MALAWIAN TRANSPORT
Never be in a hurry if you are travelling in Malawi, particularly so if using a minibus.
Minibuses are a miracle. How can metal scrap move, keep on going? Most of the time they have to be pushed to start with and doors have been known to fall off while at high speed, but rarely do they stop moving all together. …but slow it can be. It can be quite exciting to sit there wondering whether the coughing bus can climb up the hill, reach the destination. Occasionally reaching of the destination can look doubtful also for another reason: Police/ road check. Yesterday such a doubt crept in my mind. After driving only 200 metres, the bus suddenly turned around aiming to totally opposite direction I was supposed to go. ‘Well, let’s see’ I thought, ‘with a bit of luck it might end up in the right place after all.’ Half an hour later, after experiencing about 500 potholes, I started doubting whether I ever will reach Chileka. ‘Oh, well, there were police on the road so they had to come this way as the driver hasn’t got a licence’ declared a fellow passenger. And right he was, after 10 minutes we entered to the original road, only about a mile from a starting point. What a joy it was to see all the familiar road signs again: ‘Elegance Beauty Salon; Sweet Praises Ministry; Oasis of Wisdom School; God is good Grocery; Aunt Linda’s Hangover Clinic; Smart Ladies Hair Dressing Saloon; Coffin Showroom….. I was going in the right direction and nearly an hour later I could leave the bus and give my poor bottom a bit of rest before returning to another moving bundle of scrap metal.