African Bus Rides

**Note: this is a culmination of a few different trips throughout Africa, but I decided to combine them into one picture. So you are getting a taste of what could possibly be one of the worst rides Africa has to offer. But because of space, I left out several things, i.e., leaky bus roofs during a downpour and blown out tires. And yes, all of these are real life experiences. **

You arrive at a “bus station,” which is actually a parking lot sized fenced in area packed FULL of buses, with different bus lines, destinations, and departure times. There are numerous men all yelling at you in a language you can’t possibly recognize, all trying to give you reasons why you should take their bus. (Their bus is always the best, don’t you know?) You have one word, which is supposedly the city you are heading to, and a departure time. It’s almost like a puzzle: which of these buses matches up with information I think is correct. So you settle on one, only to find out you are 3 hours early, but you’re day has already been bad enough that you just surrender your bag and climb on the bus. Maybe a little bit of sleep won’t be so bad before you actually take off.

Because the bus hasn’t moved overnight, there are swarms of mosquitoes resting in pretty much every seat. So you hose down with a can of deet, wrap a blanket around you (even though it’s already 100 degrees) and lay down. Malaria or heat exhaustion? Heat, please, and thank you. Two hours later, you wake to realize there is a woman standing over you, trying to sell you some water, and the bus is filling up quickly.  So you hazily get all your things together and move to one of the empty seats, always aiming for a seat with a window that opens.

To get an idea of how the seats in these buses feel, get in the passenger seat of your car and move your seat as far forward as you possibly can. Sit the back of your seat as vertical as it will go. If your knees are not crammed in the dashboard, you are one of the lucky ones.  And if you can sleep in this position for 10+ hours, you have earned my respect, hands down. So, five hours after your original departure time, your bus pulls out. Five minutes down the road, you of course stop and fill the tank with gas. Finally, you are on your way! You never know how long the trip will actually take, because everyone tells you a different estimate, but you’re secretly hoping for the shortest distance (which is usually somewhere around 8 hours).

Unfortunately, the window you chose to sit next to happens to be the loosest one on the bus. So if you try and lean against it to sleep, you suddenly feel as if you are riding the Ninja at Six Flags over Georgia: your head vibrating to the point of helplessness. Either your face will tickle/itch the whole time, or your head will begin to feel as if it would explode. Neither of these are very good options, so sleep you will not get. Because of the heat, you open your window. Suddenly, you feel like your dog when he rides in the back of the truck, because your face is being peeled off by the wind. There is no middle ground; if your window is slightly cracked, you will automatically be having flashbacks to ol’ Wilson, the golden retriever. The only other option is a sauna, or what sometimes feels like an easy bake oven, so you choose the wind. With music in your ears, it almost seems that you aren’t on the bus anymore (except for the fact that your arm is glued with sweat to the person sitting next to you, but that’s not really a big deal anymore).

Your driver doesn’t seem to see the roughness of the road anymore; I guess after driving it so long, it all looks pretty smooth and nice to him. So he drives an outstanding 60 miles an hour, flying over every pothole, crack, and speed bump in the country. This provides insight for you into the great game of Wacamole, only you finally get to feel how the moles do as they pop up and down, over and over again. You have no choice but to be thrown airborne, out of your seat, multiple times every hour. You can choose to find humor in this, or realize the urgency of your next chiropractor visit which you will not get for at least another 3 months. You do however get frequent breaks, as the bus pulls to the side to allow new passengers to climb on every 30 minutes or so.

About 3 hours into your trip, you start to feel the need to use a toilet. You have no idea what the procedure for this is, or if it is even an option at all. Suddenly, almost as if they are reading your mind, the bus pulls to the side of the road, next to a very large open field. Passengers begin unloading, men walking to the left, woman heading towards the right. And yes, that is correct: they simply squat right there and take care of business. Since you chose to be rebellious today and wear pants which provide NO secrecy when it comes to this issue, you decide to take an Imodium for future possibilities and hold everything else.  (In the future, you will be able to trace back to this instance right here as a reason that your prayer life increased greatly.)

This particular ride is estimated at a measly 16 hours, and rumor has it that there is a lunch stop in the near future. This is good because the few snacks you bought before leaving have now been consumed without second thought.  When the bus finally comes to a stop in front of the “restaurants,” you get wind that there is a restroom just past the wall in front of you. Forget food, you might get to go! So you scramble to get your stuff together, hoping you have some scraps of toilet paper left in your bag from last month. Turning the corner, you see a dirty latrine with a door somewhat attached. PRIVACY! You have never been more excited to see a dirty hole in your life! So you take care of business and head out just in time to scope out the food options.

You were given exactly 10 minutes, but with the tardiness of the morning start and the general reputation of Africa, you decide that time is not the most important thing at the moment. The food options fall to a can of sunflower oil and a large tray of onions. Not fully understanding anything about that, you walk across the street to venders with more normal items: potato chips, boxed juices, and fresh fruit. You select quickly, and turn around to realize your teammate is hanging out of the door of the bus, trying to convince the driver that you are, in fact, NOT on the bus. So you run and jump on the slowly moving bus that refuses to stop for you, only to have everyone on it tell you that you almost missed the bus. Really? That is one thing I did not realize as I was chasing it. But thank you for letting me know!

On the road again and in need of a nap at any cost, you shove your head between the window and the seat in front of you tight enough to reduce the vibrating and hold you from the airborne adventures. Somehow, you get in a good half-hour and wake up with drool everywhere: soaking your chin, all over your pillow, and somehow even on your pants. Turning to your friend, you realize that the thirteen Africans in your view are all staring at you with blank faces. Awesome. And your friend was kind enough to snap a picture. It will be on Facebook the next time you get internet fast enough to upload a photo. (Lucky for you, that’s two months from now!)

Late into the afternoon, you are getting a bit hungry again. But good thing you are now passing through a town, where people line the streets with options to purchase. You’ve been in Africa long enough to realize the “safe to eat” and “not such a good idea” are pretty much on the same lines. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. So you might as well enjoy the food as you eat it! You open your window, and survey the choices at hand: individually cut chunks of sugarcane; sticks of roasted corn; kebobs with different types of “meat,” ranging from what looks to be a beef substitute to amazing looking goat; many types of fresh fruit, including grapes, oranges, and always the option of bananas in every size. But the choices don’t stop there. You can also purchase drinks of any kind, from juice in a bag to Coca-cola in a bottle; shoes of all different sizes and styles; sunglasses and jewelry; kitchen ware; and my personal favorite: 2 birds in a cage.  All of these and more walk right up to your window, with negotiable price tags on each and every one. You never need to leave your seat to have anything you could possibly want.

Reaching your destination in the wee hours of the night, you get off the bus hoping your friend is waiting for you with some mode of transportation better than the last. But walking seems to be more difficult than normal. That is when you realize your ankles and toes have swollen to the point that you are seriously contemplating whether they will explode or not. Guess there is nothing to do about it now; just keep moving until you’ve made it the entire journey. When you do finally reach the destination, you lay down on the dirty and disgusting floor because you are too tired to unpack you back and find your air mat. And then, you just cry. Letting out all the frustrations and mishaps that you just endured, knowing the people around you understand completely, but no one else will ever fully know what you went through to get from one place to the next.

The things we do for love…”

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More “fun” moments on African buses:

When the 20-something year-old guy beside me fell asleep on my shoulder for our four hour busride.  

When, five minutes into our 10 hour busride, I went to open my window and it fell off.  

When I got all excited to find a good seat on the bus, realized there was a chicken underneath it, tried to move the chicken, realized it was tied to the seat.  “Seat’s taken” I suppose.  

The MANY times I was on blazing hot, double-digit hour busrides, and attempted to open my shared window, only to have it immediately shut by the person behind me…with 10+ miserably stuffy hours to look forward to.

When we got harassed for an hour by the bus-loader to try and make us pay extra for our bags, ONLY because we’re mzungus.  Then, a lady took up for us and got it down to half-price.  Then Jeremiah looked the guy in the face and started speaking in tongues.  Then we didn’t have to pay.  Bizarre.  

When we went unexpectedly off-roading in a van without shocks and were sitting in the backseat and Jeremiah and I decided to play “No Bones” (some people call it “Curves”…you pretty much just go limp and are at the mercy of gravity)

When our driver told us to get out of the van and everyone else in the van told us to stay because we were getting ripped off.  That was all kinds of fun and confusing.   

When an ENTIRE bus of Africans waiting for us to get a phone chip after crossing the border, angrily piled out of the bus and welcomed us back by publicly scolding us and making fun of us…in both swahili and english. 

When our one day busride turned into two days.

🙂

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How’s that for a taste of the good life?  😛

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Thanks for making it possible!  Love y’all!