07 Aug 2016

Bus journeys are also cheaper, safer, and faster. Seabelo’s Express, Mahube, Bamangwato, JNG, AT & T Monnakgotla, NKK, Khanda, and Tithe are some of the most popular bus lines that dot some of our busy national roads including the busiest A1 Road on a daily basis. 

During one of my visits to Gaborone one Tuesday morning in February last year, there were more upsetting happenings than pleasurable ones. 

I had boarded one of the state-of-the-art creations that was not only new, but also had television screens, an air-conditioner, gorgeous curtains, and solid windows – I thought what a pleasure it was. Regrettably for the operators, the bus had to leave with a lot of empty seats because its time was up with only about half the passengers aboard the 72-capacity bus. 

“What a loss, there are only 37 passengers on the bus,” a concerned female bus conductor – curiously most of them are women – lamented loud enough for passengers to hear. 

When some passengers behind me - I like to sit near the front, just behind the driver or slantingly opposite him – shouted; “drive on buddy, many passengers are along the way,” I knew I was in for a long ride. 

Just before we had started, a minor tiff erupted between one passenger and the bus conductor over the bus’s modern windows that would not open. Noticing that the traveller was struggling to open his window, the conductor chided: “Rra tlogela fensetere eo, ga di bulwe,” (will you please leave the window alone, they do not open) Looking embarrassed, the innocent customer complained that it was hot inside, but then, seeming to quiz the wisdom of building a windowless bus, he apologised before his trip was spoilt. 

At that moment the heavily built bus driver - ironically, bus drivers are mostly men - intervened promising that the cooling system would come to live as soon as the bus engine was on. 

The fact that the trip was going to be long became plain instantly; before the bus was out of town, it had pulled over at Naledi Motors to pick up four passengers, two more at BMC, and in Tonota, an elderly woman and two children boarded unhurriedly. 

“Re ya Foley ngwanaka,” the senior citizen said, meaning they would drop off at Foley village about 30 kilometres south of Tonota. 

Before she could identify a suitable seat, once again the bus conductor laid bare her manners: 

“Nna fatshe mosadimogolo, o tloga o wa o re golega” (sit down old woman before you fall and get us into trouble). 

She gave the conductor a negative stare and proceeded to sit without a word, and, as the bus roared back onto the road, one had better be wise than cross paths with the insolent conductor. 

I have learnt that if you want to enjoy a long bus ride and feel no delay, forget about time and nasty encounters; read, make friends, sleep, meditate, or relish the rolling countryside unperturbed. 

The television is also there for you to watch although our buses appear to be very limited in the artists they can offer because it has always been ‘Radijo’ on every bus I have used. 

Sitting near the front to view the road ahead unhindered thrills me badly, and normally, I never mind who or what kind of a person I share a seat with because it’s not entirely in my power to choose who I sit with. 

On this particular journey, a middle-aged woman of the Bazeruzru community - judging by her long white dress and head scarf - had hesitatingly chosen to sit next to me as if empty seats were not enough.

 In Tonota, where I come from, members of the Bazezuru community are plenty and normally stereotyped as isolated, odd, and door-to-door sellers. 

Amazingly, as it turned out, this one was different the way she politely and with conviction greeted and asked if she could sit next to me. Besides the Kentucky Fried Chicken I had brought as provision, I had some cooked groundnuts on me and when I offered her, she said: “I have plenty of those.”

 It did not surprise me because groundnuts are some of Bazezuru’s traditional farm harvests for every day sale; I thought of the English proverb that says: ‘To carry coals to New Castle’. By this time the bus had dropped the disrespected elderly woman and her children at Foley as per her wish, and was now in Serule picking up a single passenger who seemed hopelessly drunk. 

The young man was carrying a plastic bag inside which there was a bottle containing some kind of staff that looked like traditional beer. 

After advising that he was going to Topisi, and seeming to be headed to our seat, I quickly directed him to the back where plenty of empty seats gaped at him. He staggered on without a word and slumped some three seats behind us and mysteriously went quite. 

Everything was ordinary, or it seemed so, until the bus had reached Topisi where the driver pulled off and unlocked the door for the ‘drunken’ man to get out; he did not; he was so fast asleep. 

The conductor approached him, cheekily shook him up and demanded the bus fare but to no avail; but then, one of the passengers from nearby seats was able to bring him to life with minimum fuss. 

The young man paid and once again staggered timidly up the aisle, down the steps and slumped to the ground, perhaps for another spell of sound sleep; he was still clinging on to his shadowy plastic bag. 

We left him there happy that his soft anecdote had stimulated us, particularly those who were now slumbering and anxious to arrive. 

Jokes about the young man lasted until Palapye; jokes such as; he must have been drinking on an empty stomach; he was too young to drink alcohol; and an adult traveller logically summed it up thus: “Don’t drink and travel.” 

My seat comrade, who had seemed unconcerned, told me she was visiting her mother, who lived with her three young children at Metsimotlhabe, and that she would return on Friday to continue her business of selling groundnuts, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes. 

She was single because she left her husband some years back for his adulterous and controlling ways; but primarily because he was already busy bringing in another wife. 

“Some of us don’t like polygamy because it is a very old and shameless tradition that has often brought child explosion and untold chaos in the family,” she reasoned. My interest got sustained when this woman said she had applied for more land to engage in large scale crop and livestock farming, just like the mainstream society does. 

She did not mind getting married outside her clan - to a Mokgatla, a Mokhurutshe, a Mongwato, or any tribe for that matter. This view crushed whatever little remained of my perception that all Bazezuju are a quarantined lot, a community that chooses to live on the edges of society and only practice backyard farming. 

We passed Palapye without any incident except for the rowdy bus hawkers rushing in to sell their foodstuffs to seated passengers. 

Mahalapye marks nearly half the journey between Francistown and Gaborone and here the bus rank makes for grim reading; so messy and jammed that if one is not careful they can easily travel to quite some other destinations. 

Like in Palapye, the rank is teaming with disorderly hawkers selling an variety of merchandise, including; foods, drinks, grapes, sweets, groundnuts, biltong, cool time, airtime, maize cobs, and water. 

Here all the buses halt facing north in any order; one behind the other or beside the other regardless of where it is headed. Unmindful passengers have often returned from the nearby toilets to board a different bus altogether, sometimes realizing their ir blunder a bit too late. ENDS