Bus Standi

Main bus stand in Kisumu

I got Friday off from work. The bosses were gone to a "retreat," whatever that means, and I had finished my work for the week, and maybe longer (interesting story, call for details). So I decided to see what the world had to offer me around Kisumu. Since I don't have access to a car myself, this meant a "matatu" ride. For those of my readers who are related to me, which is many, a matatu is a little, little gentler version of a "daladala." And the only reason they are a little better is they seem to be newer, I think they send the broken down matatus to Tanzania and breathe life into them and then call them daladalas. I really do.

I got to the stand early, because if you're going to travel anywhere by an over-stuffed mini-van you want to start early because these things move slow. I got there at 7AM which is earlier than I arrive for my transport to work--I was motivated, amped and ready to go. And you know where this goes, I was the only one. The Kisumu bus stand is timid as far as my experience in East Africa goes. I got there and had to find someone to ask where my bus was located--usually, I can't get within 100m of a bus stand without being offered transport to the far reaches of the planet. But here, I had to find someone, and basically rouse him from his stupor of collecting $0.50 from each bus that exited the stand. He pointed in a vague direction, which was really all that I wanted, and off I went.

I find the bus and the driver says, get in-- I look in, and its empty. Not a good sign if you want to leave soon, because it ain't leaving until its packed. So I look at him and say I'm off to get chai (breakfast) and he says, I'll join you. And then says I should leave my bag in the front seat to reserve my spot. I'm trusting, but seriously, I could just hand my stuff out to people because then I would at least get to choose who made off with my goods. I told him I would take it with me and get whatever seat was remaining. Honestly, the front seat is the choice seat, as long as the person between you and the driver (you didn't think we wouldn't use the "seat" where the stick shift was) isn't fat. The other issue with the front seat is you can actually see what is on the road and the ridiculous / dangerous driving choices your driver has opted for--passing on a curve, passing on a hill, passing on a hill and a curve, passing into oncoming traffic, nearly hitting a person / motorcycle / goat, driving too fast, pulling off to pick up a passenger when there is no shoulder, etc.

Chai came and went, and back to the matatu. My seat still remaining, along with most of the other ones, I hopped in and sat, for two more hours. Fortunately the bus stand is pure entertainment. I would say 90% of the people (and this is probably a dramatic underestimation) at the stand have no intention of getting on a bus, maybe ever. They make their living at the bus stand (making a living may also be a bit of a stretch, but it's their source of money). This includes all sorts of employment or mischief: bus drivers, conductors (guys who cram themselves into the matatus and collect the fare from you, and cram more people on the matatu), police officers, transportation officials, people hawking ALL sorts of goods (including, but certainly not limited to, bananas, CDs, DVDs, socks, pad locks, sunglasses, hanker-chiefs, wallets, underwear, water, biscuits, gum, candy, hot-dogs without the bun, buns without hot-dogs, newspapers, phone cards, toys, chains, rope, and soda), pick-pockets, prostitutes, drunks, beggars, people selling meals, people selling produce and dry goods, bicycle-taxi drivers, regular taxi drivers and touts.

I want to focus on the touts, because they are my favorite. These people will do anything for any sum of money. You name, they'll do it. As soon as a bus pulls into the station the touts flock to it and usually there will be two or three on top of the roof (because that's where all the goods are stored that travel with the bus, obviously) starting to unload before the bus has parked. Usually these guys (and they're always guys) are between the ages of 15 - 30 and they just "hang-out" at the stand hoping to get a little change here and there for assisting.

Once the goods have been unloaded from the top of the bus, they usually are handed down to another tout on the ground who packs them on his cart--I don't have a picture of the cart but I hopefully will get one so you can see how impressive these things are sometimes. They are home-made at a welder's shop or constructed out of wood and they load these things like you absolutely wouldn't believe. And then they hop in front of the cart and just start dragging. Seriously, world's strongest man ain't got nothing on the huge amounts of weird things these people will pull places--and all for much less than a dollar.

Other touts work for the bus companies, and I think work is way to generous, I'm not even sure if they are associated with the buses in any fashion other than they try to bring people to buses and ask either the person to pay something for the help or the conductor to throw some shillings their way for helping them get a person to ride. And these people will try anything to get someone on board.

They'll shout at you, they'll block your way to the other bus, they'll grab your hand, they'll promise you the world just to get you on the bus they want you to be riding. I even saw a young tout trying to talk the conductor of another matatu to get on our matatu. Now this would be like if an apprentice for a store clerk at Hudson News in JFK Airport tried to talk the co-pilot, flying the Delta shuttle to Detroit, into paying for a flight on United to Durham.

After getting so bored that I actually purchased some CDs through the window, I took off for Mbita.