13th-15th May – Days 226-228 – Blantyre, Malawi to Harare, Zimbabwe
"Good morning, distinguished ladies and gentlemen!" declared Yvonne, our hostess for the bus ride. We looked at each other sincerely feeling that this would possibly be the nicest bus ride we'd have on the whole trip. TV on the bus, snacks provided and a smiling hostess with polite discourse. The bus was shiny clean and relatively modern, the road was smooth and we rolled on without any suspension trouble.
This lasted for about an hour before the bus suddenly started sounding rather tired while trying to get up a small hill. "Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we will have to stop for a brief break for the driver to inspect the slight problem we are having." Everyone got out to stretch their legs and inspect the damage in good humour with the driver. I mean, this is Africa and you do get all sorts of trouble from time to time – as we had already experienced many times over – so one doesn't get all too worried about the casual stops along the way. It turned out that the radiator/ventilator of the engine was overheating. Wait for a bit for it to cool down, pour some new water in there and the journey could continue.
Premiers Symptomes
Yvonne served us our complimentary Cokes and muffins. Before I had finished my muffin we stopped again to inspect the engine. Same problem obviously, so more water was poured in. Except for that this time the water didn't want to stay in, but kept dripping through the tank and onto the tarmac. Some African-style headscratching followed. The funniest thing about these moments is that nobody seems to take any action towards trying to solve the problem at hand. It's all about standing there, looking at the thing that is broken, looking around the scenerey for a bit and then more looking at the problem. Not much is said either, the focus is more on the silent discovery of something being wrong. This is what causes the passengers to become more restless and voicing out their opinions of what should be done in colourful display of roadside brainstorming. Sometimes I think Africans would make the best consultants of them all, as they don't waste any time coming up with creative solutions to just about anything. Not all of them are worth considering any further obviously, but at least the effort is there. Back in Europe big money boys need a good ten coffees and a few whiskeys to even start speaking during a case-solving session.
M reads up on bus mechanics
We watched on and got to know our fellow passengers a bit better. There was a girl who lived in London but had come over to visit some family, there was an agitated man who started educating us about how useless the driver and his friends were being about the problem. There was a group of big mamas demanding service and better appreciation of customers. And there was Alan, the mascot of the journey, with his friend the radiographer. These two were a funny pair, the two-metre tall radiographer who hardly said a word and Alan about one metre lower down who couldn't stop talking. They also had some kind of an arrangement over a Justin-Timberlake-trademark hat which they took turns wearing. An hour had passed when we heard that someone from the Malasha office in Blantyre would come over to have a look at the bus and bring a new water tank for the cooling system. We headed off towards the direction of the nearest town to buy some cigarettes knowing it would take a good while for anyone to get to where we were, nevermind for them to fix the problem. We found a hotel and sat down for a beer and a smoke. Not long after, some of the guys from our bus also made their way to the hotel bar.
An all too familiar sight
We didn't dare to stay out sinking pints for too long, as there is always the subconscious fear of things working out sooner than anyone expected. Back at the bus nothing had changed, however. After some more sitting around and an attempt at walking back to the bar, a Malasha pick-up pulled in with the new water tank. Smiley faces and action all around. The kids from the village helped the bus crew out and carried water for them to fill the new tank. I crouched down to look beneath the bus and saw there was still a puddle there. I pointed this out to the mechanic who looked utterly uninterested and, a short while later, rather overwhelmed about having to do some more work. Once it was revealed that we wouldn't be moving on just yet, Alan got busy mouthing at the driver and Yvonne about just about anything, translating to us that he had seen it coming all along but that nobody believed him because he is a foreigner, i.e. From Zimbabwe.
We stood and sat by the roadside for some more hours before there was a decision from someone's part to drive the bus to the Mozambican border post and park it there. It seemed like the damage would not be fixed with what was available at hand, but instead needed some attention at the garage. The evening fell and people were getting more restless and hungry for both food and information. The Big Mama Quartet together with Alan took the lead in pestering Yvonne about the situation and demanding that dinner should be on Malasha. "I need food to take my ARVs (anti-retrovirals, i.e. HIV medicine). If I don't take my ARVs, I will die! Do you want me to die for Malasha??" the head of Big Mamas was furious but also beaming with the attention she was getting for being the troop leader in the passengers' mutiny against « Malasha, the Dying Horse », as the company had been nicknamed by the Big Mamas. As far as Yvonne was concerned, we had stopped being "Distinguished ladies and gentlemen" a long time ago and were not kept up-to-date about what would happen next at all anymore. Yvonne had to battle in between two fires, and the passengers' side was growing stronger as time went on. As we stood united and waited for Malasha's response, Alan kept us all entertained by telling his life story to which the Big Mamas had a lot to comment to. It was like listening to a live soap opera. "Many people think I'm gay just because I don't need a woman in my life anymore after my first marriage. I'm happy being a single father to my son". Alan was truly pouring his heart out. In response, Big Mamas inquired him about all the women in his life and tried to suggest he'd get it on with one of them, a close friend as she was. It was classic motherly herding and pimping in true womanly style, something I recognize in myself all too well.
In the end, Yvonne came around to take food orders from everyone on the bus and we all marched into a restaurant nearby, Big Mama Quartet being the loudest in announcing our deserved triumph. I had started feeling feverish a while before and was not so triumphant, but dragged my shivering self there to have some chicken. After the dinner, the pick-up that had returned to Blantyre in the meantime came back with some more tools and parts. The mechanics commenced work yet again. Yvonne and the rest of the bus crew moved to a hostel in town and left us to sleep in the bus to the outrage of Big Mama Quartet. Alan and few others sought shelter in town as well while the people who remained on the bus took out whatever they had to shield them from mosquitoes. T displayed his lack of experience with mosquito repellent by attempting to spray his ankles in the dark and instead shooting it straight into his eyes. The owner of the restaurant came to the bus to look for Yvonne who apparently hadn't paid for the food. He felt sorry enough for us poor souls onboard the Dying Horse and invited us to come back to his restaurant for free teas in the morning.
The mechanics hard at work...
Morning was tactics time for T and I. We'd now spent the whole previous day and night not advancing anywhere and had only this day left to get to Harare in time to meet my parents the next morning. It had become clear during the night that the mechanics could not fix the problem, in fact they were still at it at 7am when we woke up. We made a decision to try and get on any other bus that would pass through the border if Malasha would not be getting us on another bus by 10am. We all went for our breakfasts while waiting for Yvonne to get back and inform us about what was going on and had a good laugh and a mean dig at Malasha to keep us from getting too frustrated with the situation. After breakfast she did appear but with no news whatsoever apart from convincing us that we would continue the journey one way or another. Some of us were getting slightly sceptical to say the least. One of the managers from the Malasha office in Blantyre showed up at the border as well and had to take the same mouthful from Big Mamas that Yvonne had been receiving the whole previous day. He stood there blank-faced and denying himself of all the blame and responsibility. Somehow he did convince all of us that another bus would come and pick us up and we stayed put.
Free breakfast!! L-R: Big Mama#1, Alan, someone else, Radiographer man, London-girl, ridiculous-trainers-woman from the Big Mama Quartet
At 1pm the rescue came in the form of another Malasha horse, seemingly more alive than our first carrier. We all got in, found space and finally crossed the border after having to wait 27 hours for the moment to come. The rest of the journey was free of complications, apart from the open pisstake aimed at Yvonne for changing her rhetorics during the course of the evolving catastrophe. While we were waiting around at the Zimbabwean border for everyone to get back into the bus, we witnessed something that made our days. Another bus pulled in at the parking area and, while driving past a small building separating the road from the parking space, scraped off half of the windows on one side of the bus as it drove too close to a bit of the building that was sticking out. “It's your fault!”, Alan came laughing and pointing at me, “I saw the driver looking at you while he was pulling in”. The driver seemed just as uninterested about what he'd just done as our mechanic had seemed about fixing our bus. Looking at the damage he'd caused to his shiny luxury coach from his side mirror, he just smiled. We felt the pain of his passengers as we got onto our second horse and drove off into the darkness and towards Harare.
We'd arranged with Alan that we could get a lift with his brother so we had things sorted when we arrived at the bus station in Harare. We said our hearty goodbyes to all the people we'd shared the experience with and got some pointers from Big Mama about Zimbabwe, where she was from as well. It took us a while to find our hotel in Harare but luckily Alan nor his brother seemed to mind all that much after the long long ride with Malasha. Instead Alan focused on playing tour guide of Harare and teaching us how to blow the vuvuzela, so we'd be ready for the World Cup. That is, if we'd actually got a proper one instead of the toy trumpet we got for free in Kampala.
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