Finally leaving Africa, I realized there was one thing I
wanted to share with you before moving on to Asia: African bus rides. You always
hear people say, “Oh those African bus rides, there’s nothing like them.” And
for most of you, you have no idea what that truly entails. Even the people I
have traveled with to Kenya before this year don’t have the full picture of
what African buses really have to offer. So I decided to take a break from my
serious, lesson-filled blogs to write this one. Enjoy! I will warn you though;
this is a longer blog than I like to write. But I wanted to paint the full
picture for you, not just a summary. If you can endure reading the whole thing,
I think you’ll like it!
**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…
