by Adeline Loh
‘We better take a hot shower now while the sun is out,’ I suggested. ‘There’s no way we’ll be able to shower at night without our privates turning to ice.’
Mary had told us before she left that the hot shower would be ready in half an hour. So we waited around for the dead tree branches to burn in the furnace of the traditional charcoal water heater right outside our chalet. Some 45 minutes later, we tested the shower and it was colder than a hospital matron. Personally, I would rather go unwashed for days, if not weeks, than shiver my butt off under freezing water. Not that I have, um, ever not taken a shower for more than three days. I swear nobody has ever told me I smelt like expired blue cheese when my water heater broke down.
In the end, we quit lingering and, sans shower, asked Ben to drive us out to purchase the bus tickets for our long ride northeast to Chipata, the gateway to South Luangwa National Park. That’s the game reserve I picked to have our very first African safari – we could hardly wait!
*
A dump – a choice phrase many tourists and guidebooks use in the same sentence as Lusaka. Dirty, unsafe and will never be a highlight, they continued. No arguments there – most backpackers only journey through the city as an unavoidable connecting route, rarely staying for more than a couple of days if they can help it. But I wasn’t sure I shared their sentiments because I love dumps. As we drove closer to the enigmatic city centre, spacious suburbia gave way to layer after layer of homogeneous architecture: almost all the buildings were square blocks of dull concrete, with the only dashes of colour provided by pop art graffiti advertisements sprayed or painted on the brick walls running alongside tree-lined pavements. Resourceful vendors providing services such as ‘CAR WASH; ‘QUICK WINDSCREEN REPAIRS’ and ‘ACTIVE SIGNS’ (signboard-making was the most favoured business for creative out-of-work Zambians) were rooted in the long-running shadow cast by a compound wall on the road shoulder.
The simple and relaxed atmosphere on the streets was hardly a warm-up to the swinging planet of hullabaloo that was the Inter-City Bus Terminus. Built to be the country’s biggest regional public transportation hub, the Inter-City was conceptualized as an organized, safe and clean modern bus station – the ultimate solution to the usual mud-spattered and chaotic bus stations in Africa. Proper ticketing booths introduced the previously foreign concept of queuing, sanitary facilities were erected and pesky touts were booted out. ‘Yes, our infrastructure is the pits,’ the city council of Lusaka seemed to be saying, ‘but aren’t you impressed by our multimillion-dollar bus station, dear visitors? We guarantee you’ll forget about the crumbling shanties, rampant crime and high unemployment rate soon enough.’
Of course like so many noble intentions gone horribly wrong, the picture I saw before me could not be further from the original plan. With poor maintenance and virtually zero law enforcement, it once again descended into the disorderly congestion characteristic of so many Third World countries. The infamous touts or ‘call boys’ as they are primarily known in Zambia – a genus of jobless ruffians who loaded passengers onto buses and then unloaded cash from them – were boldly waltzing their way back to the premises. The toilets once again smelt like toilets. And bus operators chose to build illegal tuntemba-type structures (makeshift wooden shelters) for selling tickets.
After tootling a gaggle of touts who were in the way, Ben stopped next to the CR Holdings Bus wooden shelter, apparently the most reliable coach operator. The moment we got out of the taxi, however, the tension quickly mounted. People stared accusatorily at us awkward aliens as if we’d stolen their kids or sold them investment-linked insurance. I braced myself for our inevitable lynching by an incensed African mob armed with raised fists and torched ticket stubs, for having the audacity to invade the public bus turf. Thankfully, we were spared.
Lining the bus station were restless loafers perched on platforms; hucksters with an extreme variety of wares; mothers lugging gurgling babies on their backs; and people transporting old carton boxes and sacks of clothing, fish, livestock, crockery, cornmeal and home electronics. The vibrancy of their clothes was a sharp contrast to their weary coffee-coloured faces. Passengers looked as if they had been waiting for a century and a night for the bus to arrive. They probably had.
We looked tentatively at the ticketing hut where a crowd of people were clambering over each other’s shoulders clutching money in their hands. As I tried to figure out which person was the back of the queue, or indeed if there was one, Chan turned to me with the expression of a lamb about to be sacrificed. Then, in an unprecedented show of courage, she said: ‘I’m going in.’
Before I could mouth the words, ‘Be careful,’ she had fearlessly joined the melee. Gradually and determinedly, she shoved and jostled her way to the front. Meanwhile I swivelled my head every which way like a meerkat sentinel, alert to my surroundings and ready to crack the jaw of anyone who made any sudden move with a well-trained uppercut. I lost sight of Chan for a while as the gang of locals twice her size enveloped and gobbled her. After about 15 minutes, I saw her emerge from under someone’s armpit, grinning victoriously. She was grasping the hard-won bus tickets in her hand. ‘Only sissy tourists line up,’ she panted triumphantly and we zipped back inside Ben’s taxi. It was not the kind of place for hanging around.
Spurred by the exorbitant price of a taxi ride into town (US$20 one way!) and non-existent hot water from the ornamental coal-heated showers at Pioneer Camp, we decided to move closer to the city centre. Since Ben had earlier revealed that he frequently ferried passengers from a hip hostel called Ku-Omboka Backpackers, we went to check it out.
The neat hostel was quietly tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac like a secret hidey-hole for backpackers. At the entrance, we were met by an oppressive metal gate more suited to a medieval dungeon. The other bungalows in this fortress suburb took their security equally seriously, shielding themselves from the big bad world outside with high walls fortified by spiky broken glass bottles. I silently wondered how many robbers’ genitals had fallen prey to those sharp ends.
After we pressed the bell, the watchman let us in through a narrow opening in the gate, and past a manicured lawn that I could imagine playing mini golf on. The open bar lodged behind the reception area was practically seducing me to stay here.
‘Hello, can we check if there are rooms available?’ I asked the pug-faced English proprietor sitting behind the counter. He reacted suspiciously as if we had just said, ‘Hi, we are from Myanmar! Please, can we have a look at your toilets so we can wash them?’
‘No, no, we’re full,’ he waved us away.
‘We’re not talking about tonight,’ I said, trying to maintain a polite demeanour.
‘Oh, thank God. When then?’ he asked brusquely.
‘We have a few dates that we’d like to check for availability, if you don’t mind.’
‘Okay, just write your names down here,’ he barked and slapped the reservation book on the counter. Unfolding my dog-eared handwritten itinerary, I pencilled in all the dates we were due to check in. Lusaka is like a central heart criss-crossed by the main arteries to the various wildlife sanctuaries in the north, east, south and west, so all roads inescapably lead back to the capital. That meant, after we were done with each leg of our safari – four in total, all in different directions – we would return to Lusaka for a breather before moving on.
When I was done scribbling, he pushed his glasses up the hooked bridge of his nose and squinted at the dates I had marked down. ‘Ahem,’ he went, clearing a great blob of phlegm from his throat. Tilting his head downwards to unleash a monster double chin, he goggled us in a very evil manner above his spectacles. ‘Okay, I’m Ken. If you’re not coming on any of these dates, you’d better ring me in advance. Or I’m going to call you names, you hear me? We have a lot of people begging for a room here.’
Well, ain’t he a ray of sunshine.
Back at Pioneer Camp, Chan and I mucked about in the room for an hour until my stoma
ch gurgled to be filled.
‘Let’s go eat,’ I said, rubbing my tummy.
‘It’s too cold out,’ Chan croaked beneath her woollen balaclava – you know, the kind worn to rob banks. Yes, she was wearing one, and it was bright neon pink.
‘But it’s our first night in Zambia. We should have dinner together to celebrate the fact that we made it all the way to Africa in one piece. Come eat with me, pretty please,’ I tried to coax her in my sweetest voice.
‘And get out of this comfortable warm bed?’ She fidgeted beneath the sheets. ‘I think not. Anyway, I’ve eaten too many vegetarian crackers.’
In the end, I gave up and walked out towards the restaurant accompanied by my pricey, never-been-used, all-weather torchlight to prevent myself from tripping along the pebbly path and falling flat on my face in the sinister darkness. Outside of astronomy books, I had my first real glimpse of the legendary African night sky. It looked like an infinity-sized jet black blanket that had been arbitrarily poked through with a needle. I halted in rapture – but a careless rustle from a nearby shrub soon averted my gaze and snapped me out of my starstruck reverie. Quickening my pace, I did not dare look back even once. It was a grim reminder that out here in the African wilderness, no matter how it lulled you into a false sense of seclusion, you were never quite alone.
In the dimly lit restaurant, I found the television surrounded by a crowd of English travellers who were watching the unsettling news about the July 7 London terrorist bombings that happened two days ago. Far too cold to be worrying about pressing world matters and hirsute Islamic militants, I was more concerned about getting cryogenically preserved. So I stole a warm bucket of glowing charcoals while no one was looking.
When dinner was served, I nearly had a heart attack. Clearly they had mistaken a lone, 40-kilo, five-foot-one Chinese girl for a small African village. I sat down to the kingly feast: a washing basin of starter soup with three dinner rolls the size of bricks, a huge two-inch thick slab of medium-rare T-bone steak, a large avocado stuffed with mashed eggs, a whole baked potato the size of an infant’s head and a wok-sized bowl of raw salad. I could not see the table any more and wondered how many days it was going to take for me to finish everything.
‘Wow, that’s a lot of food, Alfred!’ shouted the stocky Englishman sitting next to me on the picnic table over to the lodge manager, as he got served an exact replica of what I was having. He glanced at the lavish spread before me, and then at me. ‘Good luck with that,’ he said sympathetically.
3. BUS STATION BUST
At the unholy hour of five in the morning, we packed our bags and never returned to Pioneer Camp. Slicing through the twilight in Ben’s taxi, we headed back to the migraine-triggering Inter-City Bus Terminus, which appeared no less zoo-like than yesterday. Hordes of locals with their myriad cardboard boxes and plastic bags were strewn about untidily whilst call boys who fancied themselves men of steel mooched in the middle of the road with the seemingly sole aim of blocking taxis. The long-haul coaches were confined within this maniacal traffic of mayhem devoid of signs. Everything was in the way of something; I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where we were supposed to go. If Ben had not intervened to help pinpoint our bus, we would have cluelessly wandered into the free-for-all mess, gotten our bags snatched and ourselves thrown onto a bus that was headed for a rebel camp in the landmine wonderland of Angola.
We bade Ben goodbye and were left in the hands of Vincent, the long-legged bus conductor. Almost twice my height, he looked down at me expectantly. I unleashed my Nyanja at him and defiled it irrevocably. It seemed to work; I deceived him into thinking I knew the local language and we became fast friends. If there was one thing I’d learnt from my folly-filled travels, it was to always be chummy with the conductor or at least let him know I existed, just so I would not have to worry incessantly about dozing off and missing my stop, or have the bus drive off without me while I was in the loo (a recurring nightmare I have).
As we stood cooling our heels next to the bus, the few rapacious layabouts who had been doggedly observing me from the kerb stepped up to Vincent and mumbled something. I wasn’t sure what he was saying but I had a feeling it was something devious and related to me. Vincent immediately rubbed his chin, shot me a quick glance, and decided that I was easy prey.
‘Let this good man help you with your bag. He’ll stow it for you,’ Vincent said, as a shady call boy eagerly extended his arms towards me.
Oh, the betrayal; the ephemeral nature of new friendships. ‘No, I’d rather do it myself. Zikomo kwambiri (Thank you very much).’
‘It’s okay, sister, trust me. Give it to him. Look, you can follow him and check that your bag is inside yourself,’ Vincent insisted.
‘Come come, let me,’ yammered the overzealous twerp of a call boy as he went behind me and tugged persistently at one of the loops on my rucksack. I didn’t want to start a fracas so I relented, relaxed my grip on the shoulder straps and surrendered my pack. Chan’s wheeled suitcase, however, was unfairly allowed on board.
I tailed the call boy to the rusty luggage compartment under the bus, and watched helplessly as my pack was shoved in the centre amongst a cornucopia of jumbo-sized second-hand designer suitcases and flimsy carrier bags that were a few seams away from splitting. With this so-called arduous task accomplished, he looked at me with a gleam in his eye and demanded a gratuity of 10,000 kwacha (around US$2), while pumping his thumb towards his mouth. I wasn’t sure if the gesture meant that he needed the money for thumb-sucking therapy or to support a drinking habit but I deemed 5,000 kwacha more than enough for his trouble. He accepted the token smugly before his dodgy associates woo-hooed and patted his back as if he had passed the Jedi test of tourist-fleecing.
With a long debilitating journey in front of us, and not knowing if there was going to be occasional toilet stops, I decided to be on the safe side and try to force every last droplet out of my bladder.
‘Vincent, where’s the chimbuzi (toilet)?’
‘I’ll take you there,’ he replied and led me towards the busy main depot.
This was my first time in an African lavatory. Holding my toilet fee stub, I took one step past the threshold of the toilet to find myself the very last person in a chain of sulky women waiting along the corridor of five cubicles. The atmosphere was dank in more ways than one, and stank to high heaven. The only action to be had was an elderly lady brushing her teeth at one of the sinks. Another then exited the middle cubicle, filled up a pail of water and went back inside to pour it down the toilet bowl.
The second cubicle’s door was slightly ajar but nobody went in.
‘Can this be used?’ I asked the unsmiling lady in front of me, pointing to the cubicle.
‘It’s dirty,’ she hissed.
I took her word for it and resisted the urge for confirmation lest I found someone’s leftover present. Thinking they could do with some washroom cheer, I smiled broadly at a couple of glowering ladies who had turned around to examine the foreigner in their midst. But they did not even return so much as a smirk. Clearly, this was the wrong place for me to be honing my social skills. If only I had known the Nyanja equivalent for ‘I come to your toilet in peace’. I shifted around in discomfiture, but maybe I shouldn’t have taken it too personally – a full bladder or spastic colon had a knack for making one awfully cranky.
Suddenly a woman came in and hollered so loudly that everyone turned back to look. ‘You! Hey you!’
Holy crap, she was pointing in my direction.
‘Yeah you! Come out now!’
Mortified, I walked out to find a grinning Vincent rubbing his head stubble. ‘Too many people, right?’ he said. ‘This lady will bring you to another toilet.’
After relieving myself, I got back on the bus and plopped myself next to Chan. She had inexplicably chosen to sit near the bus doors. Given that local bus drivers enjoyed counting how many passengers they could toss out the windshield, my buddy’s preferred seats weren
’t exactly the feel-good kind. Besides, I figured we should maintain a low profile since we were the only two foreigners on the bus.
‘Let’s move to the back, Chan,’ I said.
‘But ...’
Ignoring her, I stood up and realized immediately why she had sat up front: giant suitcases, grubby vinyl bags and overstuffed carrier bags had blockaded the impossibly narrow aisle. While the nimbleness of an Olympic hurdle runner was required, I could only muster the grace of a three-legged hippo. Supporting my weight with my hands on the headrests, I lifted my legs and tried to squeeze my foot into any inch of floor I could spot. When my footing slipped a couple of times, I cowered in anticipation of someone screaming, ‘Hey, I need those chickens alive!’ Somehow, after accidentally knocking my butt against people’s faces when my ambitious manoeuvres went awry, I made it to the second-last row without being brutally chastised. Despite being bogged down by two bags, Chan arrived unscathed as well. However, rather than stowing her bags in the overhead compartment, she pushed her rolling suitcase in the narrow slit that was supposedly leg room.
‘Are you comfortable like that?’ I asked, watching her squish her suitcase between her legs and hugging her daypack on her lap. ‘The ride’s going to take eight hours, you know. Your thighs will go numb.’
‘No way I’m leaving my bags unattended,’ she replied, eyeing everyone suspiciously. ‘Somebody might steal them. Or worse – stuff stinky dried fish inside.’
After a good ten minutes, the driver got in and pushed a tape into the stereo. Plaintive Christian gospel music permeated the bus, becoming louder as the effusive chorus of the wonders of Jesus rang out. Soon, the driver’s, Vincent’s, and their helpers’ heads drooped, as if in prayer. Religion is huge here as people find relief from belief – around 75 per cent of Zambians are devout Christians, thanks to the church-planting efforts in both urban and rural areas by European and American missionaries since the nineteenth century.
