To get around Lusaka, if you do not own a car, you are basically left with two choices: Either the minibus network or taxis. Minibusses suck (after you had your share of intercultural experiences), but they are cheap. Taxis are easy to find (basically every man driving a vehicle is a taxi driver - they'll honk at you, wave at you, stop right in your way) and very convenient, but expensive. For an 8 km ride you pay around 40.000 Kwacha at a rate of 6650 Kwacha to the Euro - that's about 6 Euros for a ride from my home to my office. So, minibusses then.
Minibusses seem to serve only two "lines" that connect the residental East to the businesses and offices in the Western part of town. Here is one of these Minibusses:
When the ride starts at Woodlands Stadium, around the corner from my home, it's usually only a couple of passengers in there. There are 11 passenger seats, including the one next to the driver, the windows are open, the ride is pleasant. But every bus has a "call boy" working together with the bus driver as a team with one big aim: Cramming as many passengers as possible into the bus. It's usually 18 of us, excluding the driver and the call boy (...yes, I also asked twice, but that's how they call themselves), when we pass the president's compound a couple of kilometers down Independence Avenue (or Burma Road). And to do that, that is to get the bus full to the max, the driver honks at every single pedestrian on the way, the call boy shouts and waves. At the semi-official bus stops he is usually gone for a couple of minutes to find additional customers. It's this whole procedure (including the bus driver honking and honking and stepping on the gas again and again till the call boy finally comes back to the bus with the latest customer, followed by a seat reshuffling involving half of the bus) that makes a bus ride of 7 km last around 45min. Yes, there is also the traffic jams, but these the bus drivers circumvent artistically by using the ditches to the left and right of the streets.
I am most of the time (actually, with so far only one exception) the only white guy on the bus. And I am (at first at least) getting the white man prices, sure enough. So every morning I have this little conversation: "To the mosque, please." "Four pin [that is, thousand]." "Three." "Ok, let's go." From somewhere in the area around the mosque I am then walking to the office for about 20 min. And this is what everybody does a lot in Lusaka: Walking. Our office aid, for example, Mr. Biggs (don't know whether you write it like that - that's how I imagine his name is spelled) walks 90min every morning to the office, leaving his house at 5.30 to be here in time when the first of my colleagues arrive. So walking then is actually the third option, for seemingly any distance.
Minibusses seem to serve only two "lines" that connect the residental East to the businesses and offices in the Western part of town. Here is one of these Minibusses:
When the ride starts at Woodlands Stadium, around the corner from my home, it's usually only a couple of passengers in there. There are 11 passenger seats, including the one next to the driver, the windows are open, the ride is pleasant. But every bus has a "call boy" working together with the bus driver as a team with one big aim: Cramming as many passengers as possible into the bus. It's usually 18 of us, excluding the driver and the call boy (...yes, I also asked twice, but that's how they call themselves), when we pass the president's compound a couple of kilometers down Independence Avenue (or Burma Road). And to do that, that is to get the bus full to the max, the driver honks at every single pedestrian on the way, the call boy shouts and waves. At the semi-official bus stops he is usually gone for a couple of minutes to find additional customers. It's this whole procedure (including the bus driver honking and honking and stepping on the gas again and again till the call boy finally comes back to the bus with the latest customer, followed by a seat reshuffling involving half of the bus) that makes a bus ride of 7 km last around 45min. Yes, there is also the traffic jams, but these the bus drivers circumvent artistically by using the ditches to the left and right of the streets.
I am most of the time (actually, with so far only one exception) the only white guy on the bus. And I am (at first at least) getting the white man prices, sure enough. So every morning I have this little conversation: "To the mosque, please." "Four pin [that is, thousand]." "Three." "Ok, let's go." From somewhere in the area around the mosque I am then walking to the office for about 20 min. And this is what everybody does a lot in Lusaka: Walking. Our office aid, for example, Mr. Biggs (don't know whether you write it like that - that's how I imagine his name is spelled) walks 90min every morning to the office, leaving his house at 5.30 to be here in time when the first of my colleagues arrive. So walking then is actually the third option, for seemingly any distance.
So your travel of 7km takes you 5+45+20=70 minutes. That is 6kmh on average. If you walk at a good pace you walk 5kmh. Why dont you just walk all the way in a nice 30° heat?
ReplyDeleteBecause I have lungs. And there is dust, lots of red dust.
ReplyDelete