The first several hours were fine. We left Dar at about 7am and reached Dodoma, ostensibly the administrative capital of the country, before noon. The paved road disintegrated soon thereafter and we lurched off the main road to follow a wide sandy track that paralleled it. We saw several bulldozers and backhoes and assumed it was just a small detour due to roadwork, but then we saw the Chinese foremen in their hard hats and SUVs and realized this was a major development project. For anyone who doesn’t know, China is building Africa’s roads. On some street corners in Dar there are now more Chinese than Arabs or Indians, a historical first.
Turns out that this project has been underway for five years but not a single section of the planned 300km of tarmac has been laid. The sandy side-road has become the main road, and our driver treated it as such, rollicking along at 120 kmph over its numerous humps and depressions. We were seated a bit too far back in the bus, and thus were thrown skywards every time we hit a peak or valley. At times it got out of hand, and all the passengers in the back, after a collective gasp and pitch forward, started screaming at the driver to slow down. It was hot and dusty, which meant that the dust poured steadily through the windows and made it hard to breathe. It was a desolate countryside devoid of villages, which meant no way to buy water, which we were now out of.
After an eternity of hanging on hard to the seats around us, gritting our teeth because of the dust and the constant jarring of our bones, and dreaming of a drink of water, we reached paved road again and were ecstatic. We were now more than halfway to Kigoma, it was still light out, and we hadn’t experienced any major trouble yet…
KABOOM!! WHHSSSSHHHH RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!! All of the sudden smoke started pouring in the windows as the bus listed heavily to the left, and a Swahili woman sitting to our left shot up out of her seat and began yelling in a terrified voice, “YESU! YESU! YESU!” (Jesus, Jesus, Jesus).
The poor woman had obviously had a bad experience with a blowout on a bus before, and she was shaking and crying uncontrollably, head buried in her kanga when we finally ground to a halt a few second later. Her traveling companion tried to console her, as did other passengers, but she just sat there until everyone had gotten off the bus to wait for the drivers to change the tire.
Another truth of African life: if you want to drive a vehicle here, you must be able to fix that vehicle. We have come to have great respect for the drivers and conductors who are almost always able to fix these ageing machines by any means and with any parts necessary. We always enjoy these moments of camaraderie on long travels; everyone gets off, several male passengers often help change the tire, others look on, legs are stretched, bladders are emptied, and we are all together on the red earth in the middle of the bush, the huge sky overhead and emptiness and silence surrounding us. Tanzania has 40 million people, but it sure doesn’t feel like it when you break down in places like this, somewhere between Dodoma and nowhere.
Just before dusk the new tire was safely in place, the old shredded one now sharing space with the luggage, and we rumbled on into the night. At about 10pm, after 15 hours of driving, we stopped for the night in Nzega, a small junction close to our final destination. We wanted to keep an eye on our backpacks and keep our seats, so instead of finding a room in a guesthouse we lathered up with bug spray and settled in for what little sleep we could get on the hard, narrow seats.
At about 3am we were awakened by loud, agitated voices. We soon learned that one of our conductors had been attacked by a band of thieves with metal pipes as he was walking outside the bus. We heard our driver swearing revenge, but we simply put our heads back down as he sped off, knowing it would be a fruitless search. The hours between 3 and 6am were a blur of alternate attempts at finding the thieves, going to the police for help, and going to the hospital. Fortunately our conductor was not seriously hurt, and with his wounds dressed we drove out of Nzega before dawn.
You might think that was the last little twist on this first leg of our journey, but no. When I woke up again at dawn I had to pee terribly, but as usual I was at the mercy of the long journey and the few planned stops. I waited in agony for about half an hour, but the bus never stopped for more than 30 seconds to let people on or off. When we stopped near a gas station and someone had some bags to offload, I took my chance.
Standing outside in the bright early morning sun, back to my fellow passengers but conscious of their eyes (and those of the gas station employees, whose wall I was about to pee on) I got stage fright. I tried my best, but I knew the clock was ticking because this wasn’t a planned bathroom stop. Everyone was waiting for me, and I had to go so badly that it was just too much pressure – literally – so I zipped up without having relieved myself and jumped back on the bus hoping no one noticed how silly I had been.
When I sat back down I confided to Anette how much pain I was in, and she suggested that the old empty bottle trick might be my only way out. For the next 15 minutes or so I flip-flopped frenetically in my mind: “take out the bottle…jump off again…take out the bottle…jump off again.” Having already lost once to stage fright, I finally grabbed the bottle and went to the back row of the bus. I had just unzipped my pants and unscrewed the bottle cap and was waiting for relief when an old man in the front of the bus got up and began walking towards the back. Anette turned around and shot me a knowing glance, and I confirmed with my eyes that yes, I had already begun trying to pee.
There was nothing she could do to stop the man, so I chucked the bottle (which hadn’t yet begun to fill) and quickly covered my pants with my shirt because I didn’t have time to zip up before he sat down next to me. Damn African curiosity! Why of all moments did this man have to choose now to strike up a conversation with the conspicuously tall white man on his bus?
Africans are generally starved for exposure to the outside world, especially personal contact with foreigners, so many of them are overenthusiastic in their dealings with white people. We’ve gotten used to smiling politely, answering their many questions, and hoping for a turn of events to give us an excuse to get away. This time there was no escape. There was nothing to do suck it up, ignore my bladder (for a second time) and engage the man in polite conversation. Anette, meanwhile, was doing all she could to not turn around and burst into peals of laughter at my plight and my forced politeness.
It was 7am, for Chrissakes. Who the hell starts a conversation with a stranger at 7am after having spent a sleepless night on a bus?!! Fortunately it was only about fifteen more minutes until Kahama, and I somehow made it without being rude to my new friend and peeing all over the two of us. When we finally rolled to a stop in Kahama - 24 hours after beginning our trip in Dar - I raced to the public pay “toilet” (hole in the ground) and relieved myself, then stepped out into the morning sun to hug Anette as we congratulated each other on what we thought would be the most difficult leg of our journey.
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