A story about Mr Lo, Mr Diallo, Mme Bah, and Bollore

Some of my belongings had been stored for more than two years in Dakar when I finally pulled myself together, got on a plane, and faced the musty cardboard boxes R. had rescued from a damp garage. In 2009 a Senegalese by the name of Mr Lo had wrapped my belongings in old rice bags and shoved them in a container with wooden giraffe statues and other art bound for Senegal. His fee was so low I kept things I would have otherwise sold or thrown out, including a pair of leather designer boots gone crooked with wear. My stuff moved, but I didn’t -- I fell in love with C. and decided to stay.

Two years on, it was time to ship it back -- if nothing else, at least my books. R., puzzled by my helplessness, recommended I call Bolloré. They can send it by plane, she said, and it will be quick and affordable. I paired my possessions down to a heavy book case and two veranda chairs. Noisy neighborhood boys started a riot over two boxes I dumped on the street corner, and for entertainment we watched them punch each other over a Chinese-made bedside lamp. In the blink of an eye the street was littered with what I used to call my 'archives' until a woman intervened to grab the lamp and yell at the kids for making a mess. The looting spree was over as quickly as it had begun.



Bolloré made it sound easy indeed. An imposing Senegalese woman, curvaceous and tall, met me in front of the warehouse at the airport. I followed her upstairs into a freezing office, where she used the phone to bark orders at somebody of inferior status downstairs. Every time she put down the receiver she gave me a reassuring smile. “There is no problem,” she said. “No problem at all.” In local code, this meant I was going to have to pay a lot of money. She also started using my first name with a familiarity I found suspicious. She said it cost 367 euros and looked skeptical when I asked for a receipt – why didn’t I come back tomorrow, the receipt was just a formality. She remained vague on the details: once my things arrived in Abidjan, there would be no problem at all.

Back in the taxi my instinct told me I had just been conned, but I preferred to bask in the sense of relief that comes with having finished a dreaded chore. A total of 367 was expensive, but if that was all, I could live with it, I thought.

Mr Diallo from Bolloré Abidjan called five days after my return. My packages had arrived and could I please fetch them? Did I know I needed a taxpayer’s account to get them through customs? Did I realize the procedure might take several weeks while storage costs had to paid? “All in all,” he said, “it’s going to cost you about 430 euros. and that's an estimate.” I fell silent with shock, then protested loudly. It became clear that Ivorian customs would want to inspect my knickknacks and second-hand books, and that Bolloré was going to make me pay through the nose to get the stuff out of storage. It just didn't make sense. I didn’t tell Mr Diallo how much, at that particular moment, I hated his country.



Mr Diallo’s boss was more helpful. I impressed upon him, a fellow European, that I was deceived in Dakar and lost in a labyrinth of hair-raising bureaucracy. “You must get a transitaire -- they can do things we as a company simply can’t do, if you understand what I mean,” he said. In other words, I better recruit somebody to bribe my books out of the warehouse. Another month passed before I found Madame Bah, an unyielding negotiator in a traditional dress who had no time for smalltalk. I met her in front of Bolloré and she literally knew everybody. At the customs’ office, she told me we were going to perform a little play. The head of customs was going to say it was difficult if I did not have a taxpayer’s account, and I was going to say I had no money. And so it went. The bribe was 30 euros.

Madame Bah managed to get my things out of storage within a day. She said it was up to me to decide how much I’d pay her. I realized that wasn’t entirely true when I was presented with the final bill, which appeared to be rather high. Fortunately, Mr Diallo's boss had kept his promise to wave the storage fee. I paid Madame Bah handsomely; I just wanted to get it all over with. She thanked me profusely and waved goodbye. ”Now that we have done business together, we are friends,” she exclaimed, waving her mobile phone at my car window. “Call me from time to time.”