Our Dark Place

After two years of moving around Africa we have developed a respectable repertoire of public transport skills. But even a couple of old hands like us have our bad days. One of our least favorite places on the continent is the Lilongwe bus depot. It brings out the worst in people who just see you as another body they need to get to fill another seat on their vehicle. Touts are aggressive and use all kinds of tricks to coerce our decision. We just want to get on the next bus out, but it’s so hard to figure out which one that is with the anemic information available. Buses rev their engines and pretend to pull out, but this means nothing, they can maintain the charade for hours before actually leaving. There are bus companies with ‘schedules’ but this also means little, especially now with the fuel crises and everyone vying to fill their already uncomfortable buses to the max. The words ‘express’ or ‘luxury’ also mean nothing. Mini-buses compete against the big buses, and they are even worse, oftentimes physically grabbing our bags or pushing us towards their dilapidated vehicles. It’s so bad we just steer clear of that part of the yard completely. In the end none of the options are that good and we always seem to wait at least two hours before leaving, so Africa Always Wins. This time around we got on what we thought was a reputable bus, with a decent price, but it still took three hours to fill. We share a last-resort technique with some other Peace Corps friends, which we call “Going to your dark place.” It involves completely giving up, closing your eyes, and retreating into a gloomy mental state of barely hanging on. It’s a last resort coping strategy, if you can call it a strategy, but when we’re in the Lilongwe bus depot, or an open pickup in the rain, or squashed into the aisle of a bus at three times its capacity, we’re glad the dark place is there for us.