West African Truckers

By Anthony:

We have to cross the borders a lot in East Africa as we go to trainings in Kenya and Tanzania. It's very tiring but part of the work. We saw this documentary recently and thought you might find it interesting. The border crossings in West Africa are very similar to the ones here. Though at least the border we most often frequent has become restructured and much more organized in the last couple years, making it quite a bit better than what you see in the video.

In our border crossings we have had plenty of times of traffic jams, with trucks lined up for miles. Sometimes we have had to navigate through trucks and buildings, even driving over sidewalks, and over short cement barriers. We have had more uncomfortable police checks than we can count, with them usually asking us for something, like food/soda/money, which we don't give to them, though we have given small devotionals (like "Our Daily Bread") before. We have dealt with the offices we need to visit being in a different place every time we go. We have dealt with the bureaucracy. We've seen corruption/bribery happening right before us. And we've seen the inconsistency as people in cars have to go through painstaking processes and forms, while others walking or bicycling or on motorcycles at least seem to do whatever they want, zipping through the border.

Pardon anything offensive or vulgar language in the documentary. It shows real life.