The Woman behind the Wheel

I went down to the Copacabana the other day. Yes, the hottest spot north of Havana, where music and passion were always in fashion...until the present day that is.

In Harare, the Copacabana is a taxi rank. The area used to house the Copacabana nightclub. It closed down decades ago, but the name stuck, as it has in several other African countries I've been to (for some reason I can't understand, maybe Barry Manilow was big here?).

Either way, Copacabana is one of the major places to catch a kombi to various parts of the city, and I've been doing so quite regularly for several weeks now. I was a bit surprised, then, when, upon reaching the kombi rank that would take me out to my regular café on the Chisipiti route, I noticed a woman in a bright, coral-colored sun hat ushering people into the car. Usually, that is a job reserved for men. The guys that do this are typically conductors, leaning halfway out of speeding cars calling out the various destinations on the route “Sipiti! Sipiti!” for Chisipiti, “Bare, Bare, Bare!” for Mbare township, or just waving four fingers on their left hand for those cars speeding toward the Fourth Street kombi rank. These guys handle the money, call out stops for the driver, and provide general entertainment as they contort their bodies into whatever space is left in a cramped, overcrowded bus.

I didn't think much about the woman until we were well on our way. I was immersed in a book when I noticed that the radio, rather than blaring the usual mix of Zimbabwean contemporary, gospel, or reggae, was tuned to a talk radio program about financial planning. “It’s important to have a savings account,” the guest speaker said, “I speak to so many people who say, ‘I don’t trust the banks, I keep my money at home under the mattress.’ Why? I say. It is important to control your spending and to keep a budget by having a savings account.”

An odd choice for a kombi ride, but one, I felt that was important. It was like a ride-along with good sense.

Then I noticed a bright, coral-colored hat perched atop the driver’s head. It was the woman I had seen in the kombi rank. She was driving the car!

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to the typical Western audience, but I can count on one hand the amount of women kombi drivers I have ever seen in my three-plus years in Africa. I can remember riding along with only one other female kombi driver, and I remember how struck I was by her presence.

It’s just not something you ever see. Kombi drivers are aggressive. They work long, hard hours and spend a lot of their time in the transport yards, areas known for being rough and tumble, full of thieves, pickpockets, and general ne’er-do-wells.

I’m not sure if women are more likely to listen to talk radio, or whether this woman was an exception, but here I was, on a twenty-minute journey across town listening to a radio program extolling the benefit of savings accounts. 

(Most Zimbabweans don’t trust the banks after losing everything in 2008’s wholesale economic collapse. The banks are back up, but most of them lack the liquidity to make serious loans. The loans that are made often carry 18 to 20% interest because, again, the banks’ money supply is non-existent.)

Instead of being assaulted by reggae or American hip hop, I was instead treated to sound financial advice at a reasonable volume (this too should not be understated). I began to think about the nature of kombis – an attentive audience stuck in a cramped taxi with nowhere to go – and realized that they are the perfect vehicle (pun not intended) for communicating ideas via radio. If only more kombi drivers played these kind of programs, think of how much better-off the average Zimbabwean could be.

Part of me wishes that this was just one enlightened kombi driver, but I think it was more than that. I think the woman’s gender had a direct role in what she played for her passengers. Like an attentive mother hen, she was responsible not only for our safety but for our well-being.

There might be arguments to be made for gender differences in radio programming, or a preference for music or speech, but I won’t make them here. On one typical weekday morning, however, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to hear some productive information from a kombi stereo. I only hope others listened as closely as I did.

The People on the Bus

Some rides are meant to test your patience. It's Africa. When you're not crammed thirty into a fifteen-person van or riding ten deep in the back of a pickup truck, you're crawling along at ten miles an hour in a broken old bus or standing nose to armpit with an overweight, middle-aged man who hasn't bothered with a shower in three days as he's “been traveling.”

You come to expect these things and know that delays are inevitable. A travel day is usually that, a day in which you know nothing can be accomplished, and if you arrive at your destination within a reasonable amount of time, then you're not really sure what to do with yourself. “What is this? I didn't plan for this. How did this happen? Did we break the laws of physics?”

Luckily, a recent bus trip confirmed all my previous beliefs about the reality of space-time in the African context. A 192km trip from Francistown to Bulawayo, a distance that one can travel in three hours by private car, even with a border crossing, took eight.

I don't want to write a piece that lists the vagaries of why we were delayed, a complaint that encompasses breakdowns, blowouts, or border politics. It's been done to the point of ennui. It's a hackneyed staple of “the African experience,” and not one that I want to promote.

Instead, let's focus on the little things that help one through such a trial.

I took the bus in part because I didn't want to be forced into conversation by a hitch. Don't get me wrong: I love talking to generous strangers on long stretches of open road, but for every comically racist South African or genuinely interesting customs official there's a scary racist South African or an ultra-religious truck driver playing the same praise song on repeat for three hours while he tells you that religion can cure AIDS.

Instead, I sat next to Bernadette, a young Ugandan woman on her first solo trip to another country. She was paranoid. She didn't want to fall asleep, she told me, in case someone tried to steal her bags. She didn't want to talk to anyone, in case they tried to sell her into slavery. I assured her that if she wanted to speak to me, that I would get the best price I could for her from my Romanian contacts.

It's good to have a friend on board when a bus trip goes as far south as this one did. As it was, by the end of the trip, I wanted to burn the motherf***er down. If she hadn't been there, I might have actually done it.

The problem came at the border. I know I said I wouldn't do this, but bear with me. You have to pay duty on goods imported into the country. When you try to hide said goods from customs officials, and get caught, you're going to be in for a bad time.

So it was. You gain a bit of solidarity with the other passengers as you mill about in the no-man's land of 'not quite there yet.' You get to explore the murky side of razor-wire and chain-link fences, the people who draw livelihood from the frontier. It's not the obvious ones, the government officials in their brick offices, it's the women selling cold drinks in the shade of a tree, all day, every day. It's the guys who spend their days ferrying people to and from the border. They know everyone in their domain, pick their teeth with acacia thorns, sleep through the heat of the day, and are always on the prowl for a fare. They're the jackals at the frontier, and if you're stuck, they're your only hope, for the right price. It's the prostitutes who laze like cats and ply their trade with the truckers who've driven through the night to get through the border at first light.

You're finally on the road again. It's night. You've got a pirated copy of “Wreck It Ralph” on your computer, which gives you something to take your mind off the pain in your back, in your legs from sitting in one place for too long. Before long, you realize you've made a friend. A little boy attracted like moth to the glow of your computer monitor and the bright colors of an animated feature. We'll call him Curious, as that's exactly what he was. Zimbabweans usually have names like that anyway: Blessing, Psychology, Chemist, Gift.

You don't want him to fall if the bus has to swerve or brake suddenly, and pretty soon, he's sitting on your lap, watching with you. “Wreck It Ralph,” by the way, five stars. Even better if you have a curious four-year old to watch with you.

You get pulled over in a random stop by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. They're checking bags. You go through the whole rigamarole of the border again, but at night this time. No flashlights, the guys are using their cell phones to examine the bus, to examine bags. Really, how expensive could a torch be? Why are we searching bags the same way we look for a dropped set of keys on a drunken night out?

The bus's headlights wash over you, hazy in the dust kicked up by fifty people tramping about. A customs guy comes over and asks you to open your bag.

“You smuggling drugs into our country?” He semi-shouts it before cracking a smile.

“No, just a lot of weapons, officer, is that okay?”

“Oh no, that's fine. You just have to have a permit for that.”

What's this? A custom's officer with a sense of humor? “I've actually got a very small Asian man packed away in here, that's okay, right?”

“As long as you have a permit.”

Ultimately nothing can keep you sane through eight hours of waiting around on a trip that should have taken three. But everyone's in the same boat, as much as you hate to admit it, and if everyone else can suffer through it, so can you.

You take some solace that this bus never runs this late. The taxi driver's on your side. This is the latest he's ever seen this bus come in. So that's something, I guess. It's late for everyone. You're tired, bone-sore, but you've made a few ethereal friends. A four-year old boy you've nicknamed Curious; he's asleep in his mother's arms when the bus pulls in to the yard. Bernadette – she slept most of the way, finally trusting you won't harvest her organs. Invited you to a wedding the next day. A witty ZIMRA official who just wanted to break up the monotony of having to work at 9:00 on a Friday night.

Maybe it's one of those trips that can seem so terrible that you focus on the bad and forget about it a week later. Maybe over a beer, you can kvetch to whoever will listen and forget that there were others there with you, just as tired, just as frustrated, just as sore. But maybe if you write it down, you'll remember a completely ordinary, extraordinary experience and the people who were there to share it with you.

Ridin' the Rhodesian Rails

It's 439km from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls. Takes about seven hours, give or take, by car. A slow bush taxi might add another couple hours.

Then there's a train.

The train takes 14 hours. It's crammed like a cattle car full of people, each with their own accompanying food, children, and varying levels of hygiene. The cars are decades old, and it's been years since they've seen anything other than the most basic of maintenance.

So why take the train? First class, baby!

Those train cars that haven't been updated in decades? That's part of their charm. The first class sleepers on the line from Bulawayo to Vic Falls are something out of another era. Richly varnished wood lines both compartments and cabins. Dark green interiors are offset by brass coat hooks and silver mirrors inscribed with twin, interwoven Rs – Rhodesian Railways.

Inside these luxury digs, you're transported back to an earlier era, but one that still exists in Zimbabwe today. The train crawls through small towns and villages, stopping occasionally at former railway stations, overgrown with grass and weeds, before picking up steam again to race through the bushveld. At night, you can stick your head out into a warm, evening wind and pick out every star in the sky.

Your porter for this evening is David. He's been working the rails for 34 years now. David is in his late fifties, five years away from retirement and a pension. He's was working in the yard until five years ago, when they made him a porter, riding the evening train every night up to one of the seven natural wonders of the world. His skin is tight, pulling his lips over bright, symmetrical teeth in a perpetual smile. A newsboy cap sits atop his head, and you wish he were your grandfather – a sprightly, happy chap who will give you a toffee “just as long as you don't tell your grandmother.”

Your train manager is right next door. A man named Chegworth. You're eternally grateful to him for working it all out for you – giving you the private coupé because you didn't get to the station early enough to book a first-class seat. He's a big man, but one of few words. He'll neglect to charge you for the ticket upgrade, but say he was coming all along when you stick your head out the window as the train stops for coffee and tea at 6:30 in the morning.

The beds are comfortable, even if they're leaking stuffing from several large holes. The fold-down sink has been chained to the wall. You don't think these cars have had water in years. The toilets empty right out on the track, so be careful with your phone. If it goes, you're never getting it back.

The window closes all the way and latches, the intertwined Rs reminding you that even though you're in Zimbabwe, this country isn't everything it seems. We used to call it Rhodesia, after a mythomaniacal man who dreamt of one world, a union of people and states under the benevolent colonialism of the British Empire. It had a past, but even those dark days created some beauty. The engraved window closes, but not the shade. There isn't anything but starlight out here to keep you awake. It's just you and the night.

The train stops occasionally. You stick your head out. Meet the people in the next cabin, but no matter what, you can't figure out why we're stopped. It never last long, and on we go. Maybe a cow on the track, or an elephant. We're certainly far enough out to see some. Every once in a while, there are people standing alongside the rails, waiting with large bundles on their heads, a child in tow. You look around, cannot for the life of you tell where they came from – there's no sign of human settlement in sight, but you know that somewhere, in the tall grass or beyond the acacias, there's a village, and in that remote community, they need something, so they've come to the closest mode of transport they can get.

They know the train will stop. No one on it has any particular time constraints. If they did, they wouldn't have taken the train.

Instead, they ride for the rails. For the ka-ka-chink, ka-ka-chink of steel rolling over steel. For the rush of air from a door that's just been carelessly left open, so watch your child. If she goes, she's gone. For the attempt to pee while rocking both forward, backwards, and side to side. Standing up probably wasn't a great idea. It really fucks with your aim.

For the $1 cheese sandwiches with a mug of tea in the morning. For David, your porter, who's going to check in on you throughout the night, making sure everything is going smooth. For Chegworth, the train manager, even if it seems like David's doing all the work.

For the romance of the rails and a time gone by, looking at the stars as they streak on by, reading your newspaper by the light of a dim incandescent, and waking up to a morning sun rising over the plains. You hear the world wake with you: a door sliding open, then closed again, a voice in the hall, and the clack of wheels.

And as you pull in to the station, you can see the mist above the falls, 'the smoke that thunders' and masks the gorge cut over millenia by the steadily flowing waters of the Zambezi. You hear the train hiss, spy a few baboons creeping over the cars, waiting for the porters to drop their guard so they can raid the train for anything left behind.

You walk through the ticket hall and underneath an arch, the same as passengers did a century ago to greet the warthogs and the storks mulling about the grounds. This is Victoria Falls. Your train ride is over. Welcome back to today. Enjoy your stay.

The Transformed Journey

I'll begin my week of productivity with a word on travel in the developed world. I officially crossed over to this forgotten place (Europe) nearly one month ago when I crossed the Strait of Gibralter on the 35-minute ferry ride from Tangier, Morocco to Tarifa, Spain. In the ensuing weeks, I visited four of Spain's World Heritage Sites, including the Alhambra, Generalife, and Albayzin in Granada, the Llotja de la Seda in Valencia, and the historic cities of Córdoba and Toledo. I met up with a couchsurfer for an awesome Celtic festival on the northern coast before returning to Madrid to see Spain win the World Cup for the first time. Then it was off to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations of all sorts.

So you'd think with everything I've seen and done in the past month that I'd have heaps to write and update. Well I don't, and here's my explanation: I'm just not good enough to do it justice. Cities like Toledo, Valencia, and Córdoba have been written about before and will be written of again by writers who are much more elegant and productive than I. Sites like the Mezquita in Córdoba or the Alhambra in Granada are almost too much for a single blog entry. Washington Irving wrote an entire book devoted to stories inspired by the Alhambra, and I'm not going toe to toe with that giant of early American letters. With news coverage and internet video, the only thing I could add to the parties in Madrid and Paris would be my own politicized commentaries, but this isn't the place to run away with criticisms of France's link to long-serving dictators like Paul Biya (Cameroon, 27 years strong!) or Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso, 23 years in October, where does the time go?)who were given honorary seats in the July 14th celebrations. And if you saw videos from Spain's World Cup fiesta, you know that words cannot describe the crazy times in the streets of Madrid.

And, let's face it, most people reading this blog probably aren't that interested in Europe's great cities and landmarks, not for any negative reasons, but simply because the Eiffel Tower or the Museo del Prado are so easily visited these days. Get a cheap flight and see them yourself. Don't rely on me to give you any beautiful descriptions. West Africa, on the other hand, is a place which few people know anything about and even fewer visit. It's easy to understand why: with all the places in the world, there are few who would choose an undeveloped country to spend their vacation money. Especially considering that you go to West Africa, not for sightseeing, but to meet the people, which is hard to do if you can't speak French (or Songhai, Hausa, Bambara, Wolof, Fula, etc.) I feel confident that my descriptions of West Africa and my experiences there are somewhat interesting, if only because it's such an unknown part of the world.

So instead of describing Europe, I'm scaling back to focus on my experiences with other people and my interpretations of a world from which I've been away for over two years. This week's blogs will be a lot more personal for sure, but my personal writing has always been, in my view, my strongest suit. And hey, this is an individual blog after all, not a travel website. For me, it's always been a lot more entertaining to write about the horrorshow old lady vomit on the bus through Western Sahara that it is to actually write about Western Sahara (which was eye-gougingly dull). I prefer to tell stories, stories like the one of my bus ride from Madrid to Valencia. I sat next to a Guinean and in front of two Nigerians. Of course, I love talking to any African I can at this point, so I take every opportunity I can get, and we were in the midst of a conversation when KATHUNK!, something broke off from underneath the bus and started it shaking:

Me: I think the wheels are about to fall off this bus.
John (Nigerian man): This can't be right, it sounds like a train!
Tobin (Nigerian woman): It sounds like an African bus.
John: Ya, but African buses can't go this fast. (everyone laughing)

A little while later another KATHUNK, this one from right under my seat. The Guinean gets up and runs to another seat.

Me: What is this , we're not in Africa!
Guinean: Spain is the capital of Africa, they're just like Africans.
John: He's right, see, the driver just keeps on driving like nothing's wrong.
KATHUNK, BOOM!
Tobin: Oh my God, he's going to kill us all.

The bus eventually broke down with a "flat tire," and now we're stuck on the side of the road for 45 mins waiting for another bus to come get us.

Me: You know, if this WERE Africa, we'd have this thing fixed in twenty minutes.
Tobin: Twenty?! Try ten!
John: And we could eat some foufou while we wait!

This is just one of the more recent adventures. In the next few days, I have two more posts, one positive and one negative. For those of you who know my blog well, I like to pair the two so that they can balance and inform one another. They both deal with people and provide a clear distinction between "traveler" and "tourist," and the amazing and not so amazing interpersonal experiences I've had with people on the move and people at rest. Until tomorrow then,

Tschüß!