Kilabuni Nights – Episode XIX: Stuck Between Stations (Part I)

EVHL Tanzania Region Agent BOOTS HIMSELF and I parted ways at 0830 local following a brief meeting on the tarmac of the Iringa bus depot.  The old fellow should be back stateside in late December, which is fortuitous; we are set to be out on the path of adventure again shortly.

Speaking of adventure, upon leaving company I was gripped with excitement for my journey’s next leg: a solitary, 16-hour cross-country trek to Moshii (city in the shadows of Kilimanjaro).  As things turn out, however, one cannot swing a dead cat these days without hearing a dull thud against the person of a friendly mzungu.  Laura, the German[1] girl we’d encountered the previous evening at SHOOTER’S EXPATRIATE CLUB.  Laura, it so happened, was making her way to Arusha (an hour’s ride past Moshii on the anti-clockwise circuit favored by Tanzania’s most prominent bus lines).  In addition to my new German (speaking) friend there were two other white-skinned passengers on the manifest: Jackie, a 23-year-old Harvard University graduate jaunting around the country on fellowships and stolen satellite internet and Daniel, an MIT alum who works for an NGO that offers bicycle alternatives to handicapped persons and, as fate would have it, grew up a scant four blocks from my boyhood home in the leafy politically-correct utopia of Oak Park, IL..

Social convention dictated that Laura and I sit near each other, as by the time of departure we had been acquaintances of some 16 hours.  Of course, given the stark novelty of our complexions our seating proximity ensured a consistent battery of questions about our marriage and family life.  Laura’s English skills, while impressive, are more aptly geared towards understanding than speaking, so over the initial three-hours of our overland trip I discoursed at length on the following topics:

 

• The geography of the United States
• The Electoral College
• My girlfriend[2]
• The Great Chicago Fire and the 1893 World’s Fair
• The reversal of the Chicago River
• The Matsukane/Zgrabik Engagement
  • The presumed bridal party and guests list and the historical subplots therein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All that said, we have slipped into quiet conversational fatigue these past twenty minutes.  Well enough, as my reserves of semi-interesting knowledge were nearing exhaustion and Laura, for her part, seemed to be getting exceedingly weary of answering my polite questions about her pet horses in Austria.  Newly commanding our attentions are the vast numbers of Tanzanians growing violently ill around us.  Travel by autobus is by no means a common occurrence for the TZs, and the combination of bumpy roads, heat, perpetual motion and the constant elevation change since we departed Iringa have beset many (approximately 60 per cent) of our fellow travelers with heaving motion sickness.  Such is how Laura and I observe the countryside rolling endlessly beside us: an affable, tired silence punctuated by the hum of the bus engine and the damned chorus of vomiting strangers.  13 hours remain.

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[1] Austrian.  Must be better about this.

[2] A topic of some scandal to any English speaking Tanzanians who happened to overhear

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