Bladders finally relieved, our next task was to find a way from Kahama to Kigoma. One of the women who had traveled with us from Dar was also going to Kigoma, so we asked if she could help us get on the right bus. Baby wrapped tightly to her back, she threaded her way through the hustlers, singled one out, and within minutes procured tickets for all three of us on a bus going to Kibondo, another town we’d never heard of.
We killed a few hours drinking coffee and watching the town of Kahama wake up, then at 11am we got on our new bus, Ally’s Express. Unfortunately, we were given the last two seats in the bus; Anette against the window in the way back corner, and me with my knees at my ears trying to give her some leg room. “Shouldn’t be that bad,” we thought, as we settled in for the six-hour ride.
We had now reached the wilds of western Tanzania, a place that has little to do with the bustle and modernity of Dar Es Salaam. There were no more paved roads, and within an hour our clothes, hair and backpacks were coated in a thick layer of red dust.
As we labored along the bumpy road, Ally’s Express kept stopping to pick up person after person, bag after bag, until the aisle of the bus was completely filled with standing passengers. It was now midday, the sun was hot, we were all sweaty and dusty, and the smells were overpowering (most Africans don’t wear deodorant). Our legs were cramped, we were thirsty but we couldn’t drink too much because then we’d have to pee, and anyway it was now impossible to get out of the bus. We were trapped.
There must have been 50 people standing squashed against each other in the aisle. All we could see was a sea of bodies. Our fellow passengers in the back began to protest, yelling out, “we’re human beings, not cattle!” each time the conductor ordered people to squish farther down the aisle to let more people on board. The road was sharply crowned due to erosion, and every time we veered to the side to add more passengers, it felt like we were hanging upside down from an amusement park ride.
The bus was now so heavy we were sure it would tip over, and our minds began racing with scenarios of how we would get out in such an event. All the scenarios ended in our grisly death, either from the impact of the bus hitting the ground or from being trampled as people tried to get out. This was as close to panic as we wanted to get - a few more hours and both of us would have gotten claustrophobia for life. We swore to each other that after this trip, we would never again willingly put ourselves in this type of situation.
Sure, we feel that we gain respect from the locals by traveling as they do, and it gives us a truer perspective of Tanzanian life, but the fact is that we have a choice because of our wealth, and that will always make us different. Why, then, were we choosing to put ourselves in this dangerous position? Well, in this case, there was simply no other way to get to Kigoma. Our tickets on the direct bus had been sold away in Dar, and now we were in the middle of remote western Tanzania with no other choice than to make it by the only available means.
To make matters worse, at our next stop we saw several men in civilian clothes carrying AK-47s, of whom two boarded our bus. Considering how uncomfortable we already felt, this was enough to put us over the edge. We asked our fellow travelers and found out the men were guards who protected buses on this stretch of road. “Protect buses from what?” we asked. “Ambush and robbery,” came the reply.
Turns out we were about to pass by three Burundian refugee camps, and according to local Tanzanians, people in these camps often raid local villages. Whether or not this was simply uninformed prejudice, it only added to our growing panic. Already trapped in the way back of the bus surrounded by hundreds of bodies, we were now looking at the barrel of an AK-47 silhouetted against the windshield and wondering what could be lurking in the dense bush beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment