The Dueling Buses

There is a uniformly defining characteristic to travel within The Gambia – misery. It isn’t necessarily that way, though. With money, misery could be upgraded to awfulness, but as a Peace Corps volunteer living on a paltry allowance the high rolling trappings of awfulness will have to wait. For now misery will remain. And as the old adage goes, there is nothing misery loves more than company.

For this reason it is always valuable to travel with a partner. Forget safety in numbers. The new rule is sanity in numbers. But then again don’t let the numbers grow too big or misery might get downgraded to hell – an easy move. It’s hot here.

In order to travel to the capital from my site I must spend about eight hours in transit. This begins with waking up early and taking advantage of the best transportation this country affords: the dueling buses. I have an advantage in this respect since I live 2 kilometers from where the capital-bound buses depart. They leave at almost the exact same times everyday, and because of these facts my hut has become a place of transit for many friends. This is extremely advantageous in recruiting miserable companions for my journeys, and for restoring my sanity and English language skills while spending long stretches upcountry.

The dueling buses include the government-owned Gambian Public Transport Company (GPTC) bus that we refer to as “the blue bus,” and the privately-owned Unique Transportation Services Company (UTSCO) bus that we refer to as both “the Africell bus” (because of it’s billboard size ads for the cell phone service provider) and “the magic bus.” The blue bus is a decommissioned Barcelona city bus complete with city map, warnings in both Catalan and Spanish that smoking is punishable by a 40 Euro fine, and all sorts of undecipherable graffiti. The contrast of riding in this bus past thatch-roofed mud villages and overloaded donkey carts is worth the journey alone – probably more so if you’re from Barcelona. The magic bus is one of a fleet of brand-new, offensively chartreuse, American-made Blue Bird school buses. Unlike the blue bus’s individual bucket seats, the magic bus has the cramped faux-leather benches that remind you of the horrors of middle school. There are pros and cons to both, and therefore they seem to be forever dueling. While blue leaves in the early morning and is more punctual, magic is faster and less prone to mechanical failures. While magic has cushioned bench seats, there is no sense of boundary and personal space within The Gambia and a passenger will, no doubt, become crushed between a ripe smelling old man and a fat woman whose baby will continuously kneed its dirty feet into your thigh like it was a lump of dough. While the bucket seats on blue won’t necessarily save you from aggressive baby feet or odor, they will grant you enough room to gain free function of your arms, and if you have a traveling partner you can claim a pair of seats and hold your breath as long as you can.

Lately, I’ve been a loyal customer of the blue bus, or “the man” as my host-father likes to refer to it – calling to mind images of beatniks and smoky bars. This is a problem. For the entirety of my adolescent and adult life I have functioned at the mercy of a metabolism in overdrive. However, at the same time, I do not always suffer from hunger pangs. The result: I get hungry and don’t always realize it. This results in a state called “hanger,” or alternately, I become “hangry.” I love this word and wish I had coined it myself. It is defined as a physical/emotional state of anger that occurs as the result of being hungry. I like to believe that it is among the earliest of human emotions. Our ancestors thought process might have gone something like this: “Hungry. Hungry make me angry. Angry make me kill deer.” Then one would eat the deer and all would be well with the world.

This state of hanger while combined with miserable travel is like vinegar on baking soda, one must bring snacks in order to prevent the two from mingling with each other. Another good measure is traveling with a woman. This too, I believe, has its roots in early human emotion. If I was hangry and miserable while traveling with a male, my chances of seeing him as a rival are greatly increased. This would almost inevitably result in a battle for alpha superiority. Two men and a beautiful woman might be an even bigger disaster.

Luckily, both buses stop around noon in the town of Farafenni where provisions can be acquired. The most alluring of provisions is the chicken sandwich. Not only are you given chicken and bread, but also potatoes, noodles, onions, spicy sauce and a topping the locals refer to as “mootard” that is identical to our familiar condiment: mustard. This all costs a dollar. However, the women selling the sandwiches are brutal and cutthroat and might find life more comfortable playing hockey toothless somewhere in Calgary. Their aggressive sales techniques only serve to aggravate the miserable and hangry traveler. In terms of video games like Mario Brothers, the Farafenni sandwich ladies are like the bosses at the end of the levels. Once they are defeated and a sandwich is secured you have won the level and may proceed to the next.

From this point forward your misery will hinge simply on every other possible disaster save acts of cannibalism. Again, this is where a traveling partner is of greatest value – especially a woman. If I become angry my traveling partner(s) might say, “Look, it’s the New York coming out in him.” This statement serves two purposes: 1) It undermines my anger as having no legitimacy by assigning it simply to my place of rearing. 2) It confuses me because it seems like a reference to a New York City stereotype, a place where I have never lived. If a male said this during a period of hanger it could be dangerously interpreted as a veiled threat that could result in horn locking.

Recently, my girlfriend took a decidedly unorthodox approach and had a travel juju made for me. A juju is a West African charm whose origins of use are ancient. In this case my travel juju consists of passages of prayers from the Koran written on a sheet of paper and bound inside a half-dollar sized leather pouch. I wear this on my upper left arm around my atrophied bicep, and still fail to look any more badass than I did before.

So far my travels have been exceptionally less miserable, but this could also be a result of the exceptionally better mood I have found myself in lately. Regardless, I’ll continue to wear the charm and convince myself of its mystic powers. If it keeps working, I might find myself in the market to add to my juju collection. Some of the more impressive options include protection from guns and knives, and invisibility. If there’s one that prevents hunger and anger from mingling, I might be all set.