In a near forgotten past and in a life before children, there was a young girl who wandered without bags under her eyes but with a bag on her back. Here she returns to notes she made while visiting the gorillas in Uganda
Excited is not the word. I cannot sit still. It is
not the thought of the bus journey - although that promises to be eventful – it
is the thought of what waits for me the other end.
My bus finally arrives. Thick smoke coughs and
curls from it as it teasingly passes me to turn around. Crabbing its way up the
hill with its chassis out of line, I wince.
In case anyone in this small Ugandan village dares
to sleep at daybreak, it trumpets, letting all know it has arrived. Revving its
sick engine and signaling impatience, I board, ticket in hand, eagerly hoping
for the allocated seat it foolishly promises.
The driver, seated on a cushion, is barely able to see over the huge
steering wheel. As he grins, he sings, and it becomes clear to me that
somewhere along this journey of his, a substance is involved. I want no part of
his trip, and yet seeing no other alternative, head down the coach and into
the-out-of-control stench of body odour that surrounds me. It is retchingly
real until the bus hastens to lurch forward. Thankfully, most of the windows
are broken and a natural air conditioning kicks in to override the stagnant
hum.
I claim the seat I’m thrown toward, falling hard against its torn
leatherette. It skids with me, and barely buffers my body as we glide along the
metal frame it is stacked against until I regain whatever I can: balance, seat
and pride.
Meanwhile a beat now accompanies the driver’s lyric and as the bus
picks up speed, it gains momentum with the quavers and crotchets of the tempo.
We sway as we wind upward, and as the sun hits me through the shattered
windows, I realise quickly that sleeping is out of the question.
As the morning and the miles pass, we stop at many
scattered villages picking up more and more people, setting down only a few. A
bus that probably seats about 60 now carries easily over 90 passengers.
Sweltering together, fresh sweat stains compete with dried stale ones.
A mother sits down on a crate in the aisle beside me. She has a vacant
look about her and I ponder: boredom or fatigue? Her twin babies of about five
months old, barely held, both cry loudly. They must be hot, for each is dressed
in peach silk and petticoats, bundled up in lace frills, buttons and bows. These
delicate dresses betray their forms, for chunky limbs splay out, wriggling in
all directions.
The mother sighs and neither looking up nor asking, plops one of the
babies on my lap. The bundle takes one look at me and realises that if she had
nothing to cry about before, she certainly has something to cry about now, as
this person gazing down at her, who cuddles her in, is not only unfamiliar, but
is the wrong colour. She screams louder and then promptly falls fast asleep,
one tear remaining caught between cheek and nose. I smile at her mother, who
for the first time looks up. She chuckles, now cradling a sleeping twin. We
zoom along the melting road under the blazing sun.
After seven hours or so the driver’s singing stops. The ceaseless
noise; that of a back-to-back tape, which has played its way to the very edge
of my pain threshold, has finally blistered itself in the process. The peace
lulls me into a false sense of security, for it is only another half an hour
before the tarmac runs out to be replaced by a bumpy mud track. Steering his
toy at the very same speed, overtaking cars and carts on blind corners, and
driving dangerously close to pedestrians and livestock, we continue.
It is becoming dark as we fly over the biggest pothole yet. A pothole which
would act as catalyst for an almost comic chain of events if I wasn’t so bloody
tired: I leave the seat and the seat leaves its frame. I squeeze the baby who wakes and
screams again. Her hands and arms reach out to find her mother and sister,
whilst underneath my seat the furious clucking of a chicken joins in the
commotion.
Eventually my numb body collects its dusty pack from the underbelly of
the dilapidated bus. Doing so I catch a whiff of what the driver is lighting
up. Momentarily I return to 13.5-hours earlier, and say a silent thanks for getting me here in one piece. Here is where exactly? Looking around it would appear that
I’m on the outskirts of nowhere.
