Happy Birthday to Me!
Have you ever questioned which day your birthday was? I
never have until this year. Africa changes everything. You see, I was born on
the evening of February 9th, Eastern Standard Time. Which would mean I was born
in the wee hours of the morning of February 10th here in Eastern Africa. So.
which day is my birthday here? I decided to celebrate both!
February 9th dawned with anticipation in the air. Six of
us student missionary girls headed out for a day in Iringa. Speeding down the
washed-out road in the back of a pick-up truck, I thought, "What better
way to begin a birthday adventure?" And quite an adventure it was! We
picked up some "hitchhikers" on our way to Mafinga, where we girls
boarded a bus. It cost us only about $2 to ride the hour-and-forty-five-minutes
to the city of Iringa. I was grateful that one of the girls who has been at
Kibidula for several months knows a substantial amount of conversational
Swahili. What an asset that was!
But when the bus made its first stop at the top of the
mountain which is Iringa, only two of the girls had time to exit the bus! The
remaining four of us turned to each other with expressions of confusion. Where
were we headed? Why didn't they wait a moment for us to dismount? We quickly
scrambled to the front of the bus. Some of the girls hollered to me to tell the
driver to stop, but one thing I've learned about travel here in Tanzania is
that one just must be patient and not question things too much, because usually
the driver has reason for the decisions he makes. I say usually. We rode until
the next stop on that street, which was not very far, and then literally jumped
from the bus to the sidewalk, not wanting to be stuck on that rapidly-leaving
vehicle! Our teammates were running down the hill to catch up with us. We had a
good laugh after the conundrum was over.
The two girls who have been at Kibidula for longer talk
often about this Indian restaurant in Iringa called "Hasty Tasty."
They said it is worth the trip to Iringa simply to eat lunch there. Hearing
that it sometimes closes in the afternoon on Sundays, we decided we should walk
there before doing anything else. Asked directions of the locals and bought
some beautiful fabric before we made it to where the restaurant stood, only to
find it was closed. Apparently the owners had gone to Dar and wouldn't be back
in business until the next day.
Well, well! The girls who had been there were
disappointed, but I was excited to see where our culinary adventure would lead
us!
Upon hearing that "Hasty Tasty" was closed, we
all decided we weren't too hungry yet, anyway. We looked at a few roadside
shops where things were ridiculously priced for us "tourists," and
then shopped in a local Masai market where things were a bit more reasonable
and one could actually argue prices. I was in my glory! I love going
back-and-forth, arguing a price with one of the locals, especially when I don't
really need to purchase the item.
We eventually decreased the amount of cash we had
on-hand and decided maybe we should try to find somewhere to eat. Asking the
few "wazungu" (white people) around where there might be a local
rice-and-beans joint led us to "Four Seasons." There we enjoyed rice,
beans, cooked greens, and fresh mango juice-a delicious birthday meal! Cost
less than the bus ride, too! The girls sang to me as we sat around the table,
which incited curiosity in one of the employees. He came over and asked,
"So, who was born today?" I got a good inward chuckle out of the way
that question was asked. One of the girls pointed out that the birthday girl
was me and jokingly asked the man, "Are you going to give her a birthday
cake?" He asked how long we would be in town. If we could come back later,
he said, he would try to make me something.
Wish we could have stuck around for a while. I would have
been interested in seeing what he concocted. Needing to leave Iringa early
enough in the afternoon to account for the travel back to Kibidula, we trekked
to the local bus station.
There we had a bit of a time trying to understand the bus
schedule, as told to us by several bus company workers. The time here is like
Bible time: noon is referred to as six o'clock, three in the
afternoon as nine o'clock. When we finally got across to them in our broken
Swahili what time we needed to leave by and that we wanted to be on one of the
larger buses, we followed one of the guys back to his "bus station" and purchased from him tickets that would get us back to
Mafinga. It was during our wait there that I decided maybe I should put on some
sunscreen.
Yeah, that makes sense, Ashley: wait until afternoon,
when you've already been sunburned to apply the sunscreen you brought. Smart. But that's a twenty-one-year-old Ashley for you.
Having time before the next bus departed, we trekked the short distance to the
local Sunday market, where one can find almost anything imaginable.
Lots of baskets and beautiful fabrics to be found, along
with a host of other things: shoes, backpacks, sunglasses, wallets,. lots to
look at.
Hurrying back to the bus stop, we found a bus that
matched the company we had purchased the tickets from. But wait! This wasn't
one of the bigger buses that would travel quickly to Mafinga! This was one of
the smaller ones that would stop every few yards to pick up and drop off
passengers! That's not what we wanted! Our brave, Swahili-speaking teammate
took it upon herself to have a good talking-to with the guy who sold us the
tickets. Then we climbed aboard the small bus. We were the only passengers on
the bus.
After sitting there for about 15 minutes, we thought
maybe we should ask what time we were supposed to be departing. What?! In an
hour! That's not what we had been told at all! Augh! We lumbered off the bus to
stand in the center of attention once more as we tried to figure out where we
were supposed to be and when. We were told a bigger bus would be coming at a
later time. We trekked back to the market area, then returned to find that
bigger bus. None to be found. The guy who sold us the tickets was nowhere to be
found, either. By this time, some of the girls were quite upset with him for
not selling us the tickets we had asked for. I didn't really mind, as long as
we made it back to Kibidula that evening. We conversed with the nearby bus
workers and couldn't get anywhere. We stood there, as if on display, a bunch of
confused white girls who weren't really sure what to do next. Then, one of the
guys suddenly pointed to a nearby bus, already packed with people and headed to
Mafinga, and practically dragged us aboard. Might have been the last bus to
Mafinga that day. We weren't sure whether to board or not, as the bus company
didn't match the one we had purchased our tickets from. We didn't want to have
to pay again, but figured we might not have much of a choice. Climbing aboard,
we found the only vacant seats to be the ones nobody else wanted: the seats in
the back of the bus that were quite worn out. The seats weren't really able to
be sat on. The bench tipped toward the floor, making it an uncomfortable
balancing act of half-standing-half-sitting, so one did not slide off the front
of the seat.
The bus soon pulled out of the station and began the long
journey back to Mafinga. We would have had a relaxing ride back, except that a
man who had been drinking soon boarded the bus and insisted that he sit on the
back bench with us. We greeted him in Swahili, and then we girls returned to
conversing with each other in English. The man, speaking quite clear English,
soon asked us why we were speaking English with each other. Didn't we know we
were in Tanzania? Then why weren't we speaking only Swahili?? I tried to reason
with him that when he was with his friends, didn't he speak Swahili with them,
because that's what they all knew as a first language? And we all knew English as our first language, so we. He
would hear none of it. Needless to say, we were much relieved to reach Mafinga
and disembark on the next portion of our journey home. Only, had we known what
that would entail, we may have been glad to remain on that bus a little longer!
A quick stop to purchase some fresh fruit at the market, and then we were ready
to board the last dala-dala toward home. Or, we thought we were ready to board
that dala-dala. every seat was taken and the aisle was crowded with passengers
and heavy bags of grain. Where were we to fit? We soon found standing room,
only to discover that we were not the last people to board this vessel! By the
time the loaded vehicle pulled away from Mafinga, I counted forty-one people I
could see and estimated about twenty more that were blocked from my view. (We
later counted the number of seats to see what the maximum capacity of this
vehicle was supposed to
be-twenty-one.) What a ride! The
being-packed-like-sardines-ness didn't really bother me so much. What bothered
me is that the windows of the dala-dalas do not open. I could picture us all
fainting from lack of oxygen and it taking so long to extricate us from the bus
that we wouldn't be able to be revived. One of the girls, poor thing, is
claustrophobic. I don't know how she survived. People were sitting and standing
on one another, belongings and purchases squeezed in any nook and cranny that a
part of a person was not occupying. Because the floor of the aisle was packed with
sacks of grain, I could not even stand upright, but had to bend my head to keep
it from smacking the roof when we would hit a pothole. We travelled at the
speed of a snail. It's a wonder the dala-dala could even move with that heavy
of a load! Anytime we stopped, we prayed that no one else would be getting on,
but someone getting off was almost as great an ordeal...
In order for someone to move through the bus to one of
two doors, he or she must step on, over, or around about twenty other people.
Then, if that person owned any large packages, those must also be found and
passed from person-to-person until all that belonged to that person was safely
off the bus. And so the story went for I-don't-know-how-many-hours! Once some
seats had been vacated, I was able to actually sit down for a while. The air
seemed a little more breathe-able, that few inches lower. I sat next to a lady
and her baby. That made the time pass more quickly, as I was able to talk with
and befriend them. Upon reaching the village of Matanana, everyone and
everything was finally off the bus-except for us and our belongings.
Matanana is the closest village to Kibidula, and is
usually the last stop of the bus, but we really hoped we wouldn't have to get
off there and walk the two hours back to our house. Because there were six of
us girls and another lady (Mama Temboh) who were going back to Kibidula, the
driver agreed to drive us the remaining distance for 500 Tsh apiece. Certainly!
I was more than willing to pay thirty cents and not have to walk two hours in
the dark without a flashlight! I've never been more excited to be back to our
house.
We were absolutely exhausted, hungry, and travel-worn.
Upon entering the house, I discovered that some little angels had visited while
I was gone and had left me some beautiful bouquets of flowers and a
crayon-drawn poster that read "Happy Birthday Ashley!" I was so
surprisedly-delighted. And so ended the first of my birth-days.
