Travel Stories

Bus trip from Malawi to Tanzania
By Ayana Haaruun

Diary from South Africa : Bus trip from Malawi to Tanzania an unforgettable journey

Editor’s note: Chicago Defender archivist Ayana Haaruun’s fellowship to South Africa is ending. Here’s her next to last report from the mother Land.

On the bus ride from Malawi to Tanzania, I met the kindest Africans yet, saw the most beautiful landscapes imaginable, and survived a bus ride from hell.
Malawi, a small Southern African country, truly lives up to its slogan “the warm heart of Africa.” I spent a night in Blantyre, a beautiful, clean city nestled between tropical trees and rolling green hills.
Malawians seemed more conservative than South Africans. With a high population of both Muslims and Christians, alcohol was forbidden on the hotel premises. In the city, well-mannered, conservatively dressed men and women gave a respectable and distinguished air. And, the Malawian men seemed kinder, and “less forward” than the South African men.
The next morning, I took a clean, comfortable, air-conditioned coach bus to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. Riding down the highway, the city landscape quickly became a rural, agricultural environment. Just outside the city, small one-room brick homes stood on the sides of mountains. There were miles and miles of green fields, and an occasional single, green mountain peak.
In Lilongwe, my problems began, when a taxi driver took me to an area he called “hell’s row.” “This is a where bad people are,” he mumbled, while driving up a narrow, unpaved road. Standing in the middle of a filthy, crowded area filled with rundown shops was the “seedy” bus station office. Reluctant to leave the taxi, I nervously looked around me. I knew that traveling with a large suitcase and a white woman put me in more danger of being robbed. To make matters worse, the bus company operator said the bus we’d planned to take was fully booked, and that we’d have to wait two days for another bus.
After two hours of standing in “hell’s row” pleading for a safe transport, the bus operator offered us two seats on the bus. As I boarded the old, sub-standard coach bus, I watched the sunset. In the distance, I listened to the evening Muslim call to prayer floating from a beautiful mosque down the road.
Soon after departing, however, the bus broke down. We sat idly alongside a dark road for more than three hours. When the bus finally became functional, the unpaved two-lane highway was so bumpy, I became nauseous. There was no toilet on the bus, nor was there a restroom anywhere we stopped. To relieve ourselves, women passengers had to “squat” together behind bushes or in the open fields.
The next morning near the Malawi/Tanzania border, the landscape was absolutely breathtaking. I was hypnotized by the lush green cliffs and valleys, beautiful rivers, tropical plants and clear skies. Along the road were rectangular one-room brick homes with grass or aluminum roofing built on red dirt. There were banana and mango trees everywhere.
In villages, I saw mostly women working in green fields or fetching water from wells and rivers. I saw men sitting in the shade, tending to cows or sheep, or working in small shops. Children sold fruit picked from local trees.
After about 20 hours on the bus, which continued to break down periodically, I was happy to arrive at the Tanzanian border. The customs office was modern and organized—a sign of Tanzania’s stable economy and valued tourism industry.
At the border, the bus filled with even more passengers. By night, people were literally laying in the aisles. Moving through the bus became a real test of agility and coordination. In the dark, I strategically squirmed down the aisle, tip-toeing around bodies and luggage.
At one point, I heard a strange sound, and looked around the bus. As I expected, on the floor, lay a live chicken. Now I really felt like a fellow villager.
The second day of the bus trip was unbearable. Many passengers began smelling badly, and I was hungry and thirsty. To send a hint, I stared down the stinky guy sitting across from me, while applying excessive amounts of deodorant to my underarms. And, because there was no place to stop for a “real meal” I had eaten only cookies and bananas, carefully rationed between me and my colleague.
After about 30 hours, we finally stopped at a rural Tanzanian hotel with a restaurant, where I demolished a tasty plate of fish, rice and greens.
During the next bus breakdown, I stepped outside the bus to be greeted by sparking stars. There were no other lights. Standing alone on the side of a dusty road in east Africa, I thought about all the inconvenience poverty brings.
Then I realized my colleague and I were alone in our constant complaining. While she deliriously mumbled about her swollen ankles and “shooting herself in the head,” people without seats were quiet. Lying on the floor being walked on, sitting on suitcases or milk crates with babies strapped to their bodies, they were patient and without complaint.
Sure, my 40-hour bus journey from Malawi to Tanzania was a challenging feat that I’m happy to have survived. It’s just miniscule in comparison to what many African people endure everyday.