Ruben bloggar frå turar, innland og utland: A bus trip in Lusaka

I want to write a post about a bus trip, since it is so different from England/Norway. The other day here I had to go to OYDC (Olympic Youth Development Centre) on my own, and to get there I have to use public transport. A bus journey in Norway/England is very simple;

You get to a bus station and find your bus on a screen which says where and when it will depart. You enter the bus and pay the driver a certain amount of money, find a seat, buckle up and the bus drives (usually) on time.

Now, in Zambia it’s a different story, very different. Just getting to the bus station is a task on it’s own, especially if you walk through a market, like I did. Everyone wants your attention saying: “How are you, boss?” “Taxi?” “What do you want to buy, my brother” “How are you, my friend?” So having earplugs with blasting music does help when you reach the state where you are sick of it/them.

I was walking around in the city centre and couldn’t find the correct bus station and I asked a random guy who was walking next to me. And he didn’t just explained, he showed me where to find it (a Norwegian would never take time for that!). When I reached the 3^rd and correct bus station it looked very chaotic. There are blue buses everywhere, and they can barely move, since they are crammed together in the tiny bus station, which looks like a car park with some high poles and roofs. There are some signs but you won’t find your bus unless you ask. When I found mine, after again asking for directions/help, it was already half full with people and groceries. People from outside of town take the bus in to the city to shop at the market so they got food for the rest of the week, before riding the bus back hope. I sat in the middle of the bus, with a can of water between my legs, and on top of a big bag of flour. When all the seats are occupied the bus departs. It never leaves until it’s full (so remember never to get on an empty bus). When we leave the bus station, the conductor start collecting the money from the passengers. It’s always a mess, since some argue about the price and for the conductor to get the money from the back row you have to use the people who sit in the middle (like I did) to “transport” the money. Here you can negotiate the price, so if you know the price is usually 3 kwatcha the conductor might say 5, just because you look foreign.

When we arrived OYDC, I was the only one who had to get out of the bus. And since the bus was completely full it wasn’t easy. It was a lot of “sorry, sorry, sorry” before I jumped sideways out of the door which could only open half way because of the groceries blocking it.

It was quite an experience, and something I will never forget. I will be riding the bus a lot this year, so I guess I will get used to it.

I'm sorry I don't have pictures from my bus trip, but I think it's very dangerous to carry a GoPro camera around such a crowd, so I've not done it yet. Instead, I'm posting a few pictures from my days at work at the OYDC.