Holiday, Plan B

During the last week of August, Scott and I had an impromptu week-long school break due to the National Census (or “Censa” as the local signs advertise). Our original plans of traveling to Kigoma on the other side of the country to visit the chimpanzees didn’t pan out. Getting to Kigoma would have required two long bus legs and a boat taxi ride, or two and a half days of travel. Within the first hour of our first bus leg, our fairly successful record of riding public transportation fell apart. Our bus hit 13 cows on the highway. Right before it happened, I noticed that our rickety bus, which I was hesitant to get on from the start, was speeding. The next thing I know, the bus hit something and perhaps several other things and was driving over other things. Those ‘things’ were cows and when the bus sped away, it left behind nothing short of a bloody massacre. A nice sight, I can imagine, for safari vehicles on their way to Manyara National Park or Tarangire.

After the accident, the no longer safe bus (if it was ever that) along with its passengers waited at the Makuyuni police station for ten hours. Ten hours. Scott and I had sunk the equivalent of US$50 into the bus tickets so we couldn’t just walk away. We didn’t know it would be ten hours. But that’s how time works in Tanzania. Two hours become four. Four hours become six, and before you know it, you’ve wasted the first day of your holiday sitting in a lot located less than an hour from where you live. Scott and I and all the other passengers were helpless. Helplessness when you’re in America can be infuriating; helplessness in Tanzania, in a country where that’s a common feeling among its citizens, is humbling.

If I thought waiting for ten hours for a new bus was a version of hell, then I just had to wait five more hours for an even closer likeness. We boarded the new bus at 7 pm with the expectation that the bus would drive straight through the night to reach our destination of Mwanza; Scott and I still had hopes of making our next bus at 5:30 am. But at 1 am, our bus stopped for four to five hours due to a road block and that’s how we spent a sleepless night.

Because it took 28 hours instead of 12 to reach Mwanza, we put away any hope we had of reaching Kigoma and getting back to Monduli in time for teaching. So we went for Plan B.

 

Sunrise over Lake Victoria from Musoma.

 

The morning market in Musoma as seen from a boat. Those piles in front of the ladies are piles of tiny, dried fish.

 

Disembarking on Lukuba Island, an island located 12 kms off of Musoma.

 

On the way to Musoma. I didn't realize that while I took this shot, that woman in front of me was likely getting a photo of Scott and I with her phone.

 

Mt. Henang, the fourth largest mountain in Tanzania. We summited this on a long Saturday on our way back from Lake Victoria to Monduli.