The Express Bus

I made a conscious decision when I moved to Rwanda that I would not buy a car and that I would travel as the average Rwandan travels. That is walking or taking local or express buses. Walking is not a challenge. It just takes energy and time. The bus, however, is another story. It is an adventure.

Friday I had to go to Kigali for business. I had an 8:30 a.m. appointment in Kigali, which is about a 2 hour bus trip from Butare. The Human Resource Director of PIASS was most helpful as he arranged for a taxi driver to pick me up at 5:30 to take me and the accountant, Jeremy, who was to escort me, to the bus depot in Butare, so we would not have to walk the 2 miles that early in the morning. That was the first blessing of the day. The bus depot is behind a gas station and has room for about 6 larger buses at a time. That early in the morning, ours was the only bus in the depot. We took an express bus, which is a 26 passenger bus, not a minibus of the vintage of the old Volkswagen buses of the 70’s and 80’s in the US. The express has scheduled departure times and limited numbers of passengers, although the bus is still full. In addition the stationary seating, each row has a fold down seat that fills the aisles. By 5:59 a.m., just as the sun was rising, every seat was full. We had gotten there early enough that we had stationary seats, which are a bit more comfortable. Most of the passengers seemed to be going to Kigali for business, just as we were. They were nicely dressed, the ladies carrying handbags and the men with briefcases. Everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts. The ride was quiet and relatively quick. We were in Kigali by 7:50 because the road was clear of the heavy trucks that tend to slow down traffic and the driver took the description “express bus” seriously and drove as fast as was allowed, or a bit beyond.

The bus depot in Kigali is much larger and busier than in Butare. We pulled in among 60 to 70 other coaches, all jockeying for position. In amongst them were dozens of minibuses preparing to depart for routs around Kigali and taxis looking for riders. Fortunately, Jeremy had called a taxi driver ahead of time and he was waiting for us, ready to whisk us away to the business of the day, a second blessing of the day. For a small fee, we had our own taxi for all the traveling we had to do around Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, a crowded, busy city.

We finished our business in good time and returned to the depot. Jeremy was going on to attend to other business, but he made certain that I was on the right bus first. If possible, the depot was even busier than 3 hours before. In addition to all the buses, minibuses and taxis, vendors were working among the potential passengers, trying to sell everything from fruit and vegetables to magazines and shoes. Again I was on an express bus, but this time the travel was different. The passengers on an 11 a.m. bus to Butare, on a Friday differ from those going to Kigali early in the morning. Most were traveling with luggage, boxes, rolled foam mattresses, bulging duffel bags and overflowing shopping bags. Many were women with small children and young people with ear buds, listening to their own music. The bus was crowded with packages under the seats in the aisles and stacked at the door and on passengers’ laps. Children cried and called to one another. Conversations flowed at various volumes, especially cell phone conversations that had to be held above the noise of the bus. Traffic was heavy so the going was slower as the driver maneuvered around overloaded trucks carrying all manner of goods up the hills of Rwanda, and through pedestrians and bicyclists, swerving and swaying as the passengers held on to stay in our seats and balance the luggage around us. Although it was an express bus, we made two unscheduled stops for the driver to drop off packages he had collected in Kigali for transportation to destinations along the way – a sort of roadside UPS as we went.

We arrived at the Butare depot at 1:15 and I was delighted to walk the 2 miles to PIASS, just to stretch my cramped leg muscles, to enjoy the quiet of the residential roads and to reflect on all the people and activity I had encountered in just a few hours.