As of late many trips to Karatu town have been made to buy things for the house: dishes, buckets, basins, khangas, and of course food. And sometimes the most exciting part about the trips isn’t the things I buy, it isn’t wandering through the small paths in the market, the bargaining I do, or the people I meet, but it’s the trips there and back. The experience of piling as many people and as much luggage as possible into a vehicle, of not leaving so much as an inch of wiggle room in any direction.
For me to get to town is not difficult and it is not long. I walk 10 minutes chini, to the bottom of the hill on which the primary and secondary schools sit, and wait until one of three or four vehicles shows up. I usually take the same one, an old land cruiser run by a group of friend from my village, boys about my age who I’ve gotten to know and love after so many trips in with them. The car arrives, parks, braked with stones under the tires, and begins the loading process. Woven sacks filled almost to breaking point with beans or corn kernals are loaded on top first. Crates of empty soda bottles follow. Passengers trickle in with their bags, some with just purses and some with suitcases, people traveling to town or further to Arusha, Babati, or Dodoma. If you arrive early enough you may get a seat up from and have some breathing room. When these eight seats have filled people climb in back, packed like sardines.
Most cars coming through my village are land cruisers, old safari trucks with extendable roofs and 250,000+ miles, with doors that only open from the inside, with broken locks, broken windows, engines that won’t start unless the vehicle is already moving. Rule #1 of driving these cars: always park on a downhill slop or be prepared to get out and push.
The loading continues and more people pile into the boy’s truck. The front consists of two bench seats which each comfortably hold three grown adults although you’ll never see that here. In Tanzania comfort is not a consideration in ground transport and no less than four are squeezed in, more if there are children or slender adults. In back are two more bench seats running lengthwise, plenty of room for another three each. In these you think at first you are lucky to be able to sit for the hour-long ride to town until the others pile around you and you’ve got two asses in your face and your knees are up to your chest trying to make room, and suddenly you can’t tell whether your shoes have fallen off your not because people are standing on your feet and you’ve lost all feeling in your legs. In back six people sit and six people stand, and just when you don’t see how another person can fit people shuffle and four more are shoved on board, grabbing onto the supports of the raised roof. Personal space does not exist.
I usually opt to stand in back, as much for the view as for the breathing room — at least I can get fresh air up there with my head out the roof. Up the hill we got towards the water tank and before our descent we are given a view of the village, the surrounding shambas, lake Manyara and the mountains beyond. It’s a gorgeous site and one I admire with every opportunity.
10 minutes later the perspiration begins from crowding and we arrive at the next village. The conductor beckons people to hop on. Some give a skeptical look but are pushed forward, others see the lack of space, “hamna nafasi,” they say and politely decline to wait for the next car. Others step onto the narrow platform below the doors and hang onto the luggage rails and with each person that climbs on you can feel the car tilt one way or another. Eventually there are four people on either side to balance things out, then three more climb on back, sitting above the spare tires. Yet another sits on the front of the car with his legs dangling over the windshield. We continue for another 45 minutes until we reach the paved when anyone not inside the vehicle must de-board, as being caught driving with passengers on the outside means jail time.
Other Volunteers reach their banking towns via lori, those big dump-truck like vehicles delivering produce to the daily market. Some catch whatever car happens to be driving by and still other might jump on a piki-piki (a big no-no by Peace Corps rules). In my village all the vehicles are big, they must have 4WD or in the rainy season they will get nowhere but stuck in the mud with no way out. 20 miles in a long way to push a car to the paved road.
Each trip to town is like this, 20 to 30 people jam packed in a vehicle that should only hold half that and probably a good amount less of luggage to not exceed the weight limitations. On the way back in as we climb the hill on the paved road our load weighs us down and we trudge along at a snails pace, every other car on the road passing us. If I’m standing I sometimes glance into the windows of these passing safari trucks full of Westerners on their way to Ngorongoro or Serengeti. Sometimes I like to guess their nationality and sometimes I draw strange looks if they see me traveling the way I am, my world completely different than theirs. Always drawing strange looks from Tanzanians, wondering who that mzungu is standing in a village cruiser and looking quite content with it all. Content is right.
