Part 4: The Long, Long Bus Trip

Lusaka to Dar es Salaam

The Gentle Giant

When I look up and see my seatmate for the 40-hour ride from Lusaka, Zambia to Dar es Salaam, my heart sinks because it is a young man the size of famous National Basketball Association star Shaquille O’Neill.

I curse my luck given that the seats on these buses are already built for passengers averaging a much smaller size than me much less the giant to my right.  In a flash I imagine the endless hours of road travel squished into my seat between the window and this mammoth of a fellow.

“Hey man,” he says as soon as he sits down, his massive hand outstretched to shake mine and a big grin on his face.  We shook, my hand dwarfed by his, and I immediately breath a sigh of relief.  “Shaq”, as I am privately referring to him, is clearly an extraordinarily warm individual and within a few minutes, I am struck by his intelligence and command of a range of complex issues related to development, economics, and politics.

It doesn’t take long before we’re laughing and joking and carrying on like old friends.  Granted, many of the people I’ve met along the way have been friendly and outgoing, but Shaq was an exception because of how well we seem to connect.  Over the course of our trip, I learned a great deal from him including that his real name is Kuda. 

Shaq attack

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One of the more interesting things Kuda shares with me is how he and his fellow Zimbabweans struggle to make a living.  Although he is a well-educated and very bright guy with experience working for the UN and in other professional jobs, he makes the long, long, LONG trek from Harare to Dar es Salaam on a monthly basis in order to make a few extra dollars as a trader.

Out of all of the roughly 60 passengers on the bus, not only am I the only mzungu (white man), as usual, I am virtually the only one who is just a passenger and not a trader.  Most of the others have already been on the bus since Harare (I got on in Lusaka, which is a 12 hour ride north of Harare, Zimbabwe), and are going to Dar es Salaam in order to buy goods, import them back into Zimbabwe and sell them on the black market.

The bus is tall and has a very large space underneath the seating for cargo.  The hold has been completely hollowed out in order to make as much room as possible for hard goods. Kuda explains how people make the 60-hour bus ride – with only brief stops along the way – in order to buy a variety of goods in Dar es Salaam and bring them back across 3 borders and sell them back at home.

Fellow passengers/survivors

The only way this makes economic sense is that the goods being imported are smuggled over multiple borders to avoid paying import duties.  The profit margin for these traders is based on 1) the comparative strength of the US dollar in Tanzania (Zimbabwe is a dollarized economy), 2) the avoidance of duties at the borders, 3) and the sale of the goods back in Zimbabwe on the street corner or out of their homes where they can avoid sales taxes and other overhead.

Chickens ride underneath

When the traders arrive in Dar es Salaam, they have about 24 hours to shop for the goods they are going to bring back into Zimbabwe (the bus parks and waits a day to return).  Upon arriving back at the bus, the bus company determines the value of their goods and charges each trader a fee for transporting and smuggling them back into Zimbabwe.  This fee includes the cost of bribing the litany of border officials, traffic police, weigh station managers and anyone else along the way.

Lonely road

In addition to the cost of the goods and the smuggling fees to the bus company, the traders have to factor in the cost of their seat, one night in a hotel in Dar es Salaam, and food and drink along the way.  After all the costs are calculated, the profit margin is very small, and the toll it takes on the body, mind and spirit to spend 120 hours on a bus over only 6 days is intense.

Not that it was needed, but I have yet another reminder of how hard life still is for so many people here, including those who are smart, educated and hard working.

Bus interior

Still Life in Rapid Motion

The bus lumbers, sometimes careening, along the thin two-lane road, overtaking all manner of traffic from massive trucks hauling earth moving equipment, to the small 150cc motorcycle with a family of three on board.  Although the roads are shared by man, vehicle and beast alike, the huge bus rarely slows down in a relentless drive northward.  Time is money.

The very long road

Its such a long ride that there are actually 3 different drivers who rotate every 6 or 7 hours.  There’s also a cargo manager, 2 mechanics, and 1 guy handling the bribes.  Every seat on the bus generates revenue, so the staff sit on sacks of rice in the aisle or on a thin mat on the floor up front near the driver or on the hard stairs at the exit or, in one guy’s case, just standing for hours upon hours.

Every 30 miles or so, there is some kind of required stop.  It’s either a traffic officer who is supposed to verify the vehicle has the proper paperwork and that it’s road worthy.  The stop consists of an officer clad in fresh white uniform sitting under a tree waving down the driver.  The bus slows to a slow roll and one of the bus workers jumps out while it’s still moving to hand the officer a few bucks and then jump back on the bus that never came to a full stop.

It’s nice the bus wants to get where it’s going quickly, but then I wonder what the bus guys are trying to hide by bribing the people who are, in theory, entrusted with ensuring the safety of road travelers.

Fresh fruit 

At one weigh station stop, dozens of people coming running up to the side of the bus to sell drinks, snacks, belts, watches, loaves of bread, pre-paid cell phone cards, etc.  This is usual at most stops frequented by buses.  At this one, most of the vendors are children who have a strong reaction to the mzungu.  I chat with a few of them from the window and I try to negotiate to buy some popcorn and a picture.  After a little haggling, the boy agrees.  I hand down my money and he gives me the popcorn, but instantly turns and runs of so I can’t get a picture even though that was included in the price.  I shout after him and he simply turns and expertly gives me the finger.  Nice to see some useful gestures have made there way to youth of rural Tanzania.

Saleswoman

Dinner and a Movie

Night falls.  It is striking how dark it is outside.  There are no streetlights or lights in the small clusters of tiny mud hut and thatched roof homes a short distance from the side of the road.  Nothing at all other than the occasional cooking fire.  Every once in a while we would drive by a fire along the roadside that somehow got out of control.  You could feel the heat from it through the window as we speed past.

Fire

After 12 hours, the bus stops at an outpost in the middle of nowhere.  We are truly off the grid in the rural and desolate area a few hours south of the Tanzanian border with Zambia.  The bus refuels and everyone gets off to find food in the dozen or so stalls and shops.  Bustling with riders of a few different buses, a couple hundred people jostle in the dimly lit area to find something appealing before being hurried back onto the bus.

Pit stop

Twenty minutes later, we are on the road again.  As people eat, the bus manager turns on the huge TV at the front.  As the opening credits of the movie start up, I pray to myself that it is anything but a Nigerian film, which are just uniformly awful.  Fail.

The movie is indeed Nigerian, which means it has a painfully low quality in every respect, lots of scream crying, long scenes of people looking menacing into the camera, a horrible electronic music soundtrack, and over-the-top drama.

I wish I could recap the ridiculousness of the characters and the intertwined multi-faceted love pentagons involving a wide-array of relatives, friends, and household employees.  I also wish I could say that I didn’t become completely glued to it after about 30 minutes like a car crash.

The film was SO ridiculous, that the entire bus would often erupt in loud and boisterous laughter when characters were at their most dramatic and serious.  Nice to know I was not alone in seeing how crazy the whole premise was.  But when the DVD froze halfway through the movie, there was a collective shout of disappointment from the bus and calls for the bus manager to get it fixed so we could see how it all turned out.  Luckily it eventually started up again, but after watching it my brain felt like your stomach does after eating at McDonald’s.

Human Body Pillow

The movie has ended and most passengers are asleep including Kuda who has virtually collapsed onto me like a tree being blow down onto the roof of a small house.  I jam my elbow into his side and he just grunts and occasionally says groggily, “sorry bro” and shifts a fraction of and inch and then ends up back where he was.  I give up.

Shaq asleep

Just when I thought the ride couldn’t get worse, the blacktop disappears and turns into a deeply rutted dirt road.  Amazingly, Kuda doesn’t wake up despite the bone shattering bumping and clattering of the bus as it passes over this seemingly endless stretch. 

Having given up on sleep, I am thankful for the Kindle, glowing in the dark and distracting me from the ride.  Adding to the struggle is the conflict between the terrible smell inside the bus, and opening the bus window and subjecting myself to the very cold night air.

To top it off, as I rest my head on the windowpane, the light from the Kindle illuminates a cockroach heading towards me.  Adding to my dread is the fact that I am pinned between the window and Shaq who is fast asleep and hopefully dreaming of large women (another Fanta for the person who knows that reference).

Into Tanzania

20 hours in and 20 to go 

We arrive at the border at around 4AM.  It doesn’t open until 7AM, so we just have to sit and wait in the cold.  Once we can pass through on foot, we go through immigration and Kuda takes me to a small restaurant on the Tanzanian side for breakfast.  The border stop takes hours as the bus manager negotiates passage for the smuggled goods underneath.

While we’re waiting, I talk with the other passengers.  I learn that everyone calls me “Mr. White”, albeit with some affection and disbelief.  In addition to my skin color (or lack thereof), my fellow passengers are incredulous when I tell them I am not married.  My status as an oddity increases dramatically. 

Hams

After another day filled with endless traffic stops/bribes, warm Fantas, hours of Kindle reading, and Kuda crushing me, we enter our second night on the bus.  At one point, we pull over and stop when the driver sees that a bus broken down on the side of the road is one of the other buses from his company.

Twin Towers

It is around 10pm, very dark and cold, and the driver and mechanics from the other bus are huddled around a small fire to stay warm.  All of the passengers have already been gradually picked up by various passing vans.  The crew from the broken bus has no food and expect to be waiting for days in the middle of nowhere until a new part to fix the bus arrives.

Tron Bus

A couple of them board our crammed bus to ride with us the rest of the way to Dar es Salaam and get the part they need.  Others remain behind to stand guard.  We gather up food from passengers on our bus and leave it with them.  After a few minutes, we continue on.

Dar es Salaam at Last

The bus pulls into the city at around 2AM.  We exit stiff, grumpy and tired.  I go with Kuda and two others to a nearby hotel to crash for the night.  The only way to describe my hotel room is to picture the move “Being John Malkovich” and the office where John Cusack’s character worked.  It was half a floor in a building where you couldn’t stand upright the ceiling was so low.  My room was truly a closet with a bed in it.  At this point, it hardly mattered and I collapsed into bed.

Yah, whatever

The next morning – only a few hours later – Kuda and two of the other traders are up and already heading out to shop for the goods they plan to bring back and sell in Zimbabwe.  I wander with them through streets looking at things to buy when a team of pickpockets try to steal my wallet.  A haggard mzungu laden with two backpacks is an easy and obvious target.

I say goodbye to Kuda, hopeful our paths will cross again, somehow, somewhere, someday.  I will miss talking about the economics of smuggling, Bob the A-hole president of his country, horrible Nigerian movies, and arguing with him about chalupas at 1:30 in the morning.

Kuda said one thing in particular during our many hours of conversation that will stay with me.  We were sharing our personal stories and lamenting our failures and regrets.  I asked him, with an element of self-interest in answering the question for myself, how he manages a hard life fraught with so many challenges and disappointments.  After a pause he said: “we are all soldiers.  We get back up again.”

Well said, Shaq.   Godspeed.