So We Kept Going

My insides were rebelling in Malawi, and I wasn’t in the best state to keep moving. But I was also feeling cranky and lethargic and nothing makes me giddier than careening toward the nearest border in a crumbling excuse for public transportation. SO, we kept going.

Although my visa was free when I was in Zambia last year, this time, I had to pay an insane amount for a three-year visa, the only option now for American citizens. Then it was on to Chipata, on the Zambian side of the border with Malawi to catch a bus to the capital. We bought our tickets from Zoom (HA!) Bus, whose slogan is “You Snooze You Loose,” and then spent the next many hours sitting on what we came to refer to as the stairs of defeat.

Since I was in Ghana in 2005, I have marveled at the comparative lack of the time I’ve spent waiting on the side of the road in other sub-Saharan African countries. My luck ended in Zambia, although rather than the side of the road, I was confined to the small, dusty bus depot, trying to figure out why every other bus was entering, filling up and leaving the station except the inaccurately titled Zoom bus.

The bus depot was like its own tiny, weird, fantastic city. In truth, it wasn’t a bad place to be stuck waiting. The setting was ideal for people watching and an entertaining introduction into local Zambian life. Alongside ticket booths were multiple liquor stores (and subsequently drunk passengers, and quite probably, drivers). The longer I waited, the more I understood the market for alcohol in a bus station. There was also a jail cell to lock up the rowdy drinkers, essentially a lone train car reinforced with iron bars. A man with blue coveralls was mopping the outside of the jail, but didn’t bother cleaning the inside.

I didn’t patronize the liquor stores but I was a loyal customer at the fee paying toilet and shopped at the open air stall equivalent of a bodega. I bought a package of cookies, and the woman behind the counter shone the plastic wrapper with a rag. Another stall was a cell phone kiosk whose only entrance was a miniature door, Through the Looking Glass style. I was beyond shocked when the tiny door opened and a tiny man emerged- an actual Little Person. I don’t know if the door was made small to fit the user, or if he got the job because he could fit through the door, or this was just a serendipitous set of circumstances. In any case, I was thankful I had a companion to witness this small, incredible moment with me and to confirm that I wasn’t having a malarial or (malaria prophylaxis) hallucination.

Zoom somehow crashed or broke down or the driver quit or gave up or drove the wrong way, because at some point (more accurately, at a point six hours later than when I arrived), all of the passengers were instructed to pile onto another company’s bus. Waiting for the bus to come was a blink of an eye compared to the ride to Lusaka, the capital. The roads are crappier than the distances between cities are long, and Zambia is a huge country. We played word games to pass the time and to distract ourselves from full bladders. I was so desperate that Carissa offered me her water bottle as a temporary makeshift toilet. I very seriously was considering using it (hallelujah for skirts) when the bus pulled off the road. A single naked bulb in the lone village shop and the stars were the only light in the pitch black night. A Zambian woman from our bus directed us to a patch of dirt that was to be our toilet and side by side we exhaled sighs of relief and peed on our feet.

We arrived in Lusaka so late, we didn’t bother trying to find the hotel we had booked, and slept on the bus until 5 am. When I stepped off the bus, I saw that the Lusaka station had no hint of the weird charm of Chipata and seemed more like Port Authority in New York City. I loved it. Beneath a sign that said, “No Call Boys, No Standing, No Loitering, No Sleeping, No Illegal,” people dozed on quilts and leaned against garbage cans, and I’m sure there were call boys and any number of illegal activities going on in the near vicinity. Even though no buses were coming or going at this hour, the place was bustling and full of noise. People bought and sold wigs and hair extensions, crocheted hats, plastic dolls and roasted maize. Everywhere I tried to walk, there was pushing and spitting and an impressive feistiness for 5 am.

After about ten minutes of fresh air, I found my next bus, and while we waited for it to fill up, the early passengers (lucky us) got a visit from the bus station preacher. I’m pretty sure the buses are this guy’s church, the passengers, his congregants. Because I was sitting at the front, and the aisles were crowded to walk up and down, I got the brunt of the preaching. Within a few minutes, my ears were ringing and I was flecked with the preacher’s holy spit. He ended by praying we wouldn’t crash, and who wouldn’t say amen to that?