Notes on the Ethiopian Bus System
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2003
1
6
14
Trip End
Aug 2003
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Ridiculous gets close to describing it. Farcical can be applied in some instances. Surreal... all the time.
Ok, it works like this...
All the buses (except for real close destinations) leave at 6am. This applies to every town in Ethiopia.
You arrive at 5:30 or so and stand in the dark and the mud (don't wear sandals if you don't want your feet to smell like sewerage) with everyone else. There are kids selling biscuits and tissues, old peasant women with piles of stuff wrapped in banana leaves, soldiers with duffel bags, business men, everyone you can imaginae.
At 5:50am a murmur goes through the crowd and it edges forward like a rock concert when a roadie comes out to tune a guitar.
At 5:55am the crowd moves forward again, this time people begin to shove a little, the murmur rises.
At 6:00am...
BANG!
The gates open the the people stream through. They RUN like their lives depend on it, the old women carrying their bundles with the ease of a marine. There's no quarter given. You push, shove, shout at, kick, punch your way to the bus you want (found by yelling at the top of your lungs what your destination is and being directed to it by the bus touts).
There you push your way into the huddle around that bus's ticket guy and get a ticket.
You then join the melee to get your bag on top of the bus. You have to be careful. You get random strangers trying to do it for you and then trying to extort money so you wait guardedly, growling at anyone who even looks at your pack until one of the bus guys gives you the nod.
You climb the ladder and lift your bag up.
Then... the fight to get on starts. People seem to think here that it makes a difference where you sit and no seats are allocated so they jam on. The old peasant women still has her 3 bundles of banana leaves and due to her small height can get it in under people.
Of course then she is jammed and screws around trying to push bundles on top of things, under things, on top of people. Others start yelling, climbing over seats. I was horrified at first when someone just shoved aside a woman who was taking too long in the aisle but you soon realise that they know how the system works and one of the 30 people behind you will do the same to you if you don't keep going forward.
Once everyone is on, the ridiculous turns to farce.
Kids selling stuff get on, people chat and politely swap seats and rearrange luggage. Old friends talk for the first time in years, others share nuts around to their seatmates. About a half an hour later the bus will pull out of the bus station.
One of my guidebooks describes catching the buses here as something only a sado-masochist would put themself through.
Its not that bad once the bus gets going though. Music is played, people sing along, share their food. People interested in a lone faranji lean over and chat with me about this and that. I've even had a born again christian try and bring me back into the fold. He failed.
But there are idiosyncracies...
No windows can be open. Ethiopians have an abject fear of drafts thinking that they will drop dead if one touches them or something.
Many people don't use vehicles that much and the bumpy roads (and excess tchaka beer the night before) sometimes combine to make people vomit. Often.
And then there's the mud, flat tyres, blocked roads, breaking down.
So, its not unusual to roll into your destination 2 hours late, sweating like a warthog and with the stink of vomit in your nostrils.
One thing that helps make it bearable is the bus guys. Every bus has a driver and 1 or 2 porters.
They've all been solid so far and helped me immensely. On the trip from Shashamene to Dinsho, people were loading tables and chairs onto the roof of the bus but the guys keep a little space for my pack while others had to put there's on their laps. They later even bought me a spicy lentil pakora for breakfast!
But the thing makes public transport worth it is the connection to the people. It has given me an unrivalled opportunity to meet and talk to Ethiopians in an environment where we are equals, putting up with the same ups and downs and not as a "rich" westerner to a "poor" african.
People look at you with a strange sort of respect, as if by using the same transport as them (very few farangis do - like I said in my last post I haven't seen any tourists down south - just people in 4WDs zooming past) you are taking any predefined gloss or image away from your identity as a westerner and something foreign to them.
I've had some interesting chats and seen some hilarious mishaps during my 3 or 4 days totalled up in buses so far. The born again christian, the woman who had been to Germany and was terrified for me travelling by myself here, the guttering guy from Awasa telling me about Amharic pop music, the flat tyres, the swerving through herds of goats, getting stuck in the mud, the cute sisters flirting with me, the little kid terrified of a hairy white man.
And on friday I'm going to find out what the trains are like!!
PS: Forgot to mention. Counted the flea bites last night - 256 so far and rising. Ouch!!
