Going Backwards in Africa

The 7 kilometers between our border post and the neighboring immigration office in Malawi has the worst cars of any no-man’s land we know, and we’ve crossed a lot of borders. These moribund taxis shuttle travelers between immigration posts at an inflated rate of almost two dollars per person, and they always wait until they have six passengers to cram into their sedan before departing. Since they escape regulation by either government it’s a free for all of exploitation, the victims are the hapless travelers who have no other choice than walking, which we have done plenty of times, but you have to be willing to work up a sweat. Our town is higher elevation, so going to Malawi, cars don’t even turn the engines on, they just coast all the way down in neutral. On the way back is the real workout. On our last foray through this unfortunate little strip of neglected territory, we grudgingly played along with this travesties of public transportation, squeezing into the back seat with two other passengers, while two large Zambian ladies shared the front chair next to the driver. Like always, the driver had to recruit some muscle from the group of men perpetually loitering near the border to give the dilapidated vehicle a literal jump-start. Chug chug chug we went up the hill. I think I can, I think I can. As we approached each successive climb, the driver shifted from third to second gear, then to first. Once we started to stall out in first, we knew we were in trouble. The driver turned around and we thought we were going to coast back to Malawi. Just as we were thinking how glad we were we hadn’t paid him yet, the crafty driver switched the car into reverse and powered up the last hill going backwards. The giggling Zambian mamas in the front seat switched from Chewa to English to half-jokingly tell us that things are backwards in Africa. Although we, as development workers, hope that Africa is actually moving forwards in most aspects of life, in this case they were right. There we were, barreling down the national highway backwards, to get where we needed to go.