Ndola and the long ride home

There was a public holiday on 12th March so I decided to make the most of it by meeting a fellow volunteer in Ndola for the long weekend.

Ndola is quite a large town by Zambian standards. It is built in a Western way with high-rise buildings and tree-lined streets. This is quite a departure from your generic Zambian town where developments over one or two storeys are not standard, and towns usually have been developed in a linear fashion along the main road. 

It was surprising to see such a place in Zambia. You could tell that the place was once booming but had now fallen on harder times. The vacancy rates on retail units must have been near 50%, which meant there were little pockets of business amongst areas of dead retail space. On the plus side there were some nice bits of architecture, and it would have been interesting to see these buildings in their former glory, along with the rest of the town.

The days were spent walking around soaking up the relaxed atmosphere, drinking Mosi and watching Premiership football in the bars. There was little else to do. Although, we did visit the Copperbelt museum which was surprisingly quite good if a little dated and rusty.

I left on the Monday morning. In order to get back to Solwezi from Ndola I had to take the bus. I bought my ticket at the ramshackle waiting shed set which was set in a glorious concrete wasteland. Bus operators don’t dress in uniform so it’s a test trying to find out whom to get a ticket from.  There are a lot of people waiting at bus stations as you may expect, but there are also a lot of people that don’t look like they are going anywhere. They are just there.  There were two men sat next to me on some bricks, the sun beating down on them whilst they gathered moss in a non-literal sense.  What were they doing hanging at the bus station? What did they like to do on a Sunday?  Did they think about the future? There are so many people like this in Zambia…

After waiting over an hour for the bus to arrive, I was told it would be by-passing Ndola and heading straight for Kitwe. No explanation was given, but I accepted the situation because I was in Zambia and I knew that things like this would happen to me, and besides I’d had plenty of practice being tossed about by trains in the UK.

Fortunately I got talking to a local named Alex prior to this issue and he was able to show me where to get the next bus. Upon arrival a bus-boy came over sniffing out an opportunity to make a cut. He assured me that I would be able to get on a bus to Solwezi but would have to sit in the conductor’s seat until we arrived at Kitwe. Alex was not so sure about this, but the only other option would be to wait until 4pm (or 1600 hours in Zambian parlance) for a more dependable bus (it was now gone 11am). Alex left me and said he’d call to check up on me later.

Now alone, my bus-boy came over, cigarette in mouth (smoking is uncommon in Zambia) with his baseball cap tilted to the side exuding a coolness that I hadn’t come across before in Zambian men. He asked me where I was from so I told him. He nodded half-interested. We sat in silence for 60 seconds and then he left to go hang out with the other bus-boys under a tree. He said he’d come get me when the bus came in. I nodded.

I got talking to the guy next to me and he told me to ignore the bus-boy and ask at the counter again. So I got up and told the counter guy that I needed to get to Solwezi, and like lightening he took me the bus that was parked up. I half expected my bus-boy to come running after me but I must’ve slipped his gaze. I paid the counter guy the cash and he got me on. There were three blokes standing near the entrance. My notes went into a variety of different hands and yet I had no ticket. They offered me a seat on a box in the aisle. I said no chance and they offered me the conductor’s seat, which had no seatbelt and a view of the cracked windscreen straight in front of me (cue visions of crashing and flying through the glass). As we got moving, my fears passed and I was quite content sat there amongst the hustle and bustle at the front of the bus. Besides, it was only 45 minutes till Kitwe where I could get a seat. Everything would be just OK I said to myself.

The journey from Kitwe

At Kitwe I got my seat.  The two lads I was sat near on the way to Kitwe seemed to be running operations. They packed on everyone who was waiting at the bus stop and then we were left waiting for a long time for the driver... Where was he? What was he doing? Why do people here put up with such shoddy customer service when they pay good money? Why isn’t there communication between the driver and the customers? Why is that so difficult? Why can’t anyone else see that this is not acceptable?

We set off eventually to Chingola, and as we did I looked back and saw the jam-packed bus: people standing in the aisles; kids sitting all over the floor; mothers, holding two or three babies covering just a one-person seat. In front of me was a woman and her four children sat on a box. Because it was so cramped she used my knees as arm-rests to support herself. It was quite unbearable, and I think if I had had to stand I would have collapsed. Before I could even attempt to relax, a suitcase fell off the luggage shelf onto my head. Not one person asked me if I was OK, not even the woman sat next to me eating boiled eggs. I began dreaming of the Megabus.

Chingola was our penultimate stop. The usual process continued here with people concurrently getting on and off the bus. The only attempt to organise the situation was from the two bus-boys who brilliantly shouted at people to move further down the back. A woman who had been travelling from Lusaka had finally had enough and starting shouting at the bus-boys about how disorganised the operation was. They both looked uninterested, and to me it looked like they couldn’t understand why she was getting upset. Then, as we set off, a pastor appeared out of nowhere… (I’d had a brief experience of one before on an early morning bus where prayers were given in an evangelical fashion before the journey started.)

So, there he was, in his clothes that were too big for him with a small satchel over his shoulder, holding the Bible. He began to preach some text in his mother tongue. He was loud – he had to be to speak over people. He just stood there, staring blankly into space, wedged amongst passengers, imbibing the spirit of the Lord and offering his sermon to the bus. No-one looked interested. He continued and got louder and more aggressive with his delivery. It was unbearable. The journey had already damaged my body physically and now this man was delivering hammer-blows to my mental state. There were a couple of moments where I nearly got up and asked to be left by the roadside, but my rationale overcame me and told me to sit tight.

The show must’ve gone on for a solid 20 minutes, if not longer. There were moments where he would pipe down and it was almost tolerable, but then he turned up the volume and I was screaming internally. He came closer, stood over me and started talking in English. He told the bus that here was a white man, a privileged man who had come here and we should show respect. I closed my eyes and pretended I was asleep, and hoped he would soon pass and feel my apathy. He did.

Some time passed and he was dropped off by the side of the road at some small community. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back knowing that we were on the final stretch. Five minutes later a watermelon fell off the luggage shelf and hit me on the shoulder and then onto the boy sat on the floor next to me. I watched it roll along the floor as it found a new home next to my feet. No-one claimed it; no-one came to pick it up; no-one apologised! It was a big watermelon as well. It could’ve landed on a baby and caused some serious damage.

Thankfully, the slow remainder of the journey passed without incident, and when we arrived in Solwezi I powered my way back to the guest house as the sun set on another African experience.