It was 5:45 in the morning, and still dark as we stood on the corner. We wiped the sleep from our eyes as we waited for someone from the bus company to pick us up at six and take us to the bus. We were a little wary, as this sort of well-thought-out, extra service was not common in Africa, but they had offered to pick us up so we agreed. I was emotionally hung over because the day before I’d had a tearful exit interview with our directors at CCS, Mama Fatuma and Moses Pole Pole. They had been so thoughtful in their care for each of us that they made our experience all the more meaningful. I found the rest of the staff, who had become family as well, and gave them good-bye hugs. Poignant farewells among volunteers were always postponed until the last possible moment, so my friends refused to say good-bye, knowing I would be right down the street next week. That night I packed all of my belongings and stored them under Seri’s bed for the weekend. When we returned from Nairobi on Sunday night I would move out of CCS and into the hostel.
This was our first time to travel on our own in Africa, no CCS, no tour company, no guide, just us. It was six am and not a single car had driven by. Finally at 6:20 we began to walk down the hill towards the bus company hoping by now, the bus was running on TFT (Tanzania Flexible Time). Of course, we arrived to find the place deserted, less one lone man sitting on the sidewalk. We greeted him.
“Jambo, habari za asubuhi na mapema?” Hello, what is the news early in your morning? “The bus to Nairobi, wapi?” Where?
“Bus gone.”
“What? Someone was supposed to pick us up.” I handed him the receipt that said, Pick-Up at Rose Home. He stared blankly for a moment.
“I go. No one there.”
“Yes, we were there. Why didn’t you pick us up?” asked Seri.
“No, no one there.”
“Yes we were, we even talked to the night security guard.” Meaning, she could prove that we were there.
“My taxi driver say he go, no one there.”
“What? I thought you were the taxi driver.”
“Bus gone. You go at 11:00.”
“We can’t go at 11:00am. We won’t have enough time in Nairobi so we must go now.”
“11:00 is ok you go then.”
A little glimmer of the new and stronger me, bubbled up and broke through the surface for a moment. “No, it is not ok. We could have been here on time if we had known. We need to talk to your boss.”
“Me the boss.”
“Well then, we need our money back to go find another bus company to take us now.”
“I don’t have money.”
“Why not? Who has it?”
“My boss. You go at 11:00.”
“I thought you were the boss.”
“Eleven is no problem. You go then.”
“Sir, it is a problem. This is not ok. We want our money back.”
“I don’t have money.”
“Who does?”
“No money.”
It went on like this for several minutes, and uncharacteristic for Seri and I, our blood pressure and our voices were rising. By now the sun was coming up, and a small crowd collected around us. We were trying not to shame him, two white women fuming at a black man, but by now we were spitting mad because of all the lies. Every bit of cross culturing we’d had came into conflict. I can’t abide lying. It’s wrong, completely unnecessary, and never helps anything. If he had just apologized in the beginning… It was obvious we were in the right and he was trying to save himself for forgetting to pick us up.
“You back at 9:00, the boss here.”
Nine! We discussed this between us. What choice did we have? There were plenty of other buses, but if we took one of the others now we’d never get our money back, plus, at that point, we were standing on principal. We had to see this through. It would probably be good for us to go somewhere and cool down. We found a place that was open and serving breakfast.
We sat in silence, both of us taking deep breaths, contemplating the options. Seri spoke, “If we don’t get to Kenya until tonight because of this, we’ll only have one day there. Is it worth a nine hour bus ride, both ways, for one day there?”
“I don’t know.” It didn’t sound very appealing, but when would we ever be this close to Kenya again?
“And we’ll get to Nairobi around 10:00pm. It will be dark. That is not a safe place for mzungu to be out at night, especially ones who don’t know where they’re going.”
“We can’t go next weekend either, because it will be your last weekend Seri. It seems if we don’t go now, we can’t go at all.”
She thought for a few minutes.
“I suppose we could stay in Nairobi an extra day and I could take Monday off from teaching, but I want to honor my obligation.” She looked sad. We were both so disappointed with the entire situation, especially the confrontation with the bus man.
“I will leave the decision to you then,” I said, “because my term is done at CCS, so I could easily come back on Monday. I believe you’ve more than fulfilled your obligation with the many extra hours you've put in there, but I know that’s not really the point, it’s about the kids. Would Oliveri be able to cover you with teaching the children?”
“Absolutely, in fact, he would tell me to go and have this experience.” She sat in silence for a few more minutes and I could see the moral dilemma swirl around her conscience, the now-or-never bringing weight to the struggle. She shrugged, “I think we should go.”
“OK, at least we’ll have air conditioning for the heat of the day and big cushy seats.”
Three cups of coffee later, after killing time, we went back to the bus company and talked with the boss, who, it turned out, was a woman. (smile) She apologized profusely, changed our return date and to make up, gave us money for a cab once we arrived in Nairobi so we could avoid walking in the dark. Things were looking up for our trip.
That is until the bus arrived.
We stood beside each other, staring ahead. “Please tell me that’s the vehicle which transports us to the real bus.” I said, feeling hot, cramped, and contorted just looking at the mini bus and the total number of people.
“No, I would guess, according to the way things go, that’s the bus that is taking us all the way to Nairobi.”
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| Yay! We're on the bus |
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| Not yay. This is the bus hahaha |
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