The Great Bus Melee '77
Trip Start
Apr 01, 1979
1
78
Trip End
Ongoing
Tamale, Ghana
Friday, June 10, 2011
I was in Tamale, Ghana’s third largest city and the home base for operations in the northern part of the country. Less than a week before, I had left Nalerigu, some three hours or so further north, and now was at the end of a long series of journeys that brought me from Nalerigu to Tamale, from there to Mole, back to Tamale, on to Kumasi, and back to Tamale again. I had logged nearly 30 hours on buses or other transport completing this circuit, choking on dust and the filthy odors of fellow passengers. I wanted to return to Nalerigu, to end my journey and find some rest. The options for doing so were scant. I could wait two days until Monday for a ride, or take the Saturday bus on Metro Mass. Since the cost was less than 10 dollars for the bus, and waiting would entail fancy hotel rooms and expensive meals (because that’s how I roll), I knew the sensible thing was to go back at the first opportunity.
To accomplish this task, I woke up at 5 am, ventured to the station, and acquired a ticket. Doing so is a necessity, since Metro Mass has the monopoly on direct service to Nalerigu. There are other ways to go, assuredly, involving modified pick-up trucks, frequent vehicle changes, and dozens of stops along the way, but that seemed torturous. Instead Metro Mass, if austere, offered an antidote to that poor person’s journey. It was a middle class alternative, and I was a firm middle class guy. They told me to return at 130 pm, and I spent the rest of my morning being lazy, watching television in my hotel room, and eating a lamb burger (at an Indian place that didn‘t serve beef; for the record, it was terrible). Finally, when the hour came, I ventured back to Metro Mass and started to wait. And wait and wait and wait.
The bus, not surprisingly, was late. In fact, it didn’t arrive until around 4 pm. I was so overjoyed it arrived at all that I didn’t mind the fact that it takes such a prolonged effort to load these buses, with folks trying desperately to get on without tickets, pushing and shoving their way to the front. Others with tickets responded in kind, perhaps fearing that if they weren‘t equally aggressive, they would somehow lose their place. Everyone had luggage, which costs extra, but no one wanted to pay, so furious and futile negotiations broke out with each person as the bags were hefted under the bus.
The pushing and shoving was to little result, as the seats were pre-assigned, and therefore the ticket owners fears were unfounded. Of course, no one seemed to understand this system. I tried to explain it to one lady: “You see the ticket. It has a number. You read the number. The seats also have numbers. Read those numbers too. Now the key is to match up the number on the ticket to the number on the seat. Still confused? Okay, let me put it this way. I don’t care where you sit, but you have got to move your fat ass out of my seat. Pronto!”
When the commotion finally settled and the driver pulled himself up into his place, I was happy. It was still early enough that the 4 hour trip wouldn’t be so bad after all. I sat back, turned on my ipod, and enjoyed the air on my face as the bus glided through the light traffic, a blessing in a usually congested city. We pushed past the suburbs, exurbs and seven herbs and spices (guffaw silently) until Tamale was but a distant memory, 20 minutes behind us in the rearview mirror. That is the moment of course that I heard the first groan. It sounded like the yelp of a dog who had smoked far too many cigarettes, high-pitched and husky all at the same time. The bus stopped briefly, started again, and the groaning increased tenfold. We pulled to the side of the road, unable to push the orange-painted beast any further.
“What’s wrong?” Someone shouted from the back. The driver and conductor (whose job is to tear tickets and shout a lot) responded with shrugs. They exited the vehicle and began looking at the right front tire, apparently the source of the problem. Again, the shouts rang down, “WHAT’S WRONG?!”
Finally, the driver answered, “I am not a mechanic, how should I know?” And thus the table was set.
I was delusional for some time afterwards, as the bus emptied, with people lounging about on rocks and on the crumbling shoulder of the road. I thought, well we’re not far from Tamale, shouldn’t take long to send the replacement bus. In fact, when I asked, there was no such plan. “No, no, no. A mechanic will come.” This did not reassure me.
After about 45 minutes, the driver and conductor began to take off the right front tire. They did so despite their protestations of not being mechanics, and then proceeded to look at what was left behind for some time while yammering heatedly into a cell phone. I asked for information, and a kind man told me that the mechanic wasn’t coming. Apparently, Metro Mass had told them to fix it themselves.
A nurse who was traveling back to work at the same hospital as I, and who claimed she knew me even though I hadn’t a clue who she was, overheard the news and barked out that she was going to call Metro Mass and give them what for. She began dialing the complaint line (which is also the weather line, reservation line, information line, and home phone number to the entire Suliman family). The nurse, in her mid-20s with wide hips and fake braids, sallied forth with angry diatribes against the entire Metro Mass line. She was just about to tell them exactly which bus she was on and where when the line went dead. Apparently, she was out of credit on her cell phone.
The driver and conductor had very little luck fixing the bus, and without further explanation, walked across the road, flagged down a tractor, and began riding away. I stood there, in the middle of all of it, and just shook my head. Luckily, they would return a scant one hour later in a taxi. With them was a man wearing a black wife beater t-shirt and black pants. He held in his hand a solitary wrench. They had found a mechanic.
After several minutes of hard analysis and evaluation, the mechanic tried to apply the wrench to the wheel, apparently in the only spot where such a wrench might go. To the shock of only the angry nurse and a goat munching grass nearby, who each let out a high pitched shriek, the wrench did not fit. The mechanic went to the road, flagged down a truck, and was gone.
Since I hadn’t eaten in several hours, and in fact I’d only brought a small bottle of water that had long since been empty, I needed to find nourishment. A couple of children had walked from a nearby village with supplies, attempting to exploit the peril of the interrupted travelers. I scanned their wares, selecting one of each item on offer. When I sat down with my bag of water and chewing stick, I strangely was not able to squelch my hunger, although the plastic baggie of, presumably, typhoid infested water did briefly slake my thirst. The little curs had charged me 20 pesewas for the bounty, an extortionately priced 14 cents, but they had the market to themselves.
Within another hour, the mechanic returned on a bicycle. He had brought with him a completely different wrench. To say I had lost confidence in his abilities was a massive understatement, but with a concerted effort, he applied said wrench to effect. The tire was then replaced, and amazingly the bus moved again. We had only been sitting on the roadside for four hours, following a three hour delay at the bus depot, and a 20 minute jaunt down the road. I reasoned that this was the price you pay when you want to go somewhere in this sprawling developing world country, and wrote it off to bad luck.
The bus drove slowly down the road, the mechanic, wrenched tucked into his belt like a sword, and his bike aligned neatly between the seats in the aisle. After five minutes, we reached a village and the hero and his steed disembarked. I waved my handkerchief as he descended the stairs, while others blew him kisses. A greater man, I thought, might never be found.
Oddly, instead of continuing onward, the driver began to blow the horn furiously. I asked my seatmate if he knew why, and he replied that someone had apparently walked away from the bus and sought the refuge of the town during our long wait on the side of the road. We were now waiting to pick this person up, despite no one knowing at first quite who it was or where they were sitting. Shouts began to rain down in both Mampruli and English. The main chorus of screams were, “Driver go!” I even joined in briefly, “Kindly do proceed, sir!” One voice crowed above all the rest, imploring the bus onward, and as the voice ventured towards the front, I recognized the speaker before I even saw her, the angry nurse.
“Leave her! JUST GO NOW!” She screamed out with a fury. Apparently, there was actually someone missing, for one of the high school students cried back, “No!” Unfortunately, I can translate reliably no further, but I will say the argument that ensued between the angry nurse and the high school student was not the friendliest of exchanges. Much gnashing of teeth, pointing of fingers, and sharp retorts carried forth. The angry nurse slammed her hand down, making one final point, before starting back towards the rear of the bus again. The high school student, seeing her retreat, lobbed one last insult, which was one too many. The nurse turned and charged.
The configuration of this particular Metro Mass bus had one aisle separating three and two seat rows. I was seated by the window on the three seat side. The high school student was in the seat directly behind me. The nurse flung herself into the two bodies nearer the aisle as she raged after the student. Hands flew up in defense and wild swings were flung in both directions. Bystanders rose up to separate the two, and it took four able-bodied men to hold back the aggrieved nurse, spit and venom flying from her clenched jaw. My mouth stood open as my eyes took in the scene. Once separated, the bus began to move. The missing rider was never found, and the fight was all for naught.
The journey continued without further incident. The driver did insist on stopping for food and a pee at one point, but the resistance to such events had died out long ago. We took the normal route back to Nalerigu, careening over terrible roads in the pitch black of night. This made driving more hazardous of course, but I felt no real danger. The goats who slept on the road seemed perturbed to be woken but we didn’t stop to apologize. A few stops were made to drop people and goods along the way, and it was past midnight when I finally arrived back home. I walked briskly for 15 minutes back to my house, into my room, and showered the scum away before sleeping.
Upon looking back, the truth is that my journey was not remarkable. In fact, in this place, these strange voyages likely happen everyday. It was a parade of the ridiculous, events unfolding in measured succession with complete absurdity. Sometimes I could only laugh, other times I felt like crying, and often I pounded my fists down in anger. Yet I was trapped. I had decided to take this path, and the path then chewed me up and spat me out again and again.
