Busing is Experiencing

Travel days often feel like days that don’t happen. You sleep, read, watch out your window and have your knees cramp-up. While the days don’t seem to show anything happening, there is really so much you learn through bus travel. With airplanes you just see things from 40,000 feet, but you don’t really get to understand what’s happening way down there. When you take a bus, you see the other passengers and begin to understand why people do what they do. Any of the travelers coming to from Kigali to Kampala are not just going for a day trip; it’s not your commuter traffic in the same way as the trip from Musanze to Kigali can be. It’s people attending weddings, conferences, graduations or in my case today a whole group of nuns filling up the front half of the bus. You see generosity, kindness, desperation, and even people’s very personal struggles for survival as you fly by their tiny roadside town- never to stop there, just to pass through. In my travelling, the morning started off right. While I fretted about not finding a moto at 4:30 am walking the street from Kimihurura toward the road to Nyabagogo (the bus stage), one passed by with a passenger, and must have noticed me walking strangely from my heavy duffle bag, helmet and purse. Luckily, after dropping the other passenger off, the moto driver circled around for me and this morning was definitely one where the 200 Franc overcharge was both unarguable and well worth the 33 cents. It was a driver I had a few déjà vu conversations with on passed rides, but I was just so elated that there was one within the city limits that I couldn’t help but say yes to his ride.

The traveling as I mentioned is usually just whizzing by the city, and at 4:30 the city still smelled the same, but had a very different audio soundtrack: such stillness, an occasional roster and/or goat bleating, but little else that early that it is serene and wonderful. On the bus we don’t tend to stop for more than gas or foodstuffs, and the noises that surround you are honking horns, people yelling muzungu, or merely the gravel knocking into other things. When we do stop the towns are often bustling, hence the need for people to get on and off of the bus. As the bus comes to a stop a swarm of people fly baskets and brochettes held high to your beckon call. Their prices aren’t always the best, but you can tell by their speed going from one bus to the next (hardly checking for oncoming traffic) that this is their livelihood. Without the stops, these people would not have money, none would come into the town, and none would be spent in and around it. When we think about development work, it often involves some miniature version of a stimulus package. Clearly we aren’t taking about the same package that the US needed, but we are talking about microgrants, microloans, Heifer’s give and animal- all of these projects are bringing outside capital to a village to either be traded and sold within or sent outside the community to be sold for hard capital. It’s hard to see how these economies can grow when they are so separated by their own poverty. A lack of money not only means you cannot get your community members to buy whatever you make or grow, but it means you also don’t have the means to get it to the place where people will buy it. Passing these towns, I can’t help but hope that each bus load of people brings enough money into a community that another child can go to school or at least to bed with a full tummy.

I tend not to buy much in transit since the bumps are prone to turning even the most strong of stomachs into queasy messes, but today after only a pair of passion fruits for breakfast, I was very excited when we reached Uganda in hopes of a rolex (egg and chipati rolled together) walking onto the bus for sale. First, we had to pass the border. Katunga is a relatively easy border crossing, and involved a lot less dust than the trek from Musanze directly. Crossing the border, I always get excited going into Uganda. Knowing I will get to see my homestay family and that I can surprise a few people with my Luganda tends to make my day. At the Ugandan immigration stations, there was one agent working very hard to explain the decentralized system of immigration in Uganda. Any Ugandan cannot just show up that the border they want to exit from to get a passport. Each region is assigned a passport giving city and office- this border was clearly not this individuals place or residence, so there wasn’t much the agent could do. He was pretty patient and then as usual apologetic that I had to wait so long. I didn’t mind since I clearly learned something and wasn’t going to be the last one back on the bus yet (a benefit to being at the front of the bus is that you don’t have to worry about being the last one back on since you’re the first one off).  The agent was so chipper and surprised I had a multi-entry visa and knew a little Luganda that he was almost besides himself telling me to keep coming back. Even gave me more than the number days I requested to stay saying anything less than 2 weeks was too short of a stay. Sometimes people know you and your plans better than you do. This was certainly a case of this- now I have until the 10^th of August to leave, and after arriving and sending out emails, it seems I may be here that long anyways! Little did either of us know!

The rest of the journey was uneventful with the exception of it getting progressively warmer as we drove nearer and nearer to the Equator. I woke up at least twice just because I was too warm! Certainly this is a weird feeling to me having been anything except too warm at night in Musanze these past few weeks! Walking off the bus, my knees felt a little wobbly from being in one position for so long- cowboy boots are bit unforgiving in that way, but Aunt Dale’s boots have the dirt of 4 countries on their soles now! Having been from the USA and gone to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, they were definitely made for walking. And of course, that’s just what they’ll do. So getting off the bus, these poor boots of mine were hoping to hop a moto and go straight to Red Chilli Hideaway, but I wanted to find a moto drive that would be at least a little safer than most, and my judge of that is a helmet. Some moto (or boda boda) drivers have it on at all times on their bike others, have it bungee chorded to their non-functioning dash protecting a whole lot of nothing. Just preventing their bike from being impounded, rather than their heads.

Today, finding a ‘safer’ driver was near impossible and when I did finally find one, he didn’t know where Red Chilli was. Lovely. So I kept walking, and finally talked to a group large enough that a non-boda driver chimed in knowing where it was. As soon as the explanation was given, half the stage was offering me a ride there, but at 10,000 shillings I was not about to do that! Tops it should have been 5000 with the “muzngu tax.” As I found this out later, I was even gladder to have opted for the matatu at 1000 shillings. It took me into the suburb where Red Chilli was located and then a moto took me the rest of the way for another 1500- not quite bargaining, but in the midst of rush hour, to a place I had never been, I would say I didn’t do half bad. A slight bruise on my neck (from my duffle not an accident) later I was curled up in a chair with free wifi and a bottom bunk.  Much needed after the long day of travel and the chaos that was rush hour traffic- from ambulance sirens blaring to bodas speeding by on the sidewalks, I couldn’t believe how hectic it was for what must have been 4 o’clock or thereabouts.

The rest of the evening involved a drink and some serious emailing, a skype call with mom, Scott and Thomas (one of my Ugandan homestay brothers). It was also the first time I have been surrounded by such a large number of muzngus (the place was swarming with them! While it is a little shame to pay for housing when you have family in town, I was glad to have given him this evening to himself, since he returned from some trip this past week tonight as well. After a yummy pizza (not to expensive either) I took a modified shower (aka out of the wall spout rather than the shower head which had no pressure) and then headed to bed mosquito net down and ready for some decent rest in some clean sheets. Welcome back to Kampala, land of mosquitos, music and crazy driving…oh, and note to self, you’ll always need more airtime!