to turn the lights on for us. It was every stereotypical African artifact you can think of and more. I'm pretty sure some of the designers from Pier 1 Imports have come here before. We took the bus back around 6:30pm...bad idea. This is the time when Muslims break the fast because the sun sets around 7pm. It was remarkable how many people they fit into the bus, it was standing room only and I almost couldn't reach a pole to hold on. Since everyone has witnessed my inability to balance, I'm sure you can imagine that would've been ugly. Add to that the lack of air conditioning and it was pretty much like being in a club late at night after everyone's been sweating all night...yuck. It almost makes me lose motivation to learn the bus system, which of course has no real set schedule or available maps, a real let down for touristy people such as myself. I'm really not sure how they all figure it out. At least the five people with me were the only other white people on the bus and thus easy to find when we needed to get off. Since we have mastered the more conventional buses, called the Dem Dikk we are thinking about moving onto the Car Rapides which are colorful small buses that are old and super-cheap (about 15 cents a ride). They're trying to phase them out, but they are a national symbol so we'll have to try the experience on our own at least once. These are even more ambiguous as to their route (at least the Dem Dikk have numbers, which I'm sure mean something...) so I think we'll have to be more familiar with the city before trying this mode of public transportation.