My Trip To Francistown

Or, Why I’m Superstitious

Or, Relying on the Kindness of Strangers 

It always amazes me at how slow people can walk – especially on busy sidewalks.  I was crossing a pedestrian bridge at the Gaborone bus station with a heavy duffel bag (and I had packed light this time) at 11:57.  Buses from Gabs to Francistown leave every half hour, but with a five-hour trip ahead of me I wanted to catch the earliest one possible.

Dodging between meandering couples and single mothers who should look into using leashes to control their children, I managed to get on a bus on its way out of the station.  Literally, the driver stopped the bus in the middle of the road so I could throw my bag underneath and then climb aboard.  What luck! I thought.  There were even empty seats so I didn’t have to stand.

As I settled into my seat, I thought about a time when I had been on a bus that broke down in Pennsylvania and we had to wait for a replacement bus to be sent.  I’ve never heard of a bus breaking down in Botswana, and I wondered what they would do if it did.  These thoughts were quickly pushed aside when I realized that I had, in my haste to board, left my lunch and all my reading material in my duffel underneath the bus.  Cue tears.  (In my defense, I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous evening.  And the trouble I had even finding something to eat for lunch is a blog entry in itself.)

Two and half hours into the ride, we made our first stop at a village called Mahalapye (mah-hah-lah’-pay).  I asked a woman to save my seat and dashed out to get my lunch (of nutritious potato chips).  Crisis averted… or so I thought.  Not ten minutes out of the station, the bus slows down and pulls over to the side of the road.  The driver gets out of his seat to look at the engine while men get out of their seats to go pee by the side of the road.  Minor setback, I assumed, and continued reading my book.

Five minutes later an announcement is made in Setswana.  The girl sitting behind me taps me on the shoulder and translates that they are going to replace the fan belt.  Ten minutes more of waiting, another Setswana announcement, and my new friend tells me that they don’t have the tools to fix the bus so we’ll have to get some of our money back and hitchhike, or wait for another bus to be sent.

“What are you going to do?” I ask her.

“Probably hike to Palapye and then get on a bus from there to Francistown.  You can come with me if that would be okay.”

“That would be great.”

The girl’s name is Dorica, and I’m halfway convinced she’s my guardian angel.  She managed to flag down a car to bring us to Palapye, then flag down another car to bring us to Tonota, and then had her boyfriend pick us up and drive us the rest of the way to Francistown.

Hitching, or hiking as they call it here, is extremely common.  People rely on hiking as much as the bus system (which may show you how reliable the buses can be here).  You just stand on the side of the road, stick out your arm, wave around your hand, and if a car has room they will usually pull over.  If you hike, you pay the equivalent of what it would be to take a bus to your destination, which makes it a much more legitimate practice than hitchhiking in the U.S.  In my experience, I haven’t found the culture here to be entirely welcoming of strangers, but hiking proves just how generous Batswana can be.

With all of the setbacks, the entire trip only took me about a half-hour longer than it would have on the bus and was possibly cheaper since Dorica’s boyfriend refused to accept any money for the ride.  I considered it a successful adventure. 

Now that I’ve survived my first bus-breakdown, hopefully I’m safe for the rest of my time here.  Although I’m never, ever jinxing myself by thinking about a breakdown as I board a bus!

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.  -Oprah Winfrey