Sai Hankuri

the Starlet.

For the last few weeks I’ve spent a good deal of time searching for a car. This is not an easy task. There is no phonebook, few dealers, no craigslist. Like most things in Niamey, the answer lies in who you know. Indeed, to get anything done here, you tell a few friends what you need, what you want, and they tell a few people, and much like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, pretty soon you’ve struck gold. So, I put out the word. In the meantime, I’ve gone by some areas on the side of the road which one might call “dealerships” – where battered cars, having made an often three-decade -long voyage across seas, through ports, in and out of customs, and over the expansive passes of the Sahel come to see another day. Indeed, here one doesn’t ask what year a car is. One doesn’t ask about its history. And one certainly doesn’t ask how many kilometers. That said, tyro that I am, I can’t be certain what one does ask.

Which is probably why I’ve ended up with a car nearly older than I, which I don’t know how to drive, which appears to be leaking several liquids, and that will no longer start just three days after its purchase.

Ah yes, I introduce you to my Toyota Starlet. Everyone here tells me that if you want to know what a country’s most reliable car is, look to its taxis. In hindsight, I question the credibility of such claims. Still, look I did.

“In Niger, nothing is trash. Nothing is finished”.

Indeed, open the hood of a Nigerien car and you’ll see broken pieces of foam flip-flops holding batteries in place. Wires, twigs, cloth, folded cigarette boxes, and other pieces of miscellanea replace factory-fitted connections, plugs, and parts. Almost everyone knows a bit about cars here. Anyone can pop a hood, pull out some tube from the engine, put the tube in their mouth and suck out some gasoline to stop a blockage. When a car dies, every man from 8 to 80 years-old is summoned by an unspoken sense of communal duty to push until the tired battery sputters back to life.

Today I took advantage of such duties. Through streets that often resemble sand dunes we pushed the Starlet forward and backwards. We took the battery out and walked it down the way to a grass hut where a 14 year old boy watched a broken television while charging half a dozen car batteries with various wires that spewed sparks dangerously close to the walls make of kindle.

And the amazing part? It works.

No, I don’t know how to drive stick yet. No, it isn’t getting any younger (nor is that Flinstones-esque hole getting any smaller). And no, I can’t guarantee that it will start tomorrow. But, with some rope, a bit of know-how, and a few bucks, my Starlet should get me where I need to go. And, as the men here joke, no one will want to kidnap anyone driving a Toyota Starlet.