Number Six: Bus Rides

Anyone who has ridden a bus in a foreign country will tell you what an experience it is.  (Don’t believe me, just ask my friend Rachel

YOWZA! The result of her attempt to leave Kigali by bus two weeks ago… Don’t worry, She had a nice safe flight to Nairobi the next day!)

Bus wrecks aside, the bus riding experiences in the UAE and Rwanda share some similarities.

First, the duration of a bus ride between Dubai and the nearest city (Abu Dhabi) is the exact same as a bus ride from Kigali to practically any other city in Rwanda.  You leave one city, ride for 2 hours through vast nothingness (desert in UAE, rolling green hills in Rwanda) and arrive in another city.

Second, the price of a two-hour bus ride is very inexpensive.  15AED (4USD) from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. 1700RWF (3USD) from Kigali to Musanze. 

Third, more often than not, the person sitting next to you will do something endlessly entertaining.  In order to illustrate this point, I will share with you a brief anecdote from a past Rwandan bus ride and a brief anecdote from our bus ride to Abu Dhabi.

Once upon a time, I boarded a bus in Kigali.  I took the very back window seat on one side.  Anna took the very back window seat on the other side.  Three very smartly dressed Rwandan women with very limited English sat in the three seats between us (one of them tried her hardest to switch seats with me, but I prefer being squished between a person and a window rather than a person and another person and respectfully declined (in English) her request (in Kinyarwanda)).  After this woman accepted her fated seat, she decided we should be friends.  Her name was Grace.  She combed all of her friends’ hair and then did the same to mine.  She attempted to style my hair just like Anna’s was styled 4 seats over.  She obviously didn’t have much experience with Muzungu hair, but I let her have her fun.  When I busted out my iPod a few minutes into the voyage, she decided she needed to hear the music as well and took the ear bud from my right ear and placed it in her left ear.  She rocked out to The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, and the like before she started requesting T.I., Michael Jackson, and Rihanna, none of whom I could oblige her with.  When we arrived in Musanze, it was all I could do not to laugh at the ridiculousness that was my bus ride.

Once upon a time Anna and I boarded a bus in Dubai.  The bus driver swiftly forced the men sitting a few rows back to move to the back of the bus as buses in the UAE are segregated by gender.  Women and children only in the front of the bus!  As Anna and I were about to sit together, a woman dove from her seat next to a man and stole the window seat.  So, I sat next to a man (gasp!) and Anna sat next to said woman.  She didn’t speak a lick of English.  At one point in the trip, Anna applied some makeup, and the woman stole it away from her to write down every word on the compact in her little notebook.  Later she apparently got a whiff of something smelly and decided to cover it up with her spray deodorant.  She sprayed it on herself and into the air and about gagged me across the aisle.  I never did smell the “bad” smell, but the “good” one sure was strong!  Just as we were about to get off the bus, she gave Anna not one, but two pieces of apparently foul tasting candy as a token of her appreciation for having such a pleasant seat companion.

Moving outside of your cultural comfort zone and onto a bus in a foreign country is something everyone should experience at some point in life.  Just steer clear of Kampala Coach if you’re traveling in East Africa!