How to drive a sept-place

So far, I’ve spent a grand total of 28 hours traveling between Senegalese cities in the shared “bush taxis” known here as sept-place.  Each experience has been quite unique, as no one seems to have standardized the sept-place driving process.  

No one, until now that is.  Ladies and gentlemen, here it is: the world’s first comprehensive guide to becoming a sept-place driver.  

1. Obtain a 5-seater Peugeot station wagon from the 1980s.  

2. Remove all non-essential parts.  Non-essential parts include the odometer, door handles, dashboard, all casing, etc.

3. Add a third row of seats to the back of the car where a station wagon’s trunk would normally be.  This row should be raised to a height where the head of an average American male brushes the ceiling of the car.  With three passengers in this new back seat configuration, you can now “comfortably” fit seven passengers (hence sept-place) in your Peugeot.  

4. Head to a nearby gare routiere and loudly announce the destination of your car until you gather seven travelers with the same rough itinerary.  This is best done at 6 in the morning or earlier.  If you are in a rural area, you’ll need nine travelers.  Two will share the front passenger seat and four will squeeze into the middle row.  The order in which passengers are allowed to enter the car should be decided by an opaque procedure only loosely based on the order in which tickets are purchased.

5. Load up your much-reduced trunk space and roof rack with all baggage, chickens, motorcycles, furniture, and goats. Chickens should be packed tightly in wood crates with squirming beaks and necks sticking out at sad angles.  If any particular chicken makes too much noise, it should be slapped in the face. Goats should have their legs bound together and placed on the roof under a bicycle.

6. Drive to your friend’s house.  Pay him back for something by throwing bills out the window.  Drive to your other friend’s house.  Pick up some food.  Get gas, get on the highway.  

7. Obtain questionable insurance documents from the nearest small town, but only if you know you’ll be passing through a military checkpoint on your route.

8. At random intervals, pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, and engage in bizarre business transactions in small villages.  Do not explain your activities to your passengers under any circumstances.

9. You will likely encounter truly massive potholes along your route.  Wait until the last minute and then swerve violently to avoid these.  On many roads, there may be more pothole than pavement.  When this occurs, your best technique is to drive with half your car on the road and the other half in the dirt track along the side, so the entire car is tilted at a 10 degree angle.

10. Do not stop for food or bathroom breaks unless explicitly commanded to do so by a desperate passenger.

11. Upon reaching your destination city, unceremoniously dump your passengers in the city’s gare routiere, leaving them disoriented in the middle of a muddy crowded market full of sept-place drivers aggressively recruiting passengers for their own journeys.

12. If your car encounters mechanical difficulties, pull over to the side of the road and get out of the car.  It is imperative that you not explain anything to your passengers.  Get out your toolbox and bang on appropriate parts until the car can move in a forward direction once more.  If necessary, remove some seemingly essential parts, such as half an axle.  If a permanent fix is not available, head to the nearest main road, and bargain angrily with other passing transport vehicles to secure passage to the nearest town for your previous passengers.  Ideally, this alternate vehicle should already be filled to capacity, and include a massive writhing cow on the floor of the seating area.

13. Repeat steps 4 through 12.

Hugs from Ziguinchor!

Gene