The Moto Capital

A magazine dubbed Ouagadougou “the moto capital,” and with good reason – there are motos (aka mopeds) everywhere! Most of the Burkinabe people we know have a moto rather than a car (if they have a vehicle at all). Here’s one of our language teachers, Salif, with his moto:


Along the main roads, motos have their own side roads, which are shared with bicycles:


On smaller roads, such as the ones downtown and around the Centre Baptiste, motos whiz past cars, trucks, bikes, pedestrians, vendors, guys pushing wooden carts … basically anything that moves. The roads here are chaotic.

Since we do not have a car, we either walk everywhere or take a taxi or bus (or beg rides from missionaries who have vehicles). Some taxi drivers aren’t very personable, but this guy was really friendly and let us take his picture (that's Jesse in the front with him):


Most prices in Burkina Faso are negotiable, so taxi rides cost anywhere between 20 cents and $1 per person, depending on where you’re going, how many people are riding with you, and how well you can bargain. The color of the taxi also makes a difference. The green taxis are easy to find on the street and pick up different passengers as they go along (which means we sometimes end up sharing taxis with strangers). If we want someone to pick us up at the Centre, we call a white taxi – and of course they charge more for that service.

When we move to Cote d’Ivoire in April, we’re supposed to get our own vehicle. It will be great to have readily available transportation, but at the same time, it’s been good for us to live this way for awhile. It definitely helps us relate to the Africans who have no personal transportation at all.