Constant Nomad: The End of the Earth

With help from Google Maps, I constructed this map showing the location of places I mention in these blog entries. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Here is a view of Lubwe in northern Zambia

~~~~~~~~~~

I am awakened by the alarm clock at 3:45 a.m. For a second I don’t remember where I am. Then the thought of needing to catch a bus rouses me enough to roll out of bed. Mr. M. takes me to the bus station. I thank him and board the bus. Stepping over suitcases and giant bags of stuff, I drop my backpack behind the bus driver and take my seat next to it. The bus is jam packed with people and what looks like everyone’s entire belongings. Some people who had bought their tickets late are sitting in the isle on plastic stools. Everyone seems barely awake, despite the loud Pentecostal music blaring from the speakers. At five o’clock, the bus pulls out of the station and into the pre-dawn darkness.

The boy sitting behind me on the bus

I drift in and out of consciousness as the bus rolls down the smooth and beautifully paved road. Speed limit signs flash by as the bus barrels down the empty highway. Speed signs are good; it means the road is good enough for people to speed, therefore the limit. When I am awake, I chat with the guy sitting next to me, who turns out to be an irrigation engineer working in Mansa, the town after Samfya. I while away the hours by chatting and looking out the window at the vast expanse of lush vegetation stretching to the horizon on either side of the road.

Anytime the bus stops for a break, it gets bum-rushed by people selling vegetables and snacks

Villagers selling potatoes, tomatoes, onion, etc.

A couple of kids look on as the buying and selling take place by the bus

Almost eight backside-numbing, DVT-inducing hours later, I am dropped off at a road junction. Mr. M. had called ahead and the hospital had sent a car to pick me up. After waiting for five minutes, a Landcruiser pulls up. They had just gone to Samfya to pick up some vaccines and are now returning with a few passengers. I squeeze in the back. In less than a hundred meters, the paved road ends and the driver starts to navigate around potholes big enough to swallow up small cars. It is the rainy season in Zambia right now. The potholes have now ranged from big puddles to small ponds. I brace myself for every bump on the road while everyone else is happily chatting away in Bemba, the dominant local language. Thirty kilometers of bone-jarring ride later, a collection of brick buildings come into sight. I collect the pile of loose bones that is now my body and tumble off the Landcruiser. I’ve finally arrived in Lubwe!

It has taken me fifty-three hours since leaving Brisbane to reach, as far as I am concerned, the end of the earth. The mode of transportation and level of comfort changed as I traveled farther and farther: Singapore Airlines from Brisbane to Singapore then Johannesburg, with a personal entertainment system in front of each economy class seat and its excellent food, seemed downright luxurious compared to the flight on the spartan South African Airways to Lusaka. Again, compared to the bus journey on cattle-class from Lusaka to Samfya on a beautifully paved road, the bone-jarring ride to Lubwe on a pot-hole riddled dirt road was akin to a thirty-kilometer ride inside a cement mixer.

Sister Rose, Administrator of the Catholic Church-affiliated Lubwe Mission Hospital, shows me my accommodation and introduces me to Alice, who will be cooking for me for the next two months. After settling in, taking a cold-water wash, and having a filling late lunch, I spend the rest of the afternoon walking around the area. In Lubwe, you can forget about getting on the internet; the only communication to the outside world is through the mobile phone, which is run by a private company that keeps the communication tower powered 24/7 with generators. Sister Rose says Lubwe has been without power since yesterday. Power shortage is a chronic problem here, partly because of its remoteness. At night, I eat dinner by candlelight. I’d better get used to using my head torch on a regular basis; it looks like power outage is the norm here.