Another African Bus

I woke to the sound of people packing far too early in the morning.  But alas, we had to be ready and out the door at 5am.  Loaded into minibuses and shipped to the border, the sun began to rise.  We had our exit visas for Zambia and had to cross by foot over the Zambezi River to Zimbabwe.  From the bridge, we could catch glimpses of Victoria Falls…but I will be kicking myself for weeks for not taking a photo.  It was gorgeous but at the moment all I could think was “this is a long 2k to the border” and “this bag is heavy”.  Perhaps someone thought to snap one…but alas.

We got another full page Visa to enter Zimbabwe which gets me nervously close to a full passport.  I might have to add pages soon.   If I don’t count the one page I will need for my Cambodian full pager entry visa, then I have two blank ones left.  So….yeah.

Anyway, on to van with a trailer for our packs, where we are informed that the route we were going to take up to Harare, the capital, is a washed out dirt road so we have to go the long way.  For the sake of ease, I am in Van 2.  Van 1 in front pulls over with an axil on the trailer messing up.  They tie it up and search for a welder.  Many stops…no welder, no electricity, no help.  Then we see the other side of Van 1’s axil bite it and smoke starts to billow with a horrid burning tire smell.  Tied it up better this time since we used the jack.

Finally we stop for a couple hours to get the whole axil welded back on.  By this time it is 2:30pm.  We and you have to remember the hour we left that morning.  However we only traveled perhaps 200k or like 120miles.  We continued onward, getting stopped every twenty or thirty minutes to pay off the corrupt cops at the road blocks.  Then cue Van 2’s engine trouble.  The noise started a while ago…but we tried to ignore it.  Then the smell followed, and the fact that we kept losing gas.  So another couple hour stop happened to fix that.

We drove through the night, with a poor food-poisoned Squadmate having to run off into the bush every so often.  And of course the road blocks with the corrupt cops.  Misunderstandings with our drivers added to the time lost and we found ourselves here in Harare at 7:30am.

An 8 hour bus ride…taking over 24hrs…with only 3 cans of juice and 4 chip bags to get me through.  But God did it.

Our new contact so nicely offered to let us have this first day off since we traveled all night, and we will discuss later with him what we will be doing all month.  He mentioned something about a church plant here in the city, but we will see.  Happy to be here though.

The Discomfort of Traveling to Zambia

I slept on the porch of our hostel since my mosquito net (which I am repeatedly reminded by rain is not a tent) flooded and held a nice amount of mud.  Lights on, people talking, I fell into an intermittent sleep at about 1:30am. Then awoke at 5:00am to pack.

No worries, I tell myself.  I can sleep on the bus to Zambia.  But that was before I realized that God wasn't done with growing me through discomfort yet.  After getting on the bus and going through multiple police check points that won't allow sleep since they must ALL see your passport, we got to the border.  This was a trial of its own since Malawians kept cutting us in the visa line with the excuse "you are so many".  Yes we were many but because of them cutting us it took 45 mins for our team  to get process after arriving at the window (that is not counting time spent in line...just time that we were being "helped").

After the border crossing I finally thought I would sleep on the bus.  I had a good aisle seat to spread out a little and I took a Dramamine to help with the sickness and lull me to sleep.  BANG!  Beside me a stood is slammed down beside me in the aisle and a man placed upon it. I now am squished between too people...and stool man of course is uncomfortably fidgeting the whole time.  His cheap, rough, suit rubbing my arm raw.  And his body forcing mine to lean away in a position that later cause such pain on the left side of my spine that I was brought to tears.  THIS WAS A LONG BUS RIDE!

We stopped at the side of the road so men could get off to pee.  As stool man was off, I slid his stool back just enough that he wouldn't have to touch me so much.  It was easy to do since everyone was tripping over it to get off the bus anyway.  When he got back on, he moved his stool back into alignment with my seat.  SO MAD.

Then our bus found itself debating whether to roll through a closed off road that was under construction or to take the detour through the mud.  For fear of being stuck they chose the closed road.  To make this happen they had to move the road block, which happened to be giant boulders on the street. This took many men and much time.  They would always try to avoid more work by just picking one large boulder to move and hoping we would fit through...when in reality it would have been better to move two smaller boulders a little to the left and right and slip in...but they do what they think is best.  We scratched by the rocks and proceeded.  This occurred 3 more times before our bus driver said "screw it" and drove down a bank to the little dirt detour road that we spent the last hour trying to avoid.

We also had a five minute stop at some shacks they called a rest stop.  There was a fee toilet and I figured it was getting time to go.  But I didn't have Zambian Kwatcha to pay the fee.  They lectured me about that, a lot, saying that it was dumb to travel without the money.  But I had no intention of paying for a toilet even if I had money, so I started around to the back of the building to pee there.  The lecturer yells to me that there is a fine for peeing outside.  To which I respond, "I cannot pee inside, I cannot pee outside.  Am I supposed to pee on myself?"  I left off the part I want to say, "Is there a fine or fee for that?"

Because this isn't my first time threatening to pee myself in public, and I am shameless about it, they let me in to the toilet without paying a fee.  But with all the lost time, the bus was done waiting and was honking to pull out of the lot.  Not feeling a good first impression of Zambia.

Night began to fall, and as impressed as I was by the mix of African Music Videos and Backstreet Boys, Brandy, and Usher, my gaze went outside to the sunset.  They full day of miserable travel weight heavy, especially on my left side where stool man was still leaning. (Seriously...there are 69 other people on this bus...couldn't he at least take turns sitting next to people.)  But with this sunset, I promised myself, that I wouldn't let this be a repeat of Malawi.  That I would let the end of this day be the begin of a new, better one.  And that I was going to be okay.

So, here's to a new country and a better season.