African journey

by Gillian Bardsley

Mombasa is Kenya’s main seaport and is a more pleasant environment than the capital Nairobi. The town is clean and smells of the sea rather than rotten food and sewage. The warm humid air of the East African coast is nothing like English summer heat. It crawls on your skin and infuses your nostrils. The dusty breeze which swirls from time to time is a real killer, barely lifting the weight of the hot steamy air.

This is a political town, littered with colourful graffiti which is literate and thoughtful rather than abusive. The streets are well made and the roads congested. The rule of the road is to keep the vehicle moving under all circumstances, challenging everyone else to give way in every situation by constant sounding of the horn. Bicycles and mopeds hold their own with cars. All are outnumbered by buses and the small passenger vehicles known as matatus, packed like no London commuter could even imagine. The condensed passengers have built up uncanny skill in knowing at what moment to push their way out as the bus slows down sufficiently for them to jump on or off. Men stripped to the waist and shiny with sweat heave hand carts made of wooden crates fitted with two long handles and heavy car tyres bolted one to each side. The carts are piled high with sacks, cans, beer-crates, everything which needs moving round the city. They make little noise and move astonishingly swiftly once they have built up their momentum, gliding past the pedestrians who struggle along a pavement so crowded that it is difficult to make any progress. Many feel it is easier to take their chance with the traffic in the road which constantly honks at them to get out of the way. It is a hard world for the disabled. Beggars with missing limbs propel themselves to their daily pitch using their powerful arms or improvising with a skateboard. The more fortunate have little invalid carriages in the form of a three-wheel cycle operated by a tiller hand control. They mingle bravely with the crazy traffic, whizzing in and out and annoying the cars by suddenly diving down back allies where they can’t be followed.

I was intending to travel to Moshi just across the Tanzanian border, a journey of roughly 300 kilometres. The wide, tree-lined Kenyatta Avenue served as the bus station, the challenge was to find the spot used by the bus you required, whether local or long distance. Two rival buses were touting for passengers to Tanzania, each insisting their bus was cheaper and more comfortable than the other. I investigated both, trying out the seats, and could find little difference. One of them had to be disappointed so I chose the second bus to avoid reproachful looks. In Africa a bus usually departs as soon as it is full, but for once it was necessary to book because at this time it was illegal to drive in Tanzania after dark. My name was therefore carefully marked on the seatplan and the seat number written on my ticket.

When I returned later in the day the bus was quickly filling up. It carried the title NOW OR NEVER SLOW BUT SURE, a mantra any traveller in Africa would recognise. Naming all types of things, from food kiosks to buses, is an art-form on this continent. The big buses tend to have philosophical names like NO QUESTIONS NO ANSWERS and NO BODY CAN TUNE. The gaudily painted matatus carry more direct messages. Some are jauntily optimistic; SUNSHINE, PLEASE DON'T GO, REVELATION TIMES; some anticipate the journey ahead, INSANITY, FEEL THE MOTION, MUSIC EXPRESS, HURRY MISSION; others are boastful, LOVER BOY, SAILOR NEVER SAY BYE, TOTEMIC EROS, TOLERANCE OF LADIES.

The empty, long spacious vehicle with the high back seats which I had seen in the morning was now a scene of great activity. Though there was luggage space in the side of the bus the passengers, mostly Tanzanian women, seemed determined to stay close to their possessions. The centre aisle was substantially higher due to the number of packages, parcels and sacks that had been slid along it. Someone balanced a mattress across the two roof racks and then clucked disapprovingly but ineffectively as others seized on the extra storage space to pile smaller items on top. Sacks of grain, livestock, furniture, plastic basins, cooking equipment, were all being taken home, some in such bulk that they were clearly intended for selling.

The seatplan suddenly became very important to the conductor who began to wave his paper in the air in agitation. His passengers tried to co-operate, climbing over the packages and between the seats muttering ‘is this seat nine?’, ‘no, this is twelve’, ‘well what does your ticket say’, ‘My ticket is three’. Everyone soon got bored with the performance and sat down anywhere they could settle until the conductor gave up, stuffing the useless plan in his pocket. This performance was an essential part of the nightly journey between Mombasa and Moshi.

When the bus was on the point of departure two young mothers arrived. Since everyone had taken up their seats from the front backwards, late passengers had to clamber over all the luggage in the aisle, which by now was waist high, and bend their heads to avoid hitting the ceiling as they scrambled to the few remaining seats at the back of the bus. This was too difficult an operation with a baby hanging on as well so the children had been thrust into the hands of the conductor and driver who were impatiently hurrying them on so the bus could leave. When the women reach the back, the children were passed with remarkably little protest from passenger to passenger until each infant reached its own mother's arms.

Though the road from Mombasa to Moshi looks straightforward and logical on the map, it is not the easiest route into Tanzania. Making long journeys has long been a recurrent feature of African life and requires stamina and patience to endure. Progress is bound to be unpredictable so energy is rarely wasted on pointless wrangling or unreasonable expectation. It is impossible to know how long you will be on the road because there are too many factors besides distance which might intervene. Our forecast time of arrival was ‘morning’.

Night fell in its usual dramatic fashion, missing dusk completely as it went from daylight to darkness. Suddenly we were in open country and the bus hurtled along making good time on the smooth tarmac road. At midnight we approached the small town of Voi, just a few streets of dim light. More passengers embarked and more heavy packages were manoeuvred down the centre of the bus. The seats had long since been filled so the new passengers had to perch on the luggage. After leaving Voi, a dispute broke out between a contingent who wanted the roof window open and another who, pulling on their jumpers and jackets, insisted it must be closed. The latter camp won and pulled shut every ill-fitting window they could find but this could not stop the air rushing in through the gaps and the grumbling continued.

The trip had been deceptively easy so far. The lights were turned off and the bus became very quiet as everyone settled down to a fitful sleep, those in the aisle stretching themselves out on the sacks. Outside was a profound darkness which could not disguise the disintegration of the road after Voi. The bus continued to fly along, but now it juddered and jumped over the rutted surface, making sudden halts in front of particularly large pot holes. The driver would move forward cautiously before picking up speed again, all the time watching for oncoming lights of vehicles undergoing the same hazards on the opposite side of the road. One third of the road accidents in Kenya are caused by pot-holes and a large number of them kill people. As we dozed, all of us were taking for granted the skill of these unlauded bus-drivers as they brought us safely through.

At about three in the morning we reached the border post but this was not about to mark the end of our journey. Dozens of buses had already arrived and here we all waited, and waited, for the border to open. Dawn seemed to be never coming. I curled up in my cramped seat and tried to sleep promising myself that when I woke up, it would be light, but every time I opened my eyes it was as dark as ever. At four the comforting sound of the Moslem Call to Prayer drifted out of the darkness. Many mosques play a pre-recorded version performed in beautiful tones by some accomplished imam, but this was a real voice, sounding tinny, faraway and badly off key. At five thirty, the light came back as suddenly as darkness had fallen sparking a frenzy of activity. All the sacks and boxes were taken off the bus and a large number of people disappeared completely. Where they went and how they crossed the border was impossible for the stranger to fathom. At six, three hours after arriving, the bus finally moved off again, now only half full and the aisle practically cleared of the remaining luggage which rather perversely had been transferred to the roof.

One of colonialism’s most irritating legacies is the illogical series of borders which make no sense in terms of geography, simply presenting an obstacle to the communities which are arbitrarily divided by them. Everyone steeled themselves for the long and frustrating series of rituals which would be necessary to get them from one side to the other of this unpromising strip of non-descript wasteland.

Still on the Kenyan side of the border we disembarked to begin the dance with bureaucracy. It was like thousands of official buildings throughout Africa, an oblong of low concrete walls painted white and partitioned into separate rooms which each had a separate door to the outside. Inside the colour changed to faded sea green, no ceiling under the corrugated iron roof which reflected the heat inwards. In the background an American voice drifted from the radio, cheerfully declaring the weather to be expected in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda today. Incongruously, in a land where people are longing for rain to make their crops grow, the weatherman chirped ‘I hope the weather will be sunny wherever you are; have a lovely day!’

Whatever frontier you have reached, a framed picture of the relevant President, taken in his prime, will gaze down on the endless stream of his subjects in transit. The standard furniture will consist of some wooden chairs and the counter which divides official from citizen. Here he keeps the essential tools of his office - the rubber stamp and the wire tray. He is generally bored and on edge from spending endless days in these airless uncomfortable rooms with little to do after the early morning rush of incomers. He is therefore likely to make the traveller wait as he rises from his table, moves slowly to the counter, and closely examines the paperwork on offer. Finally, the necessary stamp thuds down. Then on to the next room where customs officers pull peoples’ luggage apart. All of this takes another hour till finally, at seven, the officials are satisfied, everyone is back on the bus, and we rattle off through the bush to the Tanzanian side of the border which is several kilometres away.

Getting out of Kenya would prove to have been simple. On the Tanzanian side, the bureaucracy began in earnest. In the first office, very like the one across the border, it was time for the papers and passports again. The border guard seemed more personable, an impression re-enforced by the presence of his young daughter, wearing her school uniform and holding a switch broom for sweeping the school yard. This, however, was an illusion. He took the papers from the hands reaching out to him and began to go through them in a leisurely way. More and more people crowded into the narrow area in front of the counter while those already inside could not leave because they needed their papers back. Some he stamped, others he threw brusquely into the wire basket. When their owners protested vigorously he barked ‘come back later’ and they sighed, knowing this was going to cost them money and that negotiation would only begin when the office was quiet. When it was my turn the official fingered my passport rather huffily since it was more difficult to argue with than the less definitive paperwork possessed by the average Tanzanian. He could not make it too easy however, so he asked ‘do you have you a return ticket?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Let me see it’ ‘I left it in Mombasa’ ‘How can you prove this to me?’ ‘I can't prove it to you’. A mixture of confidence mixed with deference must be maintained here. Any sense that you are being disrespectful and you are in very big trouble. He leafed through a few more pages of the passport, and then stamped it. The people around looked envious, wishing it might be so easy for them.

Outside, the customs officials were subjecting the packages and boxes to yet another check. Most of these travellers were returning to their own country but that made little difference. One woman had brought back a box full of clothes in dozens of different designs to sell. Each item was taken out, unfolded and examined before being handed back to her to fold up again, each seemed to require some kind of explanation and several would probably not find their way back into the box. Another woman underwent the same procedure with two baskets full of live hens. Once luggage met with approval it was marked with a white chalk cross but there was still the bus itself to check. So every single box and sack had to be unloaded, opened and gone through. By the time this was over it was nine o’clock and felt more like midday since we had been at this for so long. At last, the guards were satisfied, the bribes all paid, and the flimsy padlock was removed from the rotting wooden barrier keeping us out of Tanzania. We were free to go on our way. Imagine the same procedure every time you need to visit the supermarket or furniture store and you will have some idea how this feels to those involved. Because this would happen again tomorrow and every next day, a burden as heavy as the biggest pot hole to people who simply wished to furnish their houses, clothe their families, buy and sell goods not available at home, or just visit their friends.

Around ten thirty we finally reached Moshi, sitting picturesquely in the side of Mount Kilimanjaro. Despite the relief at reaching the end of a difficult journey, this is always a sad moment too. Your seat has become your home, the driver, the conductor, and your fellow travellers have become your best friends, you have suffered together and you take your leave with a warm hug and a promise never to forget each other.