Rebarbative

Rebarbative- (adj)- causing annoyance or discomfort

A travel narrative- but first a disclaimer: it remains to be seen whether this was a singular experience or business as usual when traveling through Zambia.

 Here goes! Saturday, we are picked up on a hired public minibus at 7:00. We go to Lusaka intercity, are accosted by taxi drivers and hawkers, go to the grocery store, take another public bus to the lodge, and relax. The next morning at 3:30, buses are supposed to pick us up to go back to the intercity station so we can make our way across the country. Buses do not come for two hours and bus drivers’ phones are turned off, presumably as they are sleeping. Replacement bans come to take us to the bus station. Buses are already leaving as we arrive. We argue for our tickets, then wrestle our way onto the bus. Setting off, we see Lusaka fading in the light of the rising sun. We are seated five in each row, with a very narrow aisle crowded by boxes and parcels sandwiched in between the two seat and three seat sides. I gingerly fight with the woman seated next to me. As she sleeps, her legs drift towards my half of the seat, pushing me onto the metal seat reclining lever that has been stripped of its plastic coating. This lever is lodged into my upper thigh for the remainder of the trip. We make several short stops along the road for people to relieve themselves but we make a longer stop in Chingola, at a reputed rest stop, where we are once again thronged by hawkers. I push my way down a back alley where the toilets are pointed out to be. The toilets are bowls on the ground with a curtain in front of two non-separated stalls, where women consistently poke their head around to check for vacancy. The toilets require a two kwacha fee. After Chingola, the road changes from tarmac to dirt and is quite bumpy. We drive along the dirt road with pick-up trucks, mining dump truck, and other buses. The dirt road is parallel to a seemingly fine tarred road that has been closed for unknown reasons. This is Africa.

We arrive in Solwezi, are thronged with hawkers yet again, wrestle our dusty bags from the underbelly of the bus, and make it to the provincial house. It feels like an American bubble, distinctly non-Zambian. Travel to visit our sites is further conducted by a Peace Corps cruiser and while long, is relatively uneventful. To my site, we travel down the main road heading west from Zambia to Angola, which you might imagine is a big highway, but you would be mistaken, as it is a dirt road wide enough for one vehicle at a time. I sit alone in the back, somewhat precariously. Picture this: I’m sitting on the seat, facing sideways, one leg holding down panes of glass leftover from making a window to prevent them from sliding. On top of the glass is a flat tray of raw eggs, which I’m also stabilizing with my foot. On the opposite seat are two 5L water bottles, which I’m trying to prevent from falling down onto the eggs by wedging my other foot onto the seat. I’m also holding a potted plant in one hand, which I’m taking to plant in my future garden. All that is missing is some bone china and a Faberge egg.

  Returning from my village, I wake early, walk about two hours down the road to my BOMA, and hail a ride to the next district in an open-air truck. More than once, I question- is this really my life now? I am dropped off in Mwinilunga, have a leisurely day with other trainees, spend the night at a lodge, and wake the next morning at 3:00 to board the bus back to Solwezi (about a six hour ride). The ride is fairly long but peaceful. We spend the night at the provincial house in Solwezi and take taxis the next morning around 3:30 to make the 4:30 bus to Lusaka. The bus leaves on time but is condemningly bumpy and awash with mechanical noises. Dust and dirt are circulating through the now obvious hole in the bottom of the floor. At one point, a large mechanical thud seems to suggest a part has come loose and fallen from the bottom of the bus. When we reach Kitwe (about a third of the way of the twelve hour ride to Lusaka), a safety and transportation officer boards the bus and starts asking questions. Apparently, someone has called to report the bus as unsafe. The officer agrees and announces that another bus will be sent by the company from Ndola, about an hour away. Settled. After the officer leaves, the bus driver announces the company will most certainly not be sending another bus from Ndola, but there will be one sent from Lusaka, which is eight hours away. Passengers complain but eventually start filing off the bus. We stay put for a little while, as an opportunistic preacher boards the bus. We heave small sighs and busy ourselves, intent on not offering him content for his lecture. He leaves eventually, but a rotation of hawkers board the bus, selling plate lunches, drinks, snacks, headphones, power banks, and washcloths (?). We take a little while to explore Kitwe, then return to an unchanged story. At this point, we will not make it to Lusaka before nightfall, so we call Peace Corps. Our coordinator demands to speak with the bus driver to explain our situation (she is a fierce and compelling woman who is very good at her job). She eventually suggests we change bus companies and worry about ticket refunds later. We cross the station to another company with our bags just as their bus to Lusaka is leaving. Somewhat defeated, we buy tickets from yet another company, repeatedly assured the bus will leave promptly at one o’clock. 12:45 comes with no bus. 13:00, 13:15, 13:30, and 13:45 come and go without a bus. Meanwhile, the replacement bus from the original company arrives, diverted from another route. Some of us go to see the situation there while others try to negotiate for refunds with the tardy company. The replacement bus starts rolling way but with pleads from the few volunteers, waits for the rest of us. We squeeze on and find our seats as the bus pulls out of Kitwe. I’m fairly certain we jumped the queue ahead of several other groups, as the ‘replacement bus’ was already mostly full of other passengers en route. The rest of the trip is mostly (or at least comparatively) uneventful. The window at my seat in the back row is tarred closed, which leads to a stiflingly warm and sweaty ride. We hit Lusaka traffic about two hours outside of the city but make it into Lusaka just in time. There is a law in Zambia forbidding buses from driving after 21:00 to prevent nighttime accidents. The buses must stop where they are on the road and resume their route at 5:00 the next morning. We arrived at the intercity station at 20:30, which means if there had been another half hour of delay in Kitwe or because of traffic, we would have been sleeping on the bus somewhere outside Lusaka. More likely, we would have called a taxi to drive us the rest of the way, as we are comparatively privileged compared to our Zambian hosts.

The only other comical part of the journey was disembarking the bus. The bus pulls into the opening of the station and lets people get off, find their bags, and be on their way. However, the bus only stops for about five minutes and there are again throngs of taxi drivers and hawkers flocking the bus, offering Zambians rides to places in town and offering Americans/foreigners rides to Livingstone, where they assume we must be going. In the hubbub, I don’t find my bag before the bus pulls away. I follow the bus as it drives around the station, looking for a place to park. After several laps with me and other Zambians jogging in tow, the bus stops so we can collect our bags. Mine was in a service compartment close to the front of the bus, away from everyone else’s bags. We take a Peace Corps approved taxi to our predesignated lodge, spend the night, and drive back to Chongwe the next morning. It was quite an adventure, to say the least.

Travel in Zambia is inherently more challenging than cross-country travel in the U.S., as we are used to good roads, rest stops, and an expected level of service from hired companies. Zambians are not afforded these luxuries and to a certain degree, have come to accept travel the way it is, imperfect and uncomfortable. I found it immensely interesting that the Zambians on our broken bus also reached a point of declaring the travel conditions unacceptable, and demanded the transportation officer step in. By American standards, that point might have come earlier in the travel, but it came nonetheless. As humans, we all have a level of discomfort that necessitates remedy, even if that level varies depending on the comfort we are raised to expect.