
‘Where Is This Flight Going?’ and Other Basic Questions About African Travel - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/insider/where-is-this-flight-going-and-other-basic-questions-about-african-travel.html
======
sangnoir
As an African, this article leaves me exasperated for so many reasons. Broad
generalizations and conspicuously missing airline names for the most
incredible accusations (meaning the stories can't be independently verified).

Africa is not a country, it has 1 billion people and 54 nations; that is more
than the number of states in the US, generalizations this broad are a
disservice. This article is the equivalent of "'Did you marry your cousin?'
and other basic question about American marriages" with examples from
Mississippi and Alabama. No offence.

~~~
juped
I felt this comment was very much needed, but it would be even better without
the racist cheap shot at the end.

Some satire might get your point across better:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao6lSJG0Jnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao6lSJG0Jnk)

~~~
vinay427
I don't really see that as a racist cheap shot. The whole point of the comment
was to expose the narrow view of the article, which was in my opinion done
effectively by translating it to a generalization that some Americans may take
offense with. I certainly don't think the commenter meant it as a racist
remark from his/her perspective, but rather as an equivalent racist remark
that one might say.

------
kobayashi
I wanted to post my favourite quote from the article, but honestly, it has too
many gems to pick just one.

>Another friend told me a security officer once confiscated the mangos he was
taking as a gift — but only the soft, ripe, delicious, juicy ones, which the
officer said were classified as a liquid and therefore banned.

> On the return trip the pilot announced the plane needed to make an unplanned
> stop — to refuel. The plane descended onto the runway in Freetown, Sierra
> Leone, and the passengers shuffled into the airport. The crew proceeded to
> take up a collection. That’s right: They hit up the Dakar Jaguars middle
> school swim team for gas money.

>Days before, the local paper had published a story about Camair-Co’s new
fleet under the headline “Flying Coffins.” The government assured the public
that the planes were safe.

>I bought my ticket and boarded the Camair-Co flight under lighted signs that
warned of bans against flying with opium or uppers or “palm oil, honey, etc.”
I’m not a savvy enough traveler here yet to know what the “etc.”

------
Terretta
Grew up in this capital.

Pretty sure my comfort with ambiguity and 'agile' planning is a result.

You simply cannot plan for these eventualities. You have to become adaptive.

------
cdubzzz
Some travel highlights of my time in Butkina were:

\- An 18 hour trip to get roughly 300km. On the very last leg we took a detour
in our bush taxi down what was very clearly only a bike trail. The van got
stuck on a tree and as we waited one of the drivers took my bike off and just
rode away. Turned out he was riding out to get someone from the village we
were detouring to.

\- During a 20 some hour bus ride to Ghana, a dude popped out in the road and
shot at the bus. After the driver pulled over the guy came in and fired a few
times down the center of the bus and husseled everyone off. I was just
starting a vacation with a number of friends so they got _a lot_ of cash.
Eventually when I felt brave enough to look up I saw the Ghana police firing
randomly in the woods (Impressively they got there is about 10 minutes). As we
were telling the police how much they toke, one of them said in adorable
English, "Oh! They sure had a field day, haha".

\- On a trip from Ghana we ended up hitch hiking and got a ride from a former
head of the presidential guard in a sweet minivan. The dude was super nice but
a crazy driver. Among the multiple times I thought we would die, he went to
pass a long truck while another huge one was hurtling towards us for a head on
collision. Instead of backing off or slowing down, he casually jammed the gas
and swerved off road (which had a solid six inch drop) to get around it.

So many more hilariously insane experiences. Lots of fun.

~~~
spacehome
I'm not jealous.

------
maxander
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this article- a bunch of anecdotes about
African airline service being sub-par isn't exactly the sort of reporting one
associates with the NYT.

And at the same time, it just glosses over the line "A hearty four-wheel drive
could take [bad African roads] on, but the threat of kidnapping-prone
terrorist groups has made some road travel extremely dangerous." Is the threat
of organized violence prevalent enough to impact road travel on a substantial
portion of the continent? That would be a big deal!

