Behind the Scenes: The making of “Bus Twister”

Today (Note: This entry was written on September 27th) was exceptional. A leading indicator of this was the presence of a marching band that casually strolled through the Matata Bus Rank, in full ensemble, brass instruments braying, trotting to the beat of the giant bass drum. Peacefully watching this scene from the bus windows, I could not have imagined that an hour or so from then, I would be uncontrollably laughing at a stesh in Zinhle’s community (which I shall henceforth refer to as “Candyland”).

We had entered the big bus destined for Candyland well over half an hour before it’s scheduled departure time. All seats were already taken. No big deal, we’d just stand in the aisle, and cling to railing for dear life, just as PST trained us to do.

Soon we were packed in like sardines, so much so that there actually wasn’t any space left on the floor to move my feet. I was trying to position myself so that my backpack, or shopping bag wouldn’t knock anyone unconscious.  Then the umholeli decided we could fit more people.  Already there were probably 60 or so people on the bus… not including the various packed in between the seats.  At this point I’ve been pushed maybe 8 or so rows towards the back of the bus, a way from Zinhle and Futhi.  There I stood crammed between some increasingly irritated passengers, trying to smooth talk my way with “Ncesi, Make, ncesi”.  I thought there was no way we could possibly human tetris ourselves into a more condensed space. Woof, was I wrong.  And the umholeli was being craftily strategic. Soon I was back-to-back with Futhi, with Zinhle chillin’ on my right. We were our own Bermuda triangle of Peace Corps Volunteers.  I was also growing increasingly irritated, as I truly appreciate and value personal space, of which there was none, and snarked, “Look, here we are together, it’s like herding cats.” By this time there was probably an additional fifty or so people sandwiched in the aisle.

By the time the bus finally inched its way out of the busy plaza in Matata (home to a Super Spar… that had a plethora of drool-worthy groceries…), we had already navigated through a string of seriously redundant conversations (the kind that would normally be found amusing, but do to the unnecessarily close quarters, were now rather irritating…)  “Why are you here?” “What are your names?” “I want you to marry me”, “Oh, you speak siSwati!” “You don’t know enough siSwati! I will teach you.” Not to mention the fact that I spent five minutes tolerating a baby kicking my butt (literally), and Futhi almost lost an eye as a glass panel nearly made contact with her face.  By this time, barely a km into our journey, we were all reaching a breaking point.  (I may or may not have ranted in German for a couple of minutes… much to the enjoyment of Futhi and Zinhle).

Zinhle reassured us kakhulu that the bus was never ever that crowded and that it was usually a pleasant ride. Sure. Of course, mmhmm.  We concluded that life is just crazier at the end of the month. I mean people did just get paid.  And marching bands always draw crowds of people… Right?

Then it dawned on me… How were we going to get OFF of the bus… Well… I mean, it was obvious, we just needed to climb over like fifty people in time to scream stesh at the top of our lungs and hope that the bus stopped… Easy as pie.

So fifteen minutes-ish into our journey, Zinhle and I said our goodbyes to Futhi… as much as we could given the movement restrictions, and began the trek to the front of the bus. (We had roughly 20 minutes until her stesh).  Thus, “Bus Twister” was born… Right foot lunged over a toddler, left hand clutching bags, bags also held up by another passenger, right hand  on seat in front of you, left leg pirouetting.  Seriously.

By the time we rolled off the bus, all we could do was laugh. Uncontrollably.  Another umholeli decided we still needed to pay 10 rand… false. Despite showing him the ticket stub, he was not convinced, but our un-amused faces changed his mind.  The icing on this tumultuous cake was the visual experience of seeing a man peeing in front of the bus, before the bus continued on its merry way.

We stopped for a second, so I could get a drink of water, and I lost it. I full-on snapped a garter (that’s for you Katie D, and Jack!) In other words, I entered a state of laughing hysteria, at the stesh, in a community I’d never been to. I felt bad for the people standing nearby, whom I later was introduced to… they were Zinhle’s host family… I LOLed for a solid ten minutes. I calmed down, but only briefly, when we paused to ask how long the bus took to reach Nhlangano… and burst into laughter again when we were told Futhi was going to be on the bus an additional 3 hours.  3 hours.

If I had a personal bubble here in Swaziland, it’s been burst beyond repair. 

I apologize whole-heartedly for all the feet I stepped on today.

Sweet mother of a tortellini sauce-wad.

--B