I just had a typical ride home from visiting a local friend, so I thought I'd write about it.
My friend lives 6 1/2 miles from my apartment. When we left his house at 7:10, we started by walking 3/4 mile to the bus stop. Along the way we stopped several times to greet various friends, relatives, or important members of the community who were sitting outside their houses along the road.
When we got to the bus stop there were two empty buses and nobody waiting to get on. This is not an ideal situation because each bus holds somewhere between 60 and 80 passengers and it won't leave until it is full. We didn't really want to pay for a taxi though, so we climbed on and waited.
Fortunately it was only about 15 minutes before the bus was full and wheezed to life. We started rolling out of the bus stop. Then we stopped. The bus driver got out and examined the back wheel right below my seat, while scooters zipped around him and the cars behind us on the road honked furiously. He climbed back in, drove another 100 yards, and stopped again. Then he got out and called to two other guys, who came running with a hand-operated tire pump. They worked on the tire for a couple of minutes, he paid them, and then we were on our way.
We drove about half a mile and then pulled into a gas station. I said a quick anti-spark prayer as the attendant plunged the gas hose into the still-running bus. I'm told that diesel is less explosive than gasoline, which always gives me comfort in these situations- unless I'm in a taxi. Anyway, we put in 6 liters of diesel and then chugged back onto the road.
Traffic was amazingly light today, the result of a major holiday that sent most people out of the city, so we made it to our destination unusually quickly. Even so, by the time I got off the bus it was dark. When we left my friend's house 5 1/2 miles away the sun had still been well above the horizon.
I then had to catch a smaller public transport van to get from that part of town to my neighborhood. We only had to wait a minute before two appeared, but both were full so they didn't stop. We walked up to the bus stop nearby, thinking I might need to catch the bus instead. But because the buses don't have any fixed schedule it was impossible to know when the next one would be. So we went back to the place where the transport vans stop, and got there just as one was pulling in. I hopped on, and away we went. I looked around and noticed that half of the passengers were young children. Across from me sat two boys. On looked like he was 12 and the other about 6. Next to them sat a girl who looked like she was 10. In the next seats over sat a couple of older women and three small children who were obviously with the 10 year old girl because she kept talking to them.
I was trying to figure out which of the woman was the mother of which children, when the 10 year old announced that she wanted to get off. There aren't any buttons like in a European or American bus, so you just yell when it's your stop. To my surprise, the 10 year old girl and the three little children all got off together. None of the women were the mother; that little girl was in charge! I then eyed up the boys across from me. The 12-year-old had the fare money (a coin) in his mouth. Were they on their own also? It turns out they were, because at one point all of the women got off and left the boys behind.
As for me, it was a pretty simple ride. I hopped off where I wanted to, made my way towards our apartment building, greeted a few neighbors as I went past, and soon I was home sweet home.
Journey time: just over 1 1/2 hours
Average speed: 4.4 miles per hour
And that's totally fine, because it's not about speed or efficiency, it's about spending time with friends!
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