Watch Out For That Tree

So I know that I have always said that transportation here in Tanzania is bad. Well this level of bad just hit rock bottom last Friday on my trip to Dar es Salaam. Due to no other buses leaving my village, I was forced to take a bus company with an extremely poor reputation. A friend bought my ticket for me, and so I ended up in what we volunteers refer to as the "kill zone." This is the very front seats of the bus and the dangers the present with the travel situation here. At first I was worried about this, but shook it off thinking "Ahh...nothing with happen." Then, once I got on the bus, put my backpack in front of me, and was still able to stretch my legs out completely, I thought I was in for a good ride. Every thing started out fine, we only left 30 minutes late (right on time by Tanzanian standards), and were making good time. Then, a couple of hours into the trip, we stopped for about an hour while they worked on some unknown mechanics of the bus. After an hour, we were on our way again. Now the first thing you need to know is that I live on the Makonde Plateau, which is about 900 feet tall. The second thing is that this particular bus line goes a back way down the plateau, winding through small villages and descending down a road that the locals call "the dirty way." This road is extremely steep, winding, and rocky. Because of this, we were slowly making our way down the road when all of a sudden we started to gain speed at an alarming rate. By the time we had reached a rate that people were getting tossed from seats into the aisles, people began to panic because is was very obvious our breaks had gone out and we were out of control going down a cliff. We continued to gain speed and very quickly approached a sharp turn. Our bus driver then did probably the best thing he could have and did not attempt to make the turn. Instead, we careened through the forest, blazing out own path until 3 large trees were good enough the stop us. Right before impact, I grabbed the 2-year-old in front of me, put me feet on the barricade in front of me and braced for impact. At this point, everyone in the bus was thrown to one side of the bus, landing in a huge pile. Once we were stopped and even before we were out of our pile, everyone on the bus was screaming versions of "Asante Yesu!!" which means "Thank you, Jesus!" We then began to slowly untangle ourselves and stand up. After standing, the bus began to smoke and everyone started to panic and chaos errupted and a stampede towards the front doors began. There was no way to quickly exit that way, and so I called a Babu (grandpa) over to the window, handed about 4 small children out, and then climbed down one of the trees that stopped us. By the time everyone was off, it was obvious the bus was not exploding any time soon, so I went back to get me backpack and then made the almost 100 yard hike out of the forest where we had stopped. We all then got to sit on the side of the road and hope that some sort of vehicle passed on this scarcely used road. After about 3 hours, I was able to pay a vehicle to take me to the nearest volunteers house, and then caught a bus onto Lindi where I procured a ticket for another bus to Dar the next day. The next morning, I got to hop on another bus, yeah! The ride went amazingly smooth. I would just like to point out though that I have the worst transportation luck because even on this bus, only one person on the entire bus got hit by luggage flying off the overhead rack, and that person was me. I got whacked by a flying bag, which ripped my pants and cut my leg and hand. We then broke down for about 3 or 4 hours overall, finally making it to Dar after 12 hours. I was at least greeted by good friends and Lebanese food. Overall though, I was extremely lucky. The big man upstairs was really looking out for me. Now, after all of the drama, I am enjoying my first real vacation in 9 months, relaxing on Zanzibar, an island of the coast! More to come on that later! Peace out!