I have arrived in Tanzania… I’m about to begin month 10. I’m amazed at how close to the end of the race we are. Two more months and we are on our way back to America… just a thought.
This month we are on the opposite side of Lake Victoria, one would think that a simple boat ride or a bus across the Ugandan/Tanzanian boarder would have been the best way to get there. However, there were no boats and no roads that we could take across the boarder, so we embarked on a 38 hour journey around the lake through Kenya.
The first bus wasn’t so bad, 24 hours with 2 bathroom breaks. When I first got on the bus, most of the seats were taken, so I resorted to sitting in the back of the bus. At first, it looked very appealing. The seats went back and when I sat down, I felt like was in a rocket ship. I thought, “I could sleep in this position”, what I didn’t realize was that my seat didn’t sit up. We had the whole bus to ourselves, a blessing I wouldn’t realize until our second bus. We began our journey after the bus showed up 9 hours late to our place in Uganda, then it took another hour to find one of our teammates who had gone off to journal somewhere quiet, so 10 hours later, we were off.
The back of the bus stayed up for a bit talking from all of the excitement, and then the bouncing made us a little sleepy, so we began to sleep… or at least tried. Our bus driver was driving at about 110kmph down a dirt road with pot holes everywhere. Anytime we hit a pothole or a bum, the entire back would launch out of our seats a good 3-5 inches. When we came back down from our launch, it was not a soft landing. For hours we sat awake trying to sleep. The bus rocking back and forth, potholes every time we got comfortable… it was a ride. After boarder crossing, miss communications about bathroom breaks and stops for meals (we only stopped once for food and that was at the end of our journey) we arrived in Tanzania only to find that we had another 14 hour bus ride to our ministry site.
The second bus, wasn’t so wonderful… We woke up early, packed up our tents and put our stuff in the van that took us to the bus station, only to find that our van driver had been up all night and wasn’t exactly sober. So we all prayed on the way over to the bus station. Once at the station there were Tanzanians that were trying to get us to pay extra for our bags… Our taxi driver was furious. He was yelling things in Swahili and I thought there was going to be a fist fight. Fortunately there wasn’t, and I’m thankful that our slightly intoxicated driver was looking out for us. Once on the bus we had to fight for seats. We had paid for them and yet there was no room on the bus. Our luggage hardly fit into the bins, but we all made it onto the bus. This bus was not as luxurious, there was no reclining, no leg room, and no space. As we began to drive more and more people got on the bus and no one ever seemed to get off. There were people everywhere, no room to move, no room to stand. Bathroom breaks were crazy. Instead of the people in the isle moving out of the way, the Muzungos (white people) in the back had to resort to crawling over the seats to get out of the bus. One of our team members resorted to climbing out of the window, it was nuts. People were sweating, dust was coming in all of the windows, babies were crying, we were all dehydrated because we weren’t sure when or if we would ever be able to use the restroom. If we were lucky, we got 10 minutes of sleep, but once again we were all in the back being launched every time we hit a pothole or a speed bump. Some members were having mild panic attacks and it was all a mess. But we all made it to Muwanza 🙂
Oh, the journey doesn’t end here! We were all exhausted and sore from the bus ride, and to get to our contacts house we took a van to get to our house. I’m so impressed by how far you can really push a car. I don’t think I’d take my all wheel drive on some of these roads, but our 15 passenger van made it up these steep, rocky hills. We got to a point where we couldn’t go any further so we got out and in the dark had to walk up a steep hill to our house with our packs ranging from 40-50lbs each. We got to the top of the hill and collapsed. One of the longest days of my life.
Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. It was a fun adventure that I’m never going to forget. I’m so proud of my team for staying positive and not complaining. If we didn’t have an experience like this, I would have been pretty disappointed. Lots of fun, but I’m not sure how soon I’ll do it again. 🙂
