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So I’ve been asked why I don’t just take a taxi to work and back.  It’s cheaper, so that’s really answer enough, in my view, but I actually really enjoy the hilarity of bus rides.  I assume the novelty will wear off soon, but for now, it’s another adventure in a culture I've adopted for the next two years. 

I’ve explained that buses here are somewhat equivalent to sotramas in Mali:  A 12-person van usually containing up to 14 or 15 passengers-plus-children-and-or-baggage on rickety, worn seats, a door that is even more ephemeral than a wish your heart makes, and containing a driver and a conductor who look like they should be in nappies.  When the ‘bus’ is relatively empty, the conductor pushes his upper body through the sliding door’s window, hollers where the passengers are headed, and tries to entice pedestrians in.  The driver knows to stop and let someone on when he bangs on the roof, or to let someone off when they bang on the walls and yell Apa! (which actually means here; not stop as I’d previously thought – in other news, Swahili is still a struggle).  If the bus is full, the conductor bends double over the first of three rows of seats or wedges himself between the driver’s seat and the first row, facing the passengers.

Each ride is roughly 30 cents and, believe it or not, I prefer this to Edmonton’s $100/month bus pass and 20-minute wait times in a frozen wasteland.

The rear seats involve climbing and levering one’s 5-foot-6-inch, spastic self over seats, wheels, groceries, children, and people, and the first row is only held in by the body of the conductor; I prefer to try to get a front seat with the driver, even though this usually involves sitting half atop the gearshift with the understanding that the driver will have to use my knee instead.

But there is marginally more space there and I don’t have to maintain the farce of not hearing or understanding my conversational partner when his elbow is nested in my bellybutton and one wrong move could result in a surprise appendectomy.  Once, however, this expectation backfired on me. 

I was trapped in a conversation with my low-talking driver wherein I understood none of what was being said.  I was getting by on regular chuckles and nods when:

“So what do you think of my proposition?”

“Um, well, I think proposition is a strong word.”

“You can give me your phone number.”

[Why can I suddenly hear you so clearly?  Have my latent mutant abilities surfaced?]  I looked desperately at my phone – usually hidden to avoid precisely this situation - which I was now clutching in my sweaty hand.  “Um, this is my work phone.”

“So you can take my number.”

[I need more time before a commitment of this magnitude.  What are we hoping to accomplish by this exchange?  Are you going to kick out all your passengers and pick me up at home in your bus whenever I need a ride?  Have I agreed to give you a job?  Is this a date?  An agreement to host a Tupperware party?  What??]

“You can call me even after.”

[After what?!]

So, after sharing my schedule (approximately where I lived, where I worked, when I worked, when I left work), I was let out of the bus with an entry for DRIVER-PAPI in my phone and the full expectation that we would never meet again.

All in all, there have been some nice conversations with nuns, girls asking for my jewellery, and wheezy chuckles from those who could still breathe as the conductor continued to invite people in when we were stacked in each other’s spaces like Lego pieces.

And can you imagine if I’d missed the sight of a brawny, bearded, young black man collecting money while mouthing a Celine Dion classic?  Then getting carried away and actually singing the latter half of 'Cause I’m your laaady / And you are my maaan in a falsetto?

But you shouldn’t be fooled – locals are amazing with instruments, including their voices, and I’ve always been appreciative of this.  But never more than when members of my church band began singing the title song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai on their way home one night.

One of them had seen or heard it (along with Baazigar and Govinda’s action scenes – which I’m rather hoping he forgets) in Tanzania, but didn’t know the lyrics.  I supplied the words to Shah Rukh Khan’s classic on a dark street behind the MONUSCO base, and when they joined me on the tabla lead-up to the chorus, I think I cried a little.  This was even better than the time I rapped Golddigger for some of my teammates (I find it important to share my skills and motivations with my brothers and sisters in Christ).  I was tempted to ask whether they knew Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jana Sanam, but then I would have fallen in love and it would have been this whole awkward thing, so I thought it best to quit while I was ahead. 

Later that same night, I finally met my American teammate’s host family.  Earlier in our stay here, I had been devastated to miss a delightfully awkward incident with this family trying to arrange a relationship between the Queen of Sheba and the American (whom I have yet to catch k-i-s-s-i-n-g, so I assume they’re either very careful or not interested in each other - but I will prepare a bridesmaid’s dress and baby carriage nonetheless), but this was adequate.  First, the elderly father needed to be convinced to let go of my hand and was very impressed by my pitiful grasp of Swahili and French (I tried to avoid telling him that I’d studied French for 6 years in school, but he got it out of me).  I was afraid our relationship ended with this conversation, however:

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

In tones of deepest sadness, “Ohh...  I understand now.”

I was struggling not to giggle hysterically at this disappointed summation of my life, but was thankfully distracted by the presence of the entourage that was to take me home – literally the next street over – because heaven forbid a ‘white’ girl walk somewhere at night.  The grandpa drove, but his wife, three grandchildren, and my American teammate were press-ganged into the nighttime jaunt.  I later learned that they’d dropped the kids off somewhere, so this made sense; at the time, I was totally bemused.

The next day, after church, I got to do one of my favourite activities in the world: eat.

The added bonus was that we were apparently ‘helping’ Carrottop and BFG with their plans to travel in the next little while.  There is literally nothing I love more than helping people in this way – it’s really why I’ve always dreamed of being a missionary in the country of Africa.  Add this to the fact that their cook has a God-given understanding of how to spice food (i.e. so that no one but me can really enjoy it), and I was in heaven.  

After feeding me fit to burst, I was left to read/nap on their couch just within view of a sunbeam (to protect the South Indian approximation of a peaches-and-cream complexion) and listen to praise and worship songs at full volume.  As both my laptop and ipod are (hopefully) getting fixed, I was sorely lacking in music and this was the perfect cure.

I could almost ignore the fact that I was mercilessly teased for my non-functional circulatory system.  First I was roughly disabused of the notion that my mosquito net provided me with any warmth, and then I was publicly shamed for both doubling up my blanket and not wearing warmer socks to bed. 

Forgive me for not thinking to bring woollen long johns to Central Africa. 

This sort of victim-blaming is disgraceful and needs to stop, I thought, as I sucked on a spoonful of peanut butter, curled deeper into the sun-warmed couch, and darkly eyed Carrottop and BFG puttering around their new home on the warm Sunday afternoon.

Then again, maybe I could live with it.