Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hello my fellow worldwide wanders! Today’s blog is going to be on a topic of mass importance in the life of any Peace Corps volunteer; transportation. After almost three weeks at site, and 10 days short of three months in Botswana, I may not be a complete expert on a topic such as this but I felt inspired to give it a whirl after this weekend. Let me start out by breaking down the main modes of transportation available to Peace Corps Botswana (PCB): taxi, kombi, bus and hitch.

Taxi- Standard issue taxis as well as “pirates” (personal taxis driven by people without taxi paperwork) are widely available in major city centers in Botswana. Though I don’t have access to them here in Rams, they are one of the best ways to get around otherwise. What is super nice about taxis in Bots is that they are flat rate. Mind you this also means that if your destination is way far away, a driver can tell you to go take a walk. Taxis come in the standard ride for p4, which means your driver will pick up anyone he can in the process of getting you to your destination, or you can request a “special” which means you pay p20 to ride alone in the comfort of your own cab.

Kombi- So we don’t have these in the US, but I have had experience with them during my time in Turkey, (except that they were called dolmuʂ.) The best way I can describe these vehicles are as middle sized, 15 passenger vans (kind of like the ones you would take to the airport) that run certain routes at different times during the day and that are usually cheaper than catching a taxi. The down fall to this mode of transport is that a.) they don’t leave at specific times and you have to wait for them to fill up before they will depart for whatever destination and b.) When I say “fill up” I don’t mean the legal limit of people in the kombi, but however many bodies/ luggage/ children/ produce/ chickens the space above the four wheels can accommodate, not necessarily comfortably. A kombi is the most reliable way for me to get to my shopping village of Palapye.

Bus- Again, something most people are familiar with, and this is the most popular way to get between larger city centers in Botswana. Example: I went to Mahalapye for a meeting on Friday, and it just so happens that I took a bus, since Maha is a large city, and the best way for me to get there is to grab the one that comes through Rams from Seleka. The major debate on the bus is where the best seat is (this is assuming of course that you have the option to sit, and aren’t standing the full trip.) If you sit in the back, on a non holiday, there is a chance you will get the whole set of seats to yourself. Then again air doesn’t get to the back of the bus as easily as the frot. Also, going over rough road in the back of a bus is a bit more jarring than the front. If you sit in the front you will certainly have a seat mate but it will probably be a mosadi mogolo who will want to make friendly setswinglish chat for the duration of the ride. You are most likely to have someone standing in the aisle way crowding your space, but if you came to Peace Corps to have comfortable traveling, you came to the wrong organization.

Hitch- Let me preface this by saying that the US Peace Corps, nor Peace Corps Botswana, endorse this mode of travel, but that in certain situations it is the best way to get in or out of a remote area. This would also be a good time to point out a super great cultural difference! In the US, starting at a very young age, I had it drilled into me that hitchhiking was a great way to get killed. It goes both ways: if I attempted to hitchhike somewhere, the person who would pick me up would undoubtedly be the hockey mask wearing Jason who would chop me to bits and leave me by the side of the road. If I were to pick up a hitchhiker, it was probably Freddy Krouger who would torture me senseless only to chop me into bits and leave me next to the pile of bits Jason had left earlier. I had heard stories from my Grandmother about the golden age when she and her girl friends could hitch up into Canada by making friends at the border, but as an 80’s baby I knew that a cruel and twisted fate that awaited anyone in today’s day, who tried to catch a ride from the side of the road with a stranger.

Fast forward to three months ago, almost every currently serving volunteer who came in to help with our training had to catch a hitch for some leg of the journey to make it to Kanye. Mind = Blown. Having to deprogram close to 15years of safety school training has been difficult, and if we are being honest (because we all know the internet is the best place to spread truth) I am still a little uneasy about catching rides, but I have done it. The idea in Botswana is that there are many more people than there are cars, and that, on the whole, people are good and friendly and might even be the person you have to catch a ride from the next time your car breaks down. If you aren’t Jason or Freddy, why would you assume others to be? Hitching is a great way to catch a more direct and comfortable ride to where ever you may be going. Botswana has “hitching posts” that are usually the local bus stop; if you wait long enough someone will come by and if they are heading your way you just jump in. Most of the time you will pay them whatever a kombi/ taxi would have charged, but sometimes they don’t ask for money at all. They are great ways to meet new people, and have interesting conversations.

As a quick idea of what my daily travel might look like, I will take you back to what started this whole idea, for a brief segment I will call: “How I Got Around This Weekend.”

I walked to the Rams kgotla to catch the Maha bus that supposedly was going to get there at 8am, but didn’t pull in until 8:40am. Pulled into Maha around 11am (a full hour late for the meeting I was going there for) and walked to the park to meet up with everyone. After the meeting, myself and my friend Jada got a ride back to her place from a Motswana friend that she had the number for. Later on we went back into town to go shopping, and caught a ride from a “pirate taxi” that we waved down from the road. Since Jada lives outside of the Maha proper, she got into a kombi that would take her back to her neighborhood, while I boarded the bus to take me back to Rams. In one weekend, I utilized every popular form of motorized transportation that is available to a volunteer (we are not allowed on motorcycles.) 

I am going to try and get pictures of each of these types of transportation and then add them to the blog later.  Hope this finds everyone happy and healthy. 

Love, 

Claire

p.s. sorry to those of you that read this post in the last week. I don't know what happened but the top part didn't load which is why things were a bit funky. Seeing as I had to edit it anyways, I would also like to add that "donkey cart" is a viable option for transportation in my village. I have yet to ride one, but have been promised by numerous colleagues and neighbors that they will take me on theirs. I will let you know how it goes. :)