Adventures in Public Transportation

"Where does this mean world cast its cold eye
Who's left to suffer long about you
Does your soul cast about like an old paper bag
Past empty lots and early graves
Those like you who lost their way
Murdered on the interstate
While the red bells rang like thunder"

I realized recently that my current plan involves me being in 5 countries within the month of September. It is true that plans are only vague outlines of what might possibly happen when in Africa, but it is getting late in September and I am actually in the fourth of five countries. The plan might just happen. For once.

Obviously moving through five countries requires a lot of, well, moving, so I'm dedicating a whole post to my adventures in public transportation.

I have been more than lucky to have stayed safe on the road in the last 7 months and I hope that streak continues. There have certainly been some close calls, most notably side-swiping the cow in South Africa, but nothing too tragic. The drivers in most countries I have traveled in all drive within some degree of a completely and utterly terrifying manner. They regularly pass on blind corners with on-coming traffic and drive at speeds much too fast for the road conditions. Today, I bought a newspaper in Kabale, where I stopped upon crossing into Uganda. I wanted to read about the recent flooding to update myself on whether my travel plans needed to change. While sitting in the minibus, waiting for it to leave from Kabale to Mbarara, I read an article that stated 2 people had died and 7 had been injured yesterday when a minibus had rolled on the Kabale-Mbarara road. Not a good way to start my journey this afternoon.

Generally, I have become rather accustomed to public transport in East Africa. It is much the same throughout different countries. At first I was surprised by how many vans, rather than buses, I was riding in and how incredibly crowded they were. That taxi ride in Peru at 5 am where my friend Jo and I were joined by 3 men and 2 women who were moving and therefore brought all their earthly possessions would be nothing to me now! I think my current "transportation zone" could qualify as a new type of meditation; however, occasionally things have happened that even I still find noteworthy.

While heading north in Malawi, back to Tanzania just to cross the entire country and get into Rwanda, I was riding in the typical minibus in the first bench behind the driver. The minibus stopped for some mechanical problem that I was not too concerned about. Even if this particular minibus couldn't continue, we could easily flag down another on the busy road. I was mildly surprised to see the driver fold the front passenger seats forward to expose part of the engine, but I was not concerned. Then, without warning, hot water began spraying from something he was working on -- presumably the radiator. For a second I was still not concerned, as the water was not burning hot and the seat folded backward, partially shielding us from the spray. Despite all this, the woman sitting next to me decided that quick evacuation was necessary. Unbelievably, considering her age and size, she sprang from the bench next to me and jumped behind me, out the door, kicking me in the back of the head on the way out. Seeing as no one else was sitting to my right, threatening to climb over me and considering the offending radiator cap had already been removed, I still stayed where I was, my meditative state only slightly perturbed. One man, upon reentering the minibus, said to me, "Be careful mzungu, this is Malawi." My head hurt far more than my slightly damp arms for the rest of the ride.

Once I entered Tanzania, I was in a hurry to make it across the country to Rwanda, as I was traveling on a transit visa. The immigration officer had asked how long I needed. I told him 4 days. He asked where I was going. I told him Rwanda. He told his co-worker to give me 10 days. She gave me 14. It was then that I figured out Lonely Planet might not be exaggerating when the author highly advised against traveling by road in the northwest of Tanzania.

The next day, I left the boarder town of Mbeya for the capital, Dodoma, in a large bus. The first 4 hours of the trip were fine and I judged by the map that we were about half way there. Four hours later, we enter a large-ish town that was not Dodoma. It was then that I realized, by consulting my guide book, that we had taken a road northeast rather than straight north and were almost all the way back to Dar Es Salaam! Another 3 or 4 hours later, after turning straight west, we made it to Dodoma. I was irritated that we didn't take the direct route, but figured that since the bus was full of locals the whole way from Mbeya, there must have been a reason for the road choice.

I figured out the reason the next day. Lonely Planet states that the roads north and south of Dodoma are appalling. We skipped the south road the day before, but were stuck taking the north road to my next overnight stop, Mwanza. Within 5 minutes of leaving the bus station on a bus that left 3 hours late (still "on time" by East African standards) the man sitting behind me attempted to slide his window back to shut it. He only succeeded in causing the window to shatter all over me. I spent the next 11 hours sitting in broken glass on the roughest road I have ever ridden on in my whole life. It was worse than the dirt road down to the salt flats in Bolivia. What made it especially bad was that our driver insisted on driving at no less than 80 km/h. When we hit a pot hole in the dirt (which happened roughly ever 30 seconds) we all flew from our seats. I had to put my hands up to avoid hitting the ceiling of the bus. Then I would come crashing down into my seat, which was embedded with glass. Further, I was wearing my sandals, so the glass on the floor would inevitably be thrown inside my sandals. We eventually had to stop in a town south of Mwanza because we were not allowed to travel past 10. I had to be back at the station at 4 am the next morning. Mercifully, we reached pavement for the rest of the ride that morning.

Once I reached the Mwanza bus station, I immediately inquired about another bus to the boarder. I was prepared to get on another bus that morning if it hadn't left yet. Unfortunately, I was informed that there was no bus that day, nor was there a bus for the next day. I got stuck in Mwanza for two days, but luckily it was a decent town to be stuck in. I was beginning to figure out why the immigration officer kind of chuckled at me when I told him I was going to get to Rwanda in 4 days.

In a lucky turn of fortune, my last bus actually took less time to reach its destination than I had been led to believe. Even managing to catch the bus was a bit of a miracle, for several reasons. First, there are multiple bus stations in Mwanza and I had to be sure I knew which one my bus would leave from. Turned out, the correct bus station was 12km out of town, so I also had to arrange a taxi to pick me up from my hotel and take me to the bus station at 3:45 in the morning. Also, many Tanzanians operate on a Swahili clock, which I believe begins with 1 am when the sun rises, so 7 am on my clock; however, I get easily confused by this because I never know which clock a particular person is using. All these problems were confounded by the fact that almost no one in Mwanza speaks English, so clarification is nearly impossible. One characteristic the East Africans have that is both endearing and maddening is their tendency to answer any and all questions with "yes". Does the bus leave at 4:30am western time?" "Yes." "Or does it leave at 4:30am Swahili time?" "Yes." It is very difficult to actually get anything figured out in this type of conversation.

Rwanda proved to be much easier to travel in, as it is a very small country. Even bad roads can't take too long when the distance is short. Uganda is not too bad either. I am trying to go to a national park tomorrow -- Lonely Planet says it should take 8 hours, but the hotel staff said it should take 1 hour. As I write this, I realize it will sound ridiculous to you to not be able to to determine, between a map, a guide book and local advice, whether a drive will take 8 hours or 1 hour, but somehow it makes complete sense to me. I'll let you know when I get there.

Development That Actually Develops

"We dont need streetlights just a new star
Not paralysed by appearences with big ideas
And just way too smart to walk around on the surface
When theres an ocean just beneath its blue-green smile
All the while nothings stopping me from jumping in it"

I have been trying to maintain at least some vague academic aspect to this trip up to this point, but I will probably have fewer opportunities for the remainder of the trip, as I will be moving fast to make it to all the places I still want to visit. I will be moving fast, that is, when there is actually a bus to take me to the next destination. I got stuck in Mwanza, Tanzania for a while in the process of going to Rwanda. I finally caught my last bus at 4:30 am the other morning, after staying up all night worrying I might miss the bus because I couldn't figure out if it was leaving at 4:30 am western time or Swahili time.

I managed to see everything I was planning to see in Malawi and more. I made it as far south as Cape MacLear, hitchhiking in the back of incredibly old, tiny pickups that managed to fit about 20 people in the bed. I usually had to help hold the odd toddler, as long as he or she wasn't too afraid of the mzungu. At Cape MacLear I went diving in Lake Malawi in one of the few fresh water protected areas in the world. It is home to a high concentration of cichlid fish. In theory, fishing is not allowed there; in practice it is difficult to prevent. That afternoon I also managed to find a place to go water skiing and was treated to dinner by my traveling companion, Rachael. Not a bad day considering it was my birthday.

On my way back north, I met up with Trent Bunderson, from WSU, who directs an organization called Total Land Care. He arranged for me to join the Speaker of the Malawian Parliament to tour some of the projects. The organization works to prevent soil degradation and deforestation around Malawi. Their strategies are very simple and easily implemented by many farmers. For example, they teach farmers to plant thick grass and trees between crop plots, parallel to the river in order to prevent rain run off during the wet season, so that the soil is once again capable of holding water which feeds the river throughout the year.

I then continued north to the small village of Nkhotakota, where a branch of the organization exists. The branch is run almost completely by locals. It was amusing to see one man wearing a WSU pin on his shirt collar. There, all the projects relate in some way to maintaining the Chia Lagoon. There are a lot of crop diversification projects, which not only protect soil integrity, but also increase surplus for the local farmers. The most interesting project I saw was the mushroom house, which allows farmers to cultivate mushrooms year round rather than only during the wet season.

The last project I happened to stumble upon while passing through Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. While having breakfast at a guest house, I met a local journalist who was trained and is funded through USAid. He explained that the project aims to reduce corruption through journalism exposure. He was trained as a journalist through the program and is now supposed to train others. Perhaps more importantly, he explained how he is now safer in his profession. Apparently even though Tanzania has enjoyed a fairly long peaceful period and relatively little corruption, journalist can still be threatened and even killed for writing controversial stories. He said that within the last few years, a journalist was killed for exposing money being taken away from national park funds. When I asked how USAid could possible make journalists safer in Tanzania, he explained that he is substantially safer just through receiving a decent salary. With adequate money he can live in a secure house (just by having windows and locking doors), he can afford to move out of a dangerous area and he can afford to take safe, secure transportation. It all seems too simple, but at the same time, it makes sense to me.

Seeing all these projects helped me have a slightly more positive outlook on development projects and aid money in Africa, as I have become slightly jaded through traveling here and through reading Robert Guest's book "The Shackled Continent". I highly recommend the book to anyone traveling in Africa or anyone who is interested in Africa or foreign aid. The book is not an altogether negative book, but does point out a lot of the current problems in African politics, in the way development projects are managed and in the way aid is distributed. Go read it now!

No Oil, No Diamonds, No Problems

It's the mines, in Africa

That are to blame

After Kili, I went on safari (amazing. . . predictable) then to Zanzibar (amazing. . . predictable) and then got back on the road to Malawi. Now I kind of feel like I am back on track, whatever that means. As opposed to Uganda, South Africa and Tanzania where I had definite plans of things I had to do, now I am once again wandering rather aimlessly. Despite the aimlessness, my current situation seems more normal, or at least expected. If one is going to get back on the track of being off track, Malawi is certainly one place to do it. I am living up to my "mzungu" title, which is commonly used across Eastern Africa to refer to white people, but is derived from a related word which means "to wander around aimlessly like a mad person".

Malawi, a bit to my surprise, is overflowing with backpackers, probably due to the fact that it is the most reasonable route connecting Southern and Eastern Africa. What exactly does this mean for me? It means I meet tons of mad people!

My road trip through Malawi began after spending a night on a ferry from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where we floated at sea for a large portion of the night until the port opened. I was rocked, or perhaps tossed, to sleep listening to the sounds of most of the other passengers vomiting. Two hours after getting off the ferry I boarded a 26 hour train to the Malawi boarder. Getting off the train, I tagged along with two other backpackers to try to find a mtola (old van imported from Asia, often called a dala dala farther north) to the boarder post. At the bus station, we were ushered into a bus office where we were told we could get a bus across the boarder, all the way to Chitimba, the town we were trying to reach by that night. We easily talked the price down from 18,000 shillings to 9,000 shillings -- this was the first bad sign. Then we got loaded onto a "bus" which was actually just an over sized mtola -- 2nd bad sign. Just before we left, our bus man explained through the window that the next bus across the boarder would have our names -- 3rd bad sign. Sure enough, the mtola took twice as long as it should have and dropped us in the village a few kilometers from the boarder. We were immediately swarmed by bicycle taxis, which we reluctantly agreed to ride down to the boarder. As expected, there was no bus once we crossed the boarder. We improvised back to what we had originally planned to do and just took buses and mtolas in stages.

If there is one thing one needs to understand about public transport in the developing world, it is that it is very crowded. I'm not talking 3pm on the 49 in Seattle when all the high school students join you through Capitol Hill; it is literally twice as crowded. One must expect to share his or her seat with at least one other person, if he or she is lucky. If one is not so lucky, the seat will also be occupied by a screaming baby, several chickens and a bag of fish. Up to a certain point, I was happy to have my two new traveling companions with me to share in my misery. One, an older South American man had been understandably getting progressively more irritated, making me less happy to be with him. Enter crazy #1 (or #2 if you count the bus tout). Eventually the South African lost it and started arguing with the bus conductor on our last bus that he had paid for a whole seat, not half a seat. In the end, he gave in, possibly for fear of being kicked off the bus. When we got off, he was continuing on to the next town. He made it clear that he had to have my friend Rachael's seat, practically shoving her out of it as she tried to free herself from all the people. Luckily, we stayed in a nice hostel on the beach along Lake Malawi, where other travelers commiserated with our story, saying countless others had been scammed by the same bus company in Tanzania.

After a quick visit up to Livingstonia, we headed south along the lake to the fishing village/backpacker hangout of Nkhata Bay. We arrived on a Friday evening, when things were very busy due to the weekly Friday night barbecue. This is where we met our next crazy friend. The owner of our hostel in Livingstonia, Mick, had reserved us dorm beds at the Nkhata Bay hostel and given us a ride there, since he was already going to the barbecue to see his old friend Scuba Steve as well as what appeared to be several girlfriends. When we arrived the hostel no longer had beds for us. I don't know if it was because we had arrived with Mick or for some other reason, but the very energetic, overly friendly owner, Gary, decided to give us a room in his house and a staff room for free. We didn't question his generosity.

The next night is when we got a true taste of Gary. My friends Richard and Rachael joined me at the bar with Gary. Gary was already obviously drunk, so drunk in fact that he was shaking and almost teetering off his stool. At times I was almost afraid he was about to have a seizure. He was very excited to have company at the bar and soon began telling us his life story. The ultra condensed version goes something like this: Gary was a successful hairdresser with 8 salons in South Africa, until he discovered crack and became a self proclaimed "crackhead" (he is perhaps the only person I have ever met who has used this term to describe himself). Later, he was captured by his brother and his brother's boyfriend -- this event apparently involved handcuffs, a white leather sofa and perhaps Celine Dion. Eventually he ended up in Malawi running a hostel. The details of how he got to his current situation were very scattered, but seemed to involve him cutting off a girl's arm with an axe.

The last of the crazies I also met at Nkhata Bay. I actually spent four pleasant days on safari in Vwasa Marsh and Nyika Plateau with crazy Australian before he turned into crazy Australian. I think the transformation was brought about by the 24 hour a day drinking binge he began sometime during the safari. During the safari, he told us about living alone in a cabin in Australia for 5 years. At first I was mildly impressed by this, as he was doing worthwhile things, like living off as few resources as possible and reading tons of books; however, I soon realized this time alone either made him a little crazy or pointed to preexisting craziness. The night we returned from safari, he got into an argument with me basically trying to claim that women are the root of all evil and refuse to do worthwhile work like plumbing. Are you confused? I am. Eventually I escaped him, after he berated me for attacking him by apparently saying things I never actually said. The next day he apologized profusely, but then went straight back to drinking. Unfortunately drinking sometimes seems to bring out certain individuals' true unsavory sides.

My friend Richard summed it up by saying that it seemed to him that expats in Malawi inevitably became alcoholics. Unfortunately, I have to agree that this does seem to happen a lot. You'll notice that of all the crazies I talked about, none were actually Malawian.