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| Harare to Lusaka |
After about an hour, reading my book and sipping on the
gloriously hot Nescafe (instant coffee), its time to board the bus to
Lusaka. It resembles a
Greyhound. Tall, two rows of two-by-two
seating, with a large space for luggage storage underneath.
I hand over my ticket and place my backpack underneath, remembering all the tales about luggage disappearing the moment you take your eyes off of it. Comforted upon seeing it shoved behind a crate of sugar packets and evaporated milk, I climb aboard.
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| Harare Bus Terminal |
When I bought my ticket the day before, I strategically
pre-selected a middle seat in the very last row of the bus in order to maximize
my chances for legroom. Fail.
By now I should know that any mode of transport is going to
be jammed well beyond normal limits.
This bus was to be no exception.
There are 30 rows of seats four across and the row in the very back,
which is six across equaling 126 seats.
By the time we set off there are roughly 150 people, 7 of whom are
sharing the back row with me in the middle.
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Being the only mzungu (white person) often has some
advantages. After a short while and a lot of curious looks, people tend to ignore you. At first it’s slightly off-putting because you can sense how
out of place you are, but as soon as you start to engage someone, the floodgates
are opened. It is then you that
you appreciate the ubiquitous warmth and friendliness for which most Africans
are well known.
I’m sitting next to a young fellow from Zambia. After a few days of holiday in Harare,
he’s heading home to his wife and child.
He works in one of the Chinese copper mines. To my right are two brothers. One of whom is mentally challenged and clings to his
brother. In front of me is a mother
of 5 children who is going to Lusaka to buy dresses and women’s clothes to
bring back to Harare and sell.
We chat throughout the trip. Some people sleep or look at the window. As we roll by
stunning, expansive green and fertile fields, I am reminded of how Zimbabwe was
once the jewel of Africa’s agricultural crown. After Bob took over, productivity cratered and the country’s
endless fields remain uncultivated and overgrown with weeds. In a few short years, the country went
from providing food to the nations of Africa and far beyond to becoming a net
importer while once productive fields remain dormant. (See previous post
regarding Bob and my invitation for his lips to embrace the naked backside of my
swimsuit area.)
After a few hours people start snacking on whatever they
brought with them, universally offering what they have to one another including
me and then staring wide-eyed to gauge my reaction.
The young miner to my left sitting next to the window buys a
small bag of what look like tiny apples – each no bigger than a pea – from a
vendor outside the bus when we stopped at an intersection. He offers me one and as I try it I
notice out of the corner of my eye everyone around me watching. “It’s good,” I say as I struggle to
hold back the intense urge to pucker my face because of how tart it is. “Have some more,” he says, and not
wanting to be rude I take a small handful. I regret I had nothing to contribute but, honestly, I’m
pretty sure they didn’t even take notice or care.
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At the Zimbabwean border with Zambia (they call it the
“Zim-Zam”), we have to all disembark and go through a customs check and an
immigration line. Virtually all
such African borders still involve a dizzying amount of paper. Throughout the border
hall it’s a chorus of stamping of ink blotters, passports and forms in
triplicate. If a fee is to be
paid, as in my case, the border agent has to write out two separate receipts by
hand.
Once we’d all weaved our way down through the twisted bowels
of the Triplicatous Stampasorous and came out the other end, we re-boarded the
bus. As I settle into my seat, one
of the guys who had been next to me that I’d spent a fair amount of time
talking to gets my attention from outside the bus. He’s not continuing on to Lusaka. Suddenly he hands up an ice cold Sprite toward the window
and I politely decline. “It’s a
gift,” he says, smiling. “Thank
you for coming to Africa.” I take
it and thank him. The bus pulls
away and he waves goodbye.
A few hours later and we are at the outskirts of
Lusaka. One of the first things to
catch my eye is the massive “Great Wall of China Casino” on the edge of
town. The sign is in Chinese first
and English second. Not surprising
given how deeply vested China is, and has been, in Zambia’s mining sector. As we go deeper into the city, there
are signs of Chinese culture everywhere including restaurants, hotels catering
to Chinese visitors, and even Chinese herbal health stores.
By the time we pull into the Lusaka bus terminal, dusk is
settling on the city. Mercifully,
I find my bag right where I left it underneath the bus. I chose a cab driver among the two
dozen shouting for my attention, and we head off towards the other side of
town.
Once again, I have not pre-arranged accommodation, so I ask
the driver to take me to a backpackers place near town. Lusaka is just a stopover on my way to
Tanzania, so all I need is a shower, a good meal and a night’s rest before
getting back on the road.
We go to a couple of places but they are full for the
night. The one I settle on has no
more single rooms, but they have plenty of space in the 10-bed dorm. Fine. I am beyond the point of being choosy.
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| Kitchen |
The dorm is one large room with 10 bunk beds around its
periphery. There are only a couple
of people in it. The bathroom is
outside and across the courtyard.
I take a cold shower in a small room like a closet. Luckily I packed a shammy since
accommodations here don’t come with a towel.
It’s chilly so I dress warm and go to the little restaurant
on the compound for dinner. A
number of local dishes are laid out in warming pans. I am drawn to a large pan of green cylindrical things that
look like pasta and smell delicious.
The chef tells me its chiloli – fried grubs. I consider it for a moment only because I hear my stepbrother
Kip’s voice in my head saying, “Do it.
Do it. DO it.” But I have
the fish instead (sorry Spaz), which was amazing.
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| Snapper |
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I manage to sleep fairly well in the dorm. The next morning a cab takes me back to Lusaka bus
terminal. I have some time to wait
for the bus to Dar es Salaam, so the cab driver and I sit and have coffee and
talk. When we’re seated, I ask him
why the coffee vendor and all of the other customers were laughing at me and he
said it’s because I don’t take sugar with my coffee. Tough crowd.
The terminal takes chaotic to a new level. It’s broad daylight but it’s still very
unsafe. Between the swarm of
vehicles moving in and out and throngs of people, theft is common and violence
frequently breaks out between rival bus companies jockeying for customers.
Before the cabbie leave, he deposits me with the employees
from the bus company I am supposed to be on. They are waiting at the empty bay for the bus to arrive so
they can unload and reload it with cargo.
They give me a small wooden bench to sit on with them as I sip my coffee
and observe the goings on at the terminal.
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| Waiting |
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| Lusaka Bus Terminal |
Young guys who get a commission for each passenger they get
on a bus aggressively go after customers.
I saw several fights break out between rival companies, each claiming
dominion over the other's passenger. On more than one occasion, I saw the pool
of bus guys rush a smaller, weaker guy and literally push him
kicking-and-screaming onto a bus.
Apparently, as soon as they know what direction you’re headed and they
think you can be over-powered, you’re getting on the bus they want you to be
on. But when a prospective
passenger shows up with a load of cargo, that’s when things just get ugly.
An older woman pulled up in a taxi and had a porter from the
terminal take her sack of rice out of the trunk. They were walking toward
the regional buses and the bus
company guys jumped on the porter forcing him to drop the sack of rice. They then dragged the sack and put it
under their bus, essentially giving the old woman no choice but to buy passage
on their bus. She resists, but as
the men crowd around, they force her onto the bus and finally she
acquiesced. And the porter, the
lowest rung in the terminal hierarchy, never got paid for his troubles.
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My bus finally pulls in and the flurry of activity
begins. Haggard passengers descend
from the two-story bus, stringy porters fight to unload the cache of cargo from
underneath, and food vendors rush in to sell to the tired and hungry.
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| Saddle up |
The cargo bay resembles the aisles of a warehouse store with
huge pallets of everything from coffee, sugar, milk, Fanta (nice), truck tires,
generators, diapers, etc. I come
to learn that it’s the cargo that earns the bus company more money per
trip than the passengers, but more on that later.
I pre-purchased my ticket and this time I picked one near
the front by a window. I ascend
the stairs to the second level to stake my claim. The seat is not at the very front near the driver, but is
the first seat near the bus stairwell.
After about 90 minutes, the bus is re-loaded and ready to
start the 1,500 miles toward Dar es Salaam. It’s estimated to take 40 hours with no stops other than for
the essentials. My
confidence in my ability to handle almost anything is rapidly receding as I
contemplate just how long that is.
In my seat ready to endure the long ride, my steadily increasing
trepidation turns into pure dread as soon as my seatmate arrives. One look and I can only think that
karma has dealt me a serious blow.
NEXT POST:
Forty Hours to Dar es Salaam
40 hours!!!!!!!! That's insane, no mzungu can survive that!!!!
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