Another Wild Ride

I would be remiss if I didn’t invite you to join me on yet another wild ride...courtesy of the Ethiopian bus system. I’ve been reading an excellent book by Alice Steinbach titled, “Without Reservations…The Travels of An Independent Woman”. In the book she encounters a man who lives his life by the following equation, M=EA (Mishap equals Excellent Adventure). In a nutshell, it all boils down to perspective. An Ethiopian bus ride could be something to endure or a “sit on the edge of your seat” ride of a lifetime. Two years is a long time to endure something, so instead I’ll choose to sit on the edge of my seat with my hands in the air ready to conquer (and live to tell about it) another bus journey, Ethiopian style.

So…my journey begins at 4:40am when the alarm sounds. Worried that I will oversleep, my slumber has been restless. I struggle out of bed to find that I’m still without running water so I perform a quick and cold bucket shower. It is dark outside. I yell out the window to wake Hapti who will join me in my 25-minute hike to town. I am to meet my co-workers at 5:30am at a pre-arranged location near to the bus station. I arrive right on time. My co-workers are rarely on time so I’m not concerned that they have yet to arrive.

At 5:45am, when they have yet to make an appearance, I place the first of two phone calls. I have clearly woken Muluken. Our conversation is brief, but I’m sure that I understand him to say that he is coming. At 6am I place the second call. This time it is difficult to hide the frustration in my voice when he responds to my “where are you??” with “oh, I meant 5:30 Ethiopian time.” Let me do the conversion for you….that would be 11:30am! So…I lug my stuff and my grumpy self back home. For the 25-minute walk home, I alternate between profuse apologies to Hapti for waking him at this hour, kicking myself for not quadruple checking the time with Muluken, and plotting ways to do him harm!

I crawl back into bed hoping that when I awake this will have all been a dream. Fat chance! At 10am, I rise for the second time. I try to tame my hair and set about to prepare a meal that is neither breakfast nor lunch. I’m trying to recall if chicken soup is ever on a brunch menu. At 11am, I begin the trek to town…again. I arrive at our meeting place, happy to see that Zeleke is present. Things seem to be coming together. Zeleke’s opening remark to me is, “have you eaten lunch?”. I respond with, “Of course. Aren’t we leaving now?” That question seems to have been lost in thin air as he tells me to wait while he sets off to find lunch. So much for things coming together!

Muluken arrives at noon wondering where everybody is; I in turn wonder where he has been. I continue to wait. At 12:45pm, the group has finally gathered and we make our way to the bus station. We board the bus. I sit down and immediately am told that it is time for tea break. We disembark, leaving our things onboard with Zeleke’s reassurance that the bus won’t leave without us. I’m not convinced but follow like a lemming. We don’t take tea at the café that is in line of sight of the bus station, but at one a block up the hill. At 1:30pm, the bus driver wanders by on his way for tea and informs us that the 1pm bus will be leaving at 1:45pm, which at this point in time makes perfect sense to me.

At 1:50p the bus pulls out of the station. Before we reach the turn off to my house, we make our first stop. We’ve traveled less than 10 minutes. The ticket taker hops of the bus with a tire iron in hand and proceeds to fiddle with the wheel that I happen to be sitting above. I seriously consider just calling it a day and heading home, but I’ve got nothing better to do. We resume our journey. It has now become glaringly apparent that I have chosen the wrong side of the bus (none of the windows open), the wrong seat (there is a bolt jutting out of the seat in front of me that is in perfect alignment to my patellar tendon), and the wrong seat partner (the woman next to me is sicker than a dog). But, the bus is full and I have no options. Twenty minutes later we stop again…same man, same tire iron, same wheel.

After an hour and half of listening to my seat partner hack and sneeze, Muluken gives her a piece of soft (tissue) and demonstrates that she should be coughing/sneezing into this to prevent the spread of germs. I’m thinking the damage has already been done. It’s hard to suppress my smile when she thanks him and then tucks the soft away for a true emergency.

At the 2-hour mark, we turn off the main road and onto the dirt road that will take us to Bichena. Within minutes, we have stopped to pick up additional passengers for which there are no seats. At least 20 people stand in the aisle or lean up against those of us with seats. The journey commences only to come to a screeching halt a few minutes later. There is quite a commotion at the front of the bus. Voices are raised, people with seats are standing, and Zeleke is trying to mediate something. It is then that I notice the air is thick with a medicinal/alcohol smell. I ask Muluken for translation. It turns out that a women decided to pop a squat on another man’s bucket. In the process of doing so, she crushed the bucket causing a tidal wave of arake (a home-brewed hard liquor) to sweep across the bus floor. The arake owner is justly upset and demanding payment. The woman hasn’t the means to reimburse him. The arake owner changes tactics, realizing the futility of demanding payment from this woman, and insists that the bus driver should pay for taking on more people than there are seats. This is why the bus has stopped as I think the driver found it difficult to drive when facing backward and yelling.

Eventually everyone returns to their seats and our journey resumes. I’m just about to ask Muluken what the resolution was when that thought is interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. I turn around and come face to face with a wooden cross and a very animated Orthodox priest. He’s talking a mile a minute and I’m catching less than 10% of what he is saying. I assume he wants to know if I’m orthodox and would like to kiss his cross. I respond to this with, “I’m protestant”. Either he doesn’t understand me or my answer isn’t satisfactory. His lightening speed Amharic continues to pummel me. I tap Muluken on the shoulder and ask for help. Muluken listens for a moment and tells me the following, “He wants to know if you believe in St.Mary. You’d better just tell him you believe!” My only thought is that I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid kissing his cross. I’ve already taken in more germs than my immune system can handle.

All seems to settle down and the remainder of our journey, 5km, is uneventful.

With a day respite, I once again board the bus. I proactively make the decision that I will be departing with or without my co-workers, but alas, they are present. The bus departs on time and all seems to be going smoothly, that is for the first 5km.

We barely reach the outskirts of Bichena when I begin sneezing and coughing uncontrollably. I assume it is likely due to the dust. But when my lips begin to tingle, my throat constricts, and my nose starts to bleed, I can no longer attribute this to dust. At this point, I realize that the back ½ of the bus is suffering as I am. Within minutes, Zeleke stands and in his booming, gravely voice shouts, “berbery yet nouw?” (translation….what idiot brought a bag of berbery on the bus?). At this point everyone is up in arms with tears running down their faces and noses dripping. The bus comes to a grinding halt and the search for the berbery begins. Eventually, one woman sheepishly raises her bag of berbery. Within seconds it is whisked off the bus and relegated to the roof. Berbery is a red hot pepper spice that is pleasant when ingested with food, but should be classified as a biohazard when inhaled.

The remainder of the ride passes by without incident save for the continuing mucosal irritation. We arrive back to town in good time. Muluken apologies for “the cursed bus ride” and invites me to breakfast. I accept. Knowing that we will be consuming some type of wat, I graciously volunteer to blow my nose and provide the berbery. Berbery is expensive and I’ve gotten at least a pot of wat’s worth for free. Like I said, it’s all a matter of perspective!