“Many Rivers to Cross…”

“But I still can’t seem to find my piece of mind.” – Jimmy Cliff

The most common mode of travel throughout Africa is the minibus.  These buses are regional and shuttle passengers between towns.  They are manufactured to seat a driver, passenger up front and 4 rows of people behind for a total of 14 actual seats (this becomes relevant later). 

I was told not to take this mode of transport because drivers typically drive way too fast, which is compounded by the fact they overload them.  The “roads”, especially outside of urban areas, are typically in disrepair.  All of this is exaggerated at night since there are no streetlights, reflectors or any thing resembling a guardrail.

Given this description, perhaps it wouldn’t be surprising to know that the leading cause of death in Africa is not war, illness, or being eaten by lions, but road accidents at a whopping 40% of all deaths every year.

Since I seem to find some kind of sick pleasure in chaos, I decided to take a minibus from Mbabane, Swaziland to Maputo, Mozambique.

In each town, you can always find at its center a swarming beehive of minibuses in a large open lot.  To an outsider, there is no rhyme or reason because there’s no ticket window, no sign, and if you don’t keep your head up, you’ll easily get run over as these white vans zip in and out.  Lucky for me, the people I’ve come across are incredibly friendly and helpful.  A lone face in a dark sea carrying a small house on my shoulders must invoke as much pity as it does curiosity.

Buses don’t leave at a particular time.  They leave when they are full and I don’t mean full in the sense that every seat is taken.  I mean a kind of full that you can’t really imagine.  Earlier in the day I had inquired about the next bus to Maputo and was told to come back at 3pm.  Perfect.  I needed to wait until 2 to get my visa from the Mozambique embassy any way.

I entered the hive of angry vans with plenty of time to spare and after asking a few drivers I was informed that the Maputo bus wasn’t running today.  I was shuffled over to a hulking bus the size of a Greyhound and told I needed to go to Manzini in order to catch a bus there to Maputo. 

Sometimes when traveling you need to make quick decisions and just cross your fingers that it’s the right one.  This was one of those times.

The huge bus was rolling out of the hive and I had to hop on while it was still moving.  There’s something…awkward about getting onto a bus carrying 80 people and having 160 eyes staring back at you in total befuddlement.  You had to be there.

I left my pack at the front near the driver and stood in the aisle as every seat and most of the aisle was occupied.   A young boy sitting near the front offered me his seat.  The awkwardness kicked in again as I guiltily sat while the little fellow stood.  Then I remembered the lollipops in my bag I was carrying for just such an occasion and gave him one as a sign of my thanks.

As the bus lumbered along eastward, making occasional stops to cram more people onto the bus, I noticed that everyone was glued to the front watching a small television screen that was playing – in black and white – “Delta Force 3: The Killing Game” is blaring in Swati.  Machine guns, bombs, and clichés explode from this great American classic and everyone is riveted.  Slightly embarrassed, I decided to read my book.

After a few minutes, I hear shouting at the back of the bus.  I glance over at my seatmate, a kindly looking older man who is intently watching the movie.  He notices me and instantly knows the look on my face.  “He’s giving a speech,” the man says, referring to the gentleman in the back.  “Mostly about how God has forsaken us.  He is on this bus every day giving speeches.”  I nod in understanding, thinking about how the New York subways have their own versions of this orator.

After a long moment, I ask the man “do you think that’s true, that God has forsaken you?”  Without turning away from the movie – there was a particularly intense sequence of bombs and gunfire going on – he replied:  “God does not forsake his creations.  It is we who have forsaken ourselves and each other.”  Boom!  A grenade thrown by US commandos goes off sending a group of Arab stereotypes catapulting into the air.

A few stops later, the man gets up to exit the bus and as he reaches the aisle he stops, looks back at me and says, “never be forsaken.  Goodbye, my friend.”

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Manzini’s bus hive is smaller than Mbabane’s but has somehow managed to cram the same number of minibuses into it.  I knew we had arrived despite the lack of signs because everyone else got off.  I waited to exit because of the disruptions I would have caused with my large bag.  Not knowing how much the 45 minute ride cost, I hold out a handful of money to the driver, and he carefully selected the right amount – 10 Swazi (about $1.25).  “Buses to Maputo are up there,” he says, pointing to the north end of the lot.

I find the right van and climb in.  There are already a couple of people waiting on board.  After a few minutes, I say hello and we start talking.  Alice and her son (I can’t even begin to pronounce or spell his name) are from Zimbabwe and are going to Maputo to visit a relative.  Fatima is from Maputo and only speaks Portuguese.

Alice

Alice, whose English is excellent and her smile broad and warm, informs me the bus leaves when ever its gets full, which should be in about an hour.  We talk for a while about the benefits of Shoprite over Pick n’ Pay (local grocery store chains) and then I offer to get her a drink at the local store as I am going to get one for myself.  “100 percent fruit juice,” she says.  I offer to get one for her son and for Fatima as well.  In addition to just wanting to be friendly, I figure that if some sh*t goes down it wouldn’t hurt to have a few friends.

Over the next hour, the van slowly fills up.  I’ve scored the exit row version of a seat – right next to the sliding door.  Single seat next to the aisle with lots of legroom in front of me.

One of the passengers is a young boy of about 3 with his father.  Before long, we’re trading high-fives and laughing as he hides and then pokes his head out every few seconds.  I take his picture with my camera phone and show him.  This goes on for several minutes until he wrestles the phone from my hands, reminding me of my nephew Charlie when he used to do the same thing.  But this little fellow refuses to give it back.  His father intervenes and says in Swati (I am guessing) “give back the phone.”  The boy responds in a dismissive tone without looking up from the screen.  Alice informs me that the boy told his father that the phone is his.  I fish another lollipop from my bag and we make a fair trade.  Everyone is happy.

Phone thief

The scene in and around the van grows more chaotic as additional people arrive including a woman with a large cache of packages of food, materials, and other goods.  The van is pulling a large trailer that is being filled with luggage and the items she is bought.  Before long it is overflowing with items.  I take comfort in knowing that my pack is at the bottom where it won’t “disappear.”

Chaos

More and more people are boarding the van.  I am thankful for my well-chosen seat…until the van is preparing to depart.  There are 17 people in the 14-person van, which is not too bad until three more guys hop on.  One fellow, who is, shall we say far from slim, decides to sit next to me on a large bucket of spackle while the other two sit in the only space left – on the floor directly in front of me.  I have been crammed into a seat on an airplane before, but this was a whole new level of squished.  It is scheduled to be a 4 to 5 hour ride.

One of the guys is reeking of booze while the other two crack beers and start drinking.  They are engaged in a very loud and rapid-fire conversation about something.

The van speeds off as the sun is rapidly descending behind Swaziland’s mountains.  Our driver seems capable and in a very big hurry.  The roads are busy as the end of the day nears.  The ride is bumpy.  The boys continue to drink hard.  I put on my seat belt, despite the fact I am so squeezed into my seat because of the gentleman to my right the jaws of life couldn’t extricate me, and pull out my kindle as regret quickly sets in.  I sip my water but am eyeing the boys’ sack of beers.

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90 minutes into the trip it is now fully dark outside. I am glued to my book.  The small light attached to the kindle the only light inside the vehicle. The van would have been quiet except for the boisterous and now fully drunk threesome sitting around me.  Suddenly a collective gasp erupts from my fellow passengers along with troubled tones and utterances in Swati.  I look up and see a phalanx of flashing lights in front of us as the van slows.  We ease through a horrific accident scene.  Smashed cars on either side of the road.  Hundreds of people are crowed around as emergency workers run about.

The van pulls over and our three dunk ambassadors and the driver jump out to survey the scene.  One of the vehicles is an exact replica of our van and over-filled trailer.  It is in a heap in the ditch.  Roof smashed in and scattered broken glass.  Everyone is whispering words of concern and shaking heads.  A few minutes later, the trio and driver re-board and we start off again into the dark on the bumpy road.

To take my mind of it, I reopen my book to continue reading my Lonely Planet guide to Mozambique when the portly drunk fellow asked me “are you a Christen, my friend?”  I assumed he thought I had been reading a Bible this whole time.  I look up and before I can answer he says, “you should pray every time you get in one of these vans.”

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On long trips through the night in a far away place, thoughts perhaps inevitably drift to the more existential.  For me, a common one is regret.  Too much time tends to lead one back to past mistakes, bad decisions and pain.  

I also think about the people in my life I have lost before their time should have been up.  Julius.  Dave.  Otto.  Wally.  I haven often thought about this trip through their eyes.  As something I am doing for myself but in the spirit of those who cannot.  To follow a dream in honor of the people who gave up on their own or whose lives and responsibilities simply got in the way.

In addition to the dead, my mind finds the living who are so often too far away.  Blue Brothers.  Cellblock 13.  MC-MPA class of 2001.  La Familia. The Chamonix Crew.  The friends of Vermont, Geneva, Boston, California, New York and many others.

In the lonely moments or the difficult ones, I stay present, am thankful, and filled with hope that regrets will fade in time and that old friends will become new again.

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We are at the border.  I had drifted off.  Everyone is disembarking to get our passports stamped by the Swazi border post.  Afterwards, we walk the quarter mile across no man’s land to the Mozambique border for another stamp.

There is a long wait as customs officials inspect our cargo and make sure all the items one of our fellow passengers is importing are properly accounted for.  Most of us munch on boiled corn on the cob being sold by two brothers on the stoop of the Mozambique checkpoint.  I wish I could say it was edible.  It was not but I ate it any way.

After about an hour of poking and prodding of sacks and packages in the trailer, we all climbed back on the van and started off for the last hour of the drive.  The boys have now moved on from beer to boxed wine.

About a mile down the road from the border, the van was pulled over by two guys in customs uniforms who had emerged from a private car on the side of the road.  They asked the driver and the woman with all of the goods in the trailer to get out and come to the back of the van.  A shake down for cash by off-duty customs officers that was probably shared with their on duty colleagues back at the border.

We drive on and are stopped two more times for bribes. One by a traffic cop and another by a regular police officer.  Each time they brought the woman to the back of the van where no one could see what was happening although everyone did.

After a few more minutes, the van comes to an abrupt stop as we nearly ran over some large pieces of broken concrete in the middle of road.  Another accident.  This time it was a large truck that had been hauling pieces of concrete that had overturned in the road.  We continue on.

200 kilometers, 2 borders, 3 bribes, 2 accidents, a dozen beers and box of wine, and 7 hours after leaving Manzini, we finally arrive in Maputo.   People say goodbye to one another as if we’d just been though a mutual ordeal.  For me, we had.  For them, this was just another van ride.