Somehow, I managed to go an entire year at site without ever
having to ride a mini-bus (mini-van with extra seats added that can easily hold
24 sardine-ified people) on my lonesome.
Either I’ve traveled with Donovan or with other people from my
surrounding area. This last weekend, I
managed to break that streak. Donovan
had been in Addis for most of the week doing things with VAC, a Peace Corps
committee that he’s now on, and I decided it would be fun to drop down and
visit him for the weekend.
Here is the saga of my single most eventful bus ride to
date!
Fail-Bus Moment #1
I was on the bus, its second passenger at about 6:40 AM on
Saturday. We drove around Fitche for
over an hour trying to pick up passengers.
After an hour, there were 4 passengers in the bus, myself included. They finally decided, “Eh, might as well try
driving out of town and picking people up on the side of the road.” Why didn’t
they come to that conclusion a half-hour and decent amount of gas before
then? Your guess is as good as mine.
Fail-Bus Moment #2
Halfway to Addis, we pulled over in the freaking middle of
nowhere and everyone else got off the bus.
It’s only a 3-ish hour trip, and I’ve never been on a bus that had to
take a pit stop. Hmm, odd. Then I notice that they’re taking the tire
off of the bus.
“Oh, they must have blown a tire on that last speed
bump. That’s a first for me. Hmm, I would have expected a popped tire to
result in more noise and a scary, bumpy stop.
Oh well,” I thought to myself as I quickly called Donovan to tell him
why I was running so late and then put my headphones back on.
That’s when I noticed that A) the tire was fine and B)
somebody was banging on the undercarriage of the car with a wrench. Oh boy.
After about 40 minutes of that, they decide that the bus is not going
anywhere and they start trying to flag down busses with empty seats to load us
into. Of course, all the men who were on
the bus push their way into the first one that stops, nearly knocking over a
pregnant woman who was traveling with her toddler and leaving me stuck with all
of the other ladies waiting for yet another bus.
Fail-Bus Moment #3
Knowing that I should get a refund to pay the rest of my way
to Addis, I go up to the redat (guy who handles the money and yells the bus’s
final destination out the window), and politely ask for my money back. I try it in Afan Oromo. Nothing.
I try it in Amharic.
Nothing. I try it in the
international language of me looking ticked, holding my hand out, and saying,
“Money, Quarshii, Birri, ama,” while angrily slapping my own upturned palm. Again, nothing. He pretends not to understand a word I’m
saying while offering begrudging refunds to the few ladies left with me.
Fail-Bus Moment #4
His biggest failure was assuming that I was sweetly going to
drop it and let him keep my money. The
second that I got into my next bus, the driver asked me where my fare was. I informed him and the new redat that the
last redat was a “hattu/lebe” (thief) and would not give it back to me, a
sentiment that I managed to communicate entirely in local language. The driver, who seemed rather endeared by the
impressive two sentences that I’d said in Afan Oromo, yelled something that I
could not understand at his redat. Queue
the new redat, named Abu, leaping out of the car, chasing the first redat and
nearly punching him over the matter of 20 Birr (a little less than $1). The bad redat finally gave up 20 Birr to the
new one, at which point I had to fork over an extra 5 Birr that he “hadn’t had.” It was well worth the 25 cents to nearly see
that guy get decked!
The rest of my ride into Addis was very pleasant. I got to sit up front with the driver and had
a very nice conversation with him and another guy that we picked up one stop
after I got on. All told, my normal
3-ish hour ride took me a little over 6 hours, and I don’t think I’ll be riding
the bus solo again any time soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment