That’s Africa
Posted By Sika on February 26, 2008
On transport heading home today, Raymond sat in the seat behind the coaster (that would be a bus) door with his knees over the handrail and his feet pinning the door shut as the spring has come out of the latch and the door refuses to remain closed. As he dropped (that would be getting off the coaster) he told David to take his place, as Raymond is over 6 feet tall and David is over 6’3” and us wee things would be unable to get our feet in actual useful position.
David instead elected instead to allow the door to swing open whenever we turned a corner, which is fine by me, since I have no intention of falling out the door. Margaret mentioned how what we really need is a big rock to weight the door closed and so I proceeded to tell her a story I think hilarious but which others may find less so. Derek and I have discussed previously that we tell people from home what we think to be funny stories, but then they seem to be frightened for us, a reaction that doesn’t occur to us until after the words have already been spoken.
This coaster, with the missing windows, and broken latch, and (I would hazard to guess based on my witnessing fewer than a handful of vehicles on which they were functional) broken fuel gauge, is the one I rode for 4+ hours from Lilongwe to Zomba. As I did not mention earlier, we did not leave Lilongwe until after nightfall. While it rained. Which, while we sat in the car park waiting to leave, had the added benefit of cooling what had been oppressive heat to something tolerable. Seating was strategic: somehow, we had to get everybody seated and all belongings stored without exposing them to the rain coming through the missing windows and without unduly exposing anyone to too much cold air. Fortunately, there weren’t that many of us and so it was possible.
I had brought nothing warmer than my short sleeve hiking shirt to Lilongwe, judging that and my umbrella to be fair enough protection from the elements due to my utter failure to anticipate a late night, semi-windowless drive. Luckily, Erin had an extra long sleeved tee and so I put that on, unwrapped my scarf from my hair, rewrapped it around my shoulders, and huddled over my backpack, using it for the dual purpose of pillow and repository of warmth.
We did have a rock to pin the door shut: it was probably about a foot by eight inches by eight inches, and it did an admirable job, although one of the passengers had to sit in the jump seat next to the door so he could easily remove the rock in case of inspection by anyone at a roadblock. It just wouldn’t do to place the coaster’s roadworthiness in doubt.
And I loved every second of it (well, except the guys from Blantyre campus who Would. Not. Shut. Up.) because as Mary said, laughing, “that’s Africa.” And it is. Not in the poor, poverty-stricken Africa sense, but in the resourceful, use everything into the ground, waste nothing sense. The coaster still gets us from Zomba to Lilongwe and back: it’s still good. So of course we’re going to continue to use it, just as we have for the last 16 years (a feat that really is incredible on these roads, especially with students as the primary passengers). Soon it will need to be retired, but not before every last kilometer has been eked from it.
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