As you have been reading my blogs have you ever caught yourself thinking- I wonder what the public
transportation system is like around the world? Well if you have, here is a blog just for you!
After 10 months you kind of get used to the different ways cultures around the world function. Like
showering with buckets, random black outs, people thinking I am Justin Bieber, never knowing what you’re eating, everyone on the streets pointing and yelling in their various languages “White person!” and lots of other things that I just consider normal by now. One thing you really learn to do on the World Race is laugh at yourself and your situations.
Last week we spent a few days out in a village and it was my favorite couple of days in Africa so far.
We visited an orphanage, played with some amazing kids, bought some African clothing, participated
in a cool worship service, had a big open air meeting and lived with an amazing family. We even met a
famous dancer who performed for us at the church (I thought they were kidding about his fame until we
saw him in a music video on a tv this morning). It was definitely difficult to leave….
So how did we leave you may ask? Well the public transportation here are these 18 passenger vans
called “Dolla-Dollas “ that try to pack in as many people as possible during each trip. There is no
passenger limit and if there is room, it will be filled. This has led to some scary experiences, like women
with infants falling over as we go over bumps, as well as funny moments, like Shaun being forced to sit
in a strange older woman’s lap for a 15 minute ride. To avoid all of this we rented out an entire Dolla-
Dolla for our ride home so that we could have room to stretch out and relax and enjoy the scenery for
our two hour trip…. That didn’t happen.
About 15 minutes into our ride we picked up our first passenger- a man with a chicken. I don’t mean
fried chicken or even a chicken in a cage I mean a man holding a live chicken under his arm. Hours later
we felt kind of bad for him as he exited the van covered in chicken poop. But like I said, he was only the
first additional passenger.
Our two hour trip turned into a four hour adventure and by the end our Dala-Dala was filled with more
people and things than I ever thought possible… half way through I found myself speeding down a
bumpy and dusty African country road crammed between 27 people, three large sacks of corn, two
large sacks of potatoes, our eight bags, eight sleeping bags, eight sleeping pads, two tents, a bucket,
three additional duffel bags, a wooden bed frame, a bag of shoes in my lap, the chicken and two men
holding on from the outside with the sliding door left open. All of this was inside the van but we also
had a mattress tied to the back. Pictures couldn’t possibly do this thing justice… And we thought we
were a big deal when we fit 10 people in a Honda civic back in Central America… In addition to all of
this, whenever the driver would press the gas this horribly loud painfully high-pitched noise would
scream out of the engine until he took his foot off of the pedal. We only have about 40 days left on this
adventure and we are trying to soak up every single strange, uncomfortable, challenging, dirty, hilarious,
random and unexpected experience that we can get.
our home in the village outside the church in our African skirts
some of the kids at the orphanage no I didn't use photoshop I was really there
the chicken… Julie loved it this is just all of the stuff… we added another 15 people
half way there!! we had a girls night afterwards to recover from the day
