Going To Town

“Do you want to go to Iringa on Sunday and go shopping? We are going to take the daladala because it is more adventuresome” There was a group of people around my age going and it sounded like an enjoyable social activity, besides I forgot my hat in America and also needed to buy a cell phone. Iringa is the nearest big town and a daladala is just a small minibus. However, since Kibidula so far out in the bush, we had to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup truck for forty-five minutes before we made it to the bus station. Daladalas come in many sizes ranging from minivan dimensions up to regular buses. The one that we chose was about to the size of a fifteen passenger van and in the beginning that was about all that got in. I got a seat near the door and had plenty of legroom. “Bus rides in third world countries really aren’t that bad,” I thought to myself as we leisurely began to drive down the road. As the trip increased, however, so did the passengers. Every few kilometers we would stop and pick up some more people on the side of the road until my nice seat by the door became the nice seat to lean on when more and more people shoved themselves in. I had a fun time trying to count how many people we could actually hold but after twenty-six I couldn’t see over the people standing in front of me, but I suspect we probably had more. The normal one hour trip took two but other than that it was a very enjoyable ride. In Iringa I bought my hat, cell phone, and had a nice meal at a hole in the wall restaurant called Hasty Tastys, they weren’t that hasty but the tasty part was okay. On the way back to Kibidula we had a nice bus that even had a TV. This was great except for the fact that all the Africans love to watch these weird music videos of choir dancing and singing. Thankfully they shut it off half way and started to play hymns on the radio, which I enjoyed immensely.