I
dream of a journey; some days I dream of nothing else. I travel with
a small bag and the clothes on my back. I leave my Irish home and walk
to the bus stop at the end of my lane. I wait there for a bus. A Bulawayo
bound bus, with ‘Zupco’ written on its cream exterior, the rust-eroded
exhaust pipe billowing black smoke as it approaches. I see it coming towards
me, a large tin contraption likely to fall apart with the slightest discrepancy
in the flattened tarmac. The metal roof racks boast layers of suitcases
and plastic, multi-coloured holdalls. An intricate rope system ties the
load together. The vehicle groans and squeals to a stop on the road beside
me. Inquisitive black faces peer through the dust-clad windowpanes at the
new arrival. There is no money exchanged for my journey, just a familiar,
firm African handshake and a loud “Yebo Mankazana” from the toothless driver.
The wide eyes of passengers swim in a sea of dark skin and wiry hair as
I take my seat near the front of the bus.
I
squeeze my thin Caucasian frame between a large African breast, dangling
a newborn from its nipple, and an old gentleman with many layers of clothing;
a sign of wealth in Zimbabwe. I travel for many hours to the nearest port
where the rusty old bus can board a large steamboat. During the hours on
the crowded bus the clicking and clucking of the Ndebele language rises
in unison as the passengers around me talk of their journeys home. I feel
at ease as my thoughts blend into the chattering.
They resemble
a riotous percussion band where each musician hopes that their instrument
will be heard above the rest. The animated faces of my fellow travellers
are a marked contrast from the emotionless masks of the people in Northern
Ireland. One lady seated to my left is telling a story with her entire
body despite the lack of elbowroom around her. These people are truly alive
and yet they have so little.
Through the
glass I see the Irish countryside in all of its winter glory. The wind
is ravishing the tall trees, stripping them of their innocence. They are
left leafless and naked. The rain, in a desperate attempt to make its mark,
pounds the ground with ferocious intensity. The stones are forced to dance
with the rain-drops and the earth disposes of the water deep underneath
its surface.
I am glad
to be leaving the cold weather and even colder reality of Ireland for a
while. I want to feel the unmistakeable warmth of the Zimbabwean sun upon
my face. I yearn to awaken every one of my senses and allow my entire body
to be swept away in an African afternoon.
he cold in
Ireland is so invasive, it steals quietly into my blood and freezes me
from the inside out. As we draw towards the border of land and sea, the
rain no longer seems to have a definite purpose. It is tired of its constant
seaside cycle and showers in bursts upon the soggy landscape. We drive
along a rugged coastline, awkward rock formations jut into the restless
ocean that writhes in agony.
I sense the
fascination of the other passengers as conversation lulls and they fix
their eyes on the seascape outside the bus. Many, if not all, of those
in the bus have lived their entire lives in landlocked Zimbabwe and have
never seen the sea before. By the end of the next leg of our journey they
will have had more than enough of the wind, waves and water. We finally
approach the docks and the tired, over-loaded bus climbs the ramp onto
a large, steel steamboat. I am completely unaware how long the boat will
take to sail from Ireland to the coast of far-away Africa. I have no time-table
or desire to mark the progress of my journey.
The
longer my journey takes the better; that is why I took a bus in the first
place. I need to take time to re-adjust, a transitional period between
one life and the next. Surely a thirteen-hour plane ride is too short to
prepare myself for a new beginning in my familiar past.
The time spent
aboard the boat is purely to create a longing and desire to walk on Zimbabwean
earth beneath the never-ending blue. My appetite craves sun-ripened mangoes
and paupaus that dribble their juice on my chin. My tears want to be dried
by the balmy afternoons spent under the shade of a Jacaranda tree, its
purple petals crowning me lucky as they fall on my head. If I strain to
listen I can hear the insistent chorus of insects that bring the world
to life with their songs of sandpaper gently grating a rough surface. I
cannot sleep without recalling that memory. With time it grows faint; so
I must return. On board the bus again we touch down on South African soil
having travelled by boat all the way down to the southerly point of the
continent.
Here the Indian
and Atlantic oceans meet at what is called Cape Point. We stop to admit
new passengers, one of which has an interesting piece of luggage. He is
a small, old man with a curved spine from years spent toiling in the fields.
He is carrying a plastic bag encompassing the body of a goat with a rope
tied loosely around its neck. He clambers up the back of the bus and secures
his parcel on the roof rack. It appears to be normal to have a goat sweating
in plastic in temperatures of almost thirty-five degrees centigrade. There
is something endearing about the African people; they are so unaware of
their own peculiarities.
We journey
through the picturesque paradise of the Garden route that runs along the
South African coastline. The greenness here is so unlike that of Ireland.
Here the foliage has a tropical mystique surrounding it; in Ireland the
countryside is beautiful, but steeped in reassuring familiarity.
We enter the
contrasting scenery of the Karoo desert, it is barren and painfully sun-scorched.
The dry, cracked earth breathes hot steam from its pores begging the sky
for relief from the unrelenting savannah sunshine. Leafless trees stretch
skyward in agony like the tortured souls of Adam and Eve, crying out to
God to clothe their naked flesh. The heat in the bus becomes unbearable.
The midday sun pierces the glass and a foul stench of sweat hovers in the
stagnant air around me. I open a small window and can smell the dusty desert
road, beneath the balled tires of the bus. It is a haunting drive through
no mans land.
After several
hours on a long straight road we pull into a small service station. There
is an old petroleum pump and small corrugated iron shack where the petrol
is paid for. A stone building beside the African petrol station has ‘Chimbuku’
written above the door. It sells the local brew and there are several pew-like
benches inside where locals can enjoy their beverage out of the sun’s ugly
glare. I am given a key on a piece of yarn from a small man in the service
station and directed to the ‘toilet’. I unlock a mesh fence and there is
a square slab of concrete with a hole in the middle for my relief. Vulnerable
to the elements and anyone’s peeping glances I squat awkwardly over the
unhygienic lavatory. After returning the key we journey onwards and upwards
to the Beitbridge border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. And it is here
that my journey must end, for Bulawayo is three hours the other side of
the border. I cannot imagine arriving in that town. It is impossible to
be met by ghosts of friends that have deserted the home of their birth.
I yearn to go back, travel in time to a place embedded in my past. But
alas, my African dream is only that…a dream.. To contact Bethany
Click
Here
I
dream of a journey; some days I dream of nothing else. I travel with
a small bag and the clothes on my back. I leave my Irish home and walk
to the bus stop at the end of my lane. I wait there for a bus. A Bulawayo
bound bus, with ‘Zupco’ written on its cream exterior, the rust-eroded
exhaust pipe billowing black smoke as it approaches. I see it coming towards
me, a large tin contraption likely to fall apart with the slightest discrepancy
in the flattened tarmac. The metal roof racks boast layers of suitcases
and plastic, multi-coloured holdalls. An intricate rope system ties the
load together. The vehicle groans and squeals to a stop on the road beside
me. Inquisitive black faces peer through the dust-clad windowpanes at the
new arrival. There is no money exchanged for my journey, just a familiar,
firm African handshake and a loud “Yebo Mankazana” from the toothless driver.
The wide eyes of passengers swim in a sea of dark skin and wiry hair as
I take my seat near the front of the bus.
