Always an adventure...

(written 17 December 2011, in a letter to my mother)
Well getting here-my friend Eric's--was an adventure!  I was waiting for a truck going this way, and I don't know the lay of the land.  So if they say, "We're going to Mwamba"--is that before Kaka, where he lives?  After?  Different direction?  Anyway, I asked, "Can you get me to Kaka, or not?"  But a guy running the store where I was waiting (along with many others waiting for transport) said he'd talk to the driver.  He did, and then they said, "Let's go," so I assumed I'd get here--maybe pay a bit extra to get taken farther or slightly out of their route. 

We all loaded into bed of the Canter--bags of fertilizer, 5 bikes (I left mine in Mbala because I already had a backpack, a big hobo-sack of vegetables, and two big packages of Eric's I was bringing him from the post office), 26 people or so, and all their belongings.  We stopped to unload and reload everything in another part of town, stopped again to get fuel, and got on the way probably by around 14:00 or 15:00.  My hobo sack got stepped on so what started as veg appeared to be becoming V8 based on the wetness of the cloth.  The road passed through several villages--where other Peace Corps Volunteers live, in two cases--and at one point, after dropping a bunch of people, one of the lorry boys threw out a pink plastic bucket, assuming it was forgotten by one of the people who'd dismounted.  Within seconds, it was clarified that the owner was still riding, and would very much like his bucket back.  So the truck stopped and the man who'd been so hasty to toss it over ran back down the road to retrieve it.  The drive continued, on and on; beautiful scenery, an endless drive.  Along the way, I saw the most incredible rainbow I've ever witnessed: an enormous arc of color (both sides visible, something I've almost never seen) over the gorgeous African savannah.  

Then the truck stopped, me the last passenger other than lorry boys, and I was told to get on another Canter that happened to be there.  15,000 kwacha ($3) paid, I transferred over to the truck that carried fewer people but lots of stuff.   The people were drunk (or many of the men--passengers, that is, not driver) and amused by me; I was annoyed: the first ride had been peaceful.  At one point, it started to pour, but we quickly pulled a tarp over everything in the truck bed, including ourselves, and kept tooling down the road.  The downpour was brief.  I tried not to worry as the sun was going down and the people kept saying, "Kaka's still far--and we're not going there."  Several proposed I sleep at their houses (which I have done before; see previous entry "Mumalala kuno") but part of the Mambwe conversation to each other included a man having "a taste of me," an obvious sexual reference.  I refused that adamantly and everyone was amused, again, that I had understood.  We stopped to unload fertilizer, and there was an argument (and numerous recountings) about how much was supposed to be left at this stop, of which variety, etc.  Shortly thereafter, I was dropped at a fork in the road.  Me, my backpack, 2 annihilated packages disintegrating by the minute, and a dripping V8 bag.  Lots of drunk guys at the little junction informing me that Kaka remained 10 km down the road not taken by the truck, which had forked to the left.  Ten kilometers--roughly 6 miles.  And it's 18:00.  Losing sunlight super rapidly.  We broker a plan for bike transport: 1 bicycle for the junk, 1 for me and my backpack, K30,000 ($6).  So that's how I ended up spending the next hour and 20 minutes on the over-the-back-wheel carrier rack of a skinny but strong, sober, teenage Zambian boy who had just written his Grade 12 exams a few weeks prior.

Now, balancing on the back of a bicycle is not easy and demands core strength I do not possess.  Side saddle and straddling (we tried both) require you don't tip the bike over, keep your feet off the ground and away from tires/pedals, and ignore the metal rods sticking in your backside.  And it can't be much better for the cyclist, trying to haul my not-so-skinny self down a dirt path, avoiding puddles and such.  Half the ride was in almost complete darkness, the sky illuminated intermittently by flashes of lightning far in the distance.  I had tried calling Eric at the junction but couldn't get through then or when we finally reached the Kaka school signpost.  I knew only that he lived on the headman's compound, so we walked to the nearest house, where the resident assured me that Eric and the headman lived nearby, and appointed two of his children to escort me there.  I thanked my bike taxi drivers, paying K40,000 and telling them to figure out how to divide it between themselves (I personally being of the opinion that the young man who biked me should get a larger share than the one who took boxes, of significantly less burden).    Partly I was eager to "tip" because it was not an easy task, and I would have been in a jam without their help; partly I didn't have proper change for the K30,000 we'd agreed upon, and I knew it was unlikely they'd have K10,000 worth of change on them, so two K20,000 it was. 

Then I reached the place, and it was all so easy.  Just over an hour earlier--stranded 10km away, with too much to carry, night falling, and a significant distance to go.  Now--just here, visiting a friend, joking with his family and eating nshima.  One thing I'm constantly reminded of here is that all things come to pass--no matter how soaked/tired/dirty/etc. you may be in an unpleasant, but temporary, situation.  For indeed, every situation is just that: temporary.  And in Zambia, those temporary situations have a tendency to be, in addition, adventurous.