Tales of Transit - Part Two
14th of July. First ferry
from Stone Town to Dar er Salaam. Merry companionship of vomiting kids and
disbalanced passengers trying to find their way to the toilet.
Make it through
the harbour hustler’s lane. Find a taxi. Be on time for the flight.
I fly to Mbeya in southern
Tanzania. My plan is simple – treat myself to a room with concrete walls and
big comfy bed. Step on a floor not made of sand. Have a warm shower. Experience
the moisturizing pleasures. Go to sleep when it gets dark. Oh lord, I have a
bath tub! I roll out my divine plan. It all works pretty well until temperature
drops to nine (!), window is opened and the water goes cold in the bath.
15th of July. 6am. Early start and quick
breakfast. Kitchen crew is listening to the mass. A transit, frontier sound. Things
are changing. Landscape is changing. Heavenly preferences are changing. So do the transit sounds.
I take the peculiar transport of
no name (a cross between the motorbike and small car with no side doors) and
head towards bus station. I freeze. A
standard departure waiting time of 2 hours. We leave packed and merry. I was
supposed to reach the Malawian border but bus driver had to come back halfway
through our journey. He puts me in other dala dala. It’s merry and packed. I
get dropped off two kilometers from the border. I politely explain to seventeen boda boda
taxi drivers that I have fear of motorcycles. I wait for the
Malawian visa stamp at the border. I find out that my bus is not leaving for
another 6 hours. I spot local taxi and a male muzungu. We continue the journey
together. There is it - another bus!
Packed and merry. There are two chickens (alive), fish (dead, but surely a sign
of Lake Malawi proximity) and the rest of us.
I reach Chitimba village in the late afternoon. I need to climb up the
mountain. I can go with the pick up truck. I’m proud of myself – this is fantastic! I
travel local, I travel hard. I am so great and brave. There will be stories about me surely!
I start to regret it before the
journey even starts. I sit on bags of rice and my bottom is discomfortly placed
on the crate of beer balancing on them. Around a meter above the level
of the trunk. The crate is full and not
upside down to be exact. Engine starts. I want to die. The road is bumpy. The
bumps are supreme.
I try holding on to anything
really. After ten minutes my hands are numb. Two local ladies and one
missionary from Livingstonia look at me and ask if all is good – of course, I
answer, all is just fine. They seem to be perfectly fine with no holding points
and car’s displacement versus the level of the ground. Why shouldn’t I? Five minutes later I want to
cry. My bracelets get smashed. Don’t ask me how. I pray for this journey to be
over. How do these beer bottles stay untouched under the jumpy weight of my
bottom? I really do not know how. After an hour the drive is finally over. I’m
singing: Alleluja! I cannot even jump out! I curse my wish to travel local. I’m
too old for that.
I go to sleep before 9pm. I’m in
my late 30’s. I am entitled to that. I wake up before sunrise. My back, right
arm and left leg (?) are blue and bruised. I experience the new kind of muscle
pain. But it all does not matter anymore. I no longer remember about the
transit traps. Look what I saw when I
opened my eyes. Listen to the mountain sounds.
I finally made it to the Mushroom
Farm…
Comments
Post a Comment