Getting Around

A current challenge for me is learning to find my way around Lusaka. Fortunately, as described before, Lusaka is not a huge town. I have been able to get oriented partly by walking from my house to downtown and to the shopping districts. I do attract some attention, however, since it is rare for muzungus (white people) to be seen on foot.

One trick is just figuring out which direction is which. While the sun still rises in the East, in Lusaka is rises in the Northeast, whereas in the US it rises in the Southeast. Thus, my internal compass is very confused. I am making some progress by regularly noting the location of the sun, and reminding myself that it is always somewhere to the north. My instincts are further confused, however, by the fact that cars drive on the left side of the road here, not the right side….

I have been able to bum some rides from helpful friends, and have also taken a few taxis (which are as expensive as back home), but the bulk of my transportation thus far has been on the city buses. These are quite different that back home. The first difference is in the buses themselves, which would never pass out safety codes. They come in two sizes (see picture). The smaller are mini buses (the size of a Volkswagen Vanagon, although usually made by Toyota), that have been fitted out with about 4 rows of seats. The slightly larger buses have about 7 rows of seats. Both have seats that fold down into the aisles for increased capacity. The buses are painted blue and white, and (since privately owned) are often customized with religious slogans are advertisements. The also are generally pretty beat up looking.

The buses have regular routes, which radiate from a bus station downtown, but no timetables. The buses compete for passengers pretty aggressively. At a bus stop the driver’s assistant will jump out, start yelling the name of their destination, and encouraging you to board. While it is tempting to board a relatively empty bus, in the hopes of not being smushed by other people, this can just result in a delay of your journey, since the drivers will often wait until they have an almost full load before departing. Recently I was on a relatively empty bus that was looking for passengers, and I watched the driver’s assistant grab two girls in their school uniforms and carry them on board. Since the girls were giggling I decided it wasn’t a big deal. I think he also charged them a reduced fare.

When ready to depart, the driver will often start to roll before his assistant is in and the door is shut. The assistant manages to board with some sort of flair, and then collects our fares as the bus heads on. It’s important to have money handy since it can be hard to reach into pockets when the bus is crowded. Sometimes at the next stop a person in the back corner needs to exit. Exits from these seats can be less than graceful (for me anyways) and involve a combination of some people temporarily leaving the bus and others being crawled over.