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This weekend was midterm, meaning that I stayed at my link grandma’s house instead of at school. Something that always comes up for midterm is transport, so I figured I could describe how I get around Swaziland, as shown through the course of my weekend.
So, I left school Thursday around lunchtime. Waterford is on the top of the mountain, so I just start walking down, with two options in mind: either I walk all the way to the highway entrance ramp and get a kumbi from there, or I get a lift from whatever car passes me on the mountain.
The first car to pass me pulled over. They were indeed going into town, as everyone is, because there’s nowhere else to go, and so I hopped in. Ten minutes later, she dropped me a few blocks from the bus rank, and I was set. America was never a good hitchhiking place, but hitching rides in Swaziland is pretty beautiful. It’s just so easy – you don’t even have to put your arm up, you just stare down passing cars and they stop.
Anyways, I get to the bus rank, and find a kumbi to Mbuluzi. My link grandma doesn’t live in Mbuluzi, but she lives on the way to Mbuluzi. Kumbis just go between two places, so you just have to know which two places your destination is between. My link grandma’s house happens to be en route from Mbabane to Mbuluzi, and so that’s the kumbi I take. These two “endpoints” are written on the front of the kumbi, so if you’re deaf, that works, but the drivers are also yelling their destinations at the top of your lungs, so it’s hard to miss.
“KAMANZINI! MANZINI MANZINI MANZINI! UYA YINI KAMANZINI?” is probably what you hear the most in the Mbabane bus rank, as Mbabane to Manzini is one of the biggest routes. In other places around Mbabane, such as Lobamba, Pigg’s Peak, or Ezulwini, you oftentimes see kumbis in bus ranks and parking lots, their drivers yelling “MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE!” It’s a very distinctly sound, and kind of blends into itself – “BA-BA-NAY-BA-BA-NAY-BA-BA-NAY!”
Anyways, I quickly find my kumbi to Mbuluzi, because, despite contrary belief, the bus rank is also very well organized, and kumbis to the same places always wait in the same area of the bus rank, and the Mbuluzi one is always on this certain side, and, well, it’s easy enough to find. Plus, you hear, “MBULUZI! MBULUZI!”
Now, the kumbi to Mbuluzi goes through Pine Valley, down Pine Valley Road, which is a two lane little road, nice and everything, but windier than anything. It goes up and down, zigzags, and all the rest of it the entire way. The drivers often have a hard time getting the kumbi up one hill or another, so they go hurtling down the down hills, hoping their momentum will bring up the up hills. It’s always an adventure.
Anyways, there’s no action station at my link grandma’s house, but if you want to make it a station (i.e. get off), you just declare “STATION,” or more commonly, “STAYSH,” the kumbi screeches to a halt, you pay your five emalangeni (currently divide by ten to get USD), and get off. Magic – I’m at my link grandma’s house. I doubt that anywhere in America you could get from door-to-door for only fifty cents, unless you lived adjacent to each other.
So, I’m chilling at my link grandma’s house, and that’s all fine and jolly, but I needed to go to Mpaka Refugee Camp on Saturday. Not sure how familiar you are with Swazi geography, but that’s kind of a haul, and I was supposed to be there at nine o’clock in the morning. Let’s just say that I had very little confidence in my ability to be punctual, but I was going to try.
At six-thirty, I was standing on the side of the road in Pine Valley, thumbing for rides. There’s such a thick fog in the mornings that standing on the side of this windy little road that people go zipping down is essentially asking for death, but a kumbi came along soon enough, and I hopped in without any problems. It was definitely an interesting kumbi though – it is indeed wintertime right now, and so there was ice covering all the windows, including the windshield, and they hadn’t bothered to scrape any of it off. The side door kept flying open at inopportune times, and the exhaust pipe could be heard banging on the road as we bumped along. This ride was also a reminder of the fact that kumbis are never full. There were six of us sitting in two seats during this particular ride, and nobody even gave it a second glance.
Anyways, we bump along into town, give the driver our five emalangeni as we get off, and everyone goes off to whatever they’re doing in town, or off to seek their second kumbi. My second kumbi on this grand trek to Mpaka was the famous Mbabane-Manzini route, and so I had no problems finding one. We waited about five minutes for it to fill up, as kumbis won’t leave the bus ranks until they’re full, and then we were off.
The drive to Manzini was pretty chilled. It was a nicer kumbi, and there were only as many people as there were seats, and soon enough, I was in the Manzini bus rank. Now, the Manzini bus rank is much bigger than the Mbabane bus rank, and has a reputation for muggings and the like. On the other hand, I much prefer the Manzini bus rank, as there are lots more people, entertaining things to look at, and louder drivers.
“SITEKI! SITEKI! SITEKI!” And I found my kumbi. Mpaka is in between Manzini (pronounced Man-zee-nee, clearly) and Siteki (pronounced steh, as in electric, and then gee, with a hard g – steh-gee, not so clearly, if you don’t speak siSwati).
Now, the challenge at this point was that I had never before taken a kumbi to Mpaka (pronounced mm-pah-gah – if there’s a k without an h after it, you pronounce it as a g), and as towns are never explicitly labeled, I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell that the cluster of building we went through was Mpaka. Fortunately, we pulled to a stop at one moment, and I say a sign for Mpaka High School, and so I hopped off. Getting off the kumbi, I started to ask another man who had gotten off if he knew which way I should walk from here to get to the refugee camp, but then one of the Peace Corps volunteers who lives at the camp and knows me came up, and asked what in the world I was doing all the way out at the camp. Anyways, I thanked the first man, talked to the Peace Corps guy for a few moments, but he was hopping onto the kumbi I had just left, so he had to go. He pointed me down a long dirt road, with no end in sight, and I started walking.
Let me make this clear – no matter how great kumbis and hitchhiking is, that only works when there are kumbis and cars where you’re going. The biggest mode of transportation in Swaziland is by far your own two feet. So, I made us of them, and walked down this long road, until it ended, and then I turned onto another long, dirt road, until that ended, but by then I knew where I was, as I’ve been to the camp before, and recognized the gate.
As this is getting to be much too long of a post, I’ll skip the bit about what I did at the camp, and save that for later.
My way getting back from Mpaka to Mbabane was much easier. I hitchhiked from the camp to the main road with some random Swazi guy who refused to believe that I wasn’t Peace Corps. He wasn’t headed towards Manzini, so I hopped out and promptly got another ride in another carful of Swazis headed for Manzini. There were two loud, obnoxious guys in the front, and a silent girl in the back next to me who just kept doing her nails. They were all really keen on the fact that I could speak siSwati though, which they alternatively laughed at, and were amazed at.
Anyways, they dropped me in Manzini, and I found my way to the bus rank, which is easy enough – follow the crowds. I jumped on a kumbi from Manzini to Mbabane, and then one in Mbabane back to Mbuluzi. A few minutes down the road, I call out “staysh” and the kumbi pulls to a stop, right in front of my door. I’m never going to get over how convenient this is.
Well, that’s it! Hitchhiking and kumbis is pretty much how everyone gets around in Swaziland, with a lot of walking thrown in there. America complains about greenhouse gas emissions – and then you see hundreds of people driving along, with hitchhiking as a lost art. Sometimes I think that America is more backwards than Swaziland.
This weekend was midterm, meaning that I stayed at my link grandma’s house instead of at school. Something that always comes up for midterm is transport, so I figured I could describe how I get around Swaziland, as shown through the course of my weekend.
So, I left school Thursday around lunchtime. Waterford is on the top of the mountain, so I just start walking down, with two options in mind: either I walk all the way to the highway entrance ramp and get a kumbi from there, or I get a lift from whatever car passes me on the mountain.
The first car to pass me pulled over. They were indeed going into town, as everyone is, because there’s nowhere else to go, and so I hopped in. Ten minutes later, she dropped me a few blocks from the bus rank, and I was set. America was never a good hitchhiking place, but hitching rides in Swaziland is pretty beautiful. It’s just so easy – you don’t even have to put your arm up, you just stare down passing cars and they stop.
Anyways, I get to the bus rank, and find a kumbi to Mbuluzi. My link grandma doesn’t live in Mbuluzi, but she lives on the way to Mbuluzi. Kumbis just go between two places, so you just have to know which two places your destination is between. My link grandma’s house happens to be en route from Mbabane to Mbuluzi, and so that’s the kumbi I take. These two “endpoints” are written on the front of the kumbi, so if you’re deaf, that works, but the drivers are also yelling their destinations at the top of your lungs, so it’s hard to miss.
“KAMANZINI! MANZINI MANZINI MANZINI! UYA YINI KAMANZINI?” is probably what you hear the most in the Mbabane bus rank, as Mbabane to Manzini is one of the biggest routes. In other places around Mbabane, such as Lobamba, Pigg’s Peak, or Ezulwini, you oftentimes see kumbis in bus ranks and parking lots, their drivers yelling “MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE-MBABANE!” It’s a very distinctly sound, and kind of blends into itself – “BA-BA-NAY-BA-BA-NAY-BA-BA-NAY!”
Anyways, I quickly find my kumbi to Mbuluzi, because, despite contrary belief, the bus rank is also very well organized, and kumbis to the same places always wait in the same area of the bus rank, and the Mbuluzi one is always on this certain side, and, well, it’s easy enough to find. Plus, you hear, “MBULUZI! MBULUZI!”
Now, the kumbi to Mbuluzi goes through Pine Valley, down Pine Valley Road, which is a two lane little road, nice and everything, but windier than anything. It goes up and down, zigzags, and all the rest of it the entire way. The drivers often have a hard time getting the kumbi up one hill or another, so they go hurtling down the down hills, hoping their momentum will bring up the up hills. It’s always an adventure.
Anyways, there’s no action station at my link grandma’s house, but if you want to make it a station (i.e. get off), you just declare “STATION,” or more commonly, “STAYSH,” the kumbi screeches to a halt, you pay your five emalangeni (currently divide by ten to get USD), and get off. Magic – I’m at my link grandma’s house. I doubt that anywhere in America you could get from door-to-door for only fifty cents, unless you lived adjacent to each other.
So, I’m chilling at my link grandma’s house, and that’s all fine and jolly, but I needed to go to Mpaka Refugee Camp on Saturday. Not sure how familiar you are with Swazi geography, but that’s kind of a haul, and I was supposed to be there at nine o’clock in the morning. Let’s just say that I had very little confidence in my ability to be punctual, but I was going to try.
At six-thirty, I was standing on the side of the road in Pine Valley, thumbing for rides. There’s such a thick fog in the mornings that standing on the side of this windy little road that people go zipping down is essentially asking for death, but a kumbi came along soon enough, and I hopped in without any problems. It was definitely an interesting kumbi though – it is indeed wintertime right now, and so there was ice covering all the windows, including the windshield, and they hadn’t bothered to scrape any of it off. The side door kept flying open at inopportune times, and the exhaust pipe could be heard banging on the road as we bumped along. This ride was also a reminder of the fact that kumbis are never full. There were six of us sitting in two seats during this particular ride, and nobody even gave it a second glance.
Anyways, we bump along into town, give the driver our five emalangeni as we get off, and everyone goes off to whatever they’re doing in town, or off to seek their second kumbi. My second kumbi on this grand trek to Mpaka was the famous Mbabane-Manzini route, and so I had no problems finding one. We waited about five minutes for it to fill up, as kumbis won’t leave the bus ranks until they’re full, and then we were off.
The drive to Manzini was pretty chilled. It was a nicer kumbi, and there were only as many people as there were seats, and soon enough, I was in the Manzini bus rank. Now, the Manzini bus rank is much bigger than the Mbabane bus rank, and has a reputation for muggings and the like. On the other hand, I much prefer the Manzini bus rank, as there are lots more people, entertaining things to look at, and louder drivers.
“SITEKI! SITEKI! SITEKI!” And I found my kumbi. Mpaka is in between Manzini (pronounced Man-zee-nee, clearly) and Siteki (pronounced steh, as in electric, and then gee, with a hard g – steh-gee, not so clearly, if you don’t speak siSwati).
Now, the challenge at this point was that I had never before taken a kumbi to Mpaka (pronounced mm-pah-gah – if there’s a k without an h after it, you pronounce it as a g), and as towns are never explicitly labeled, I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell that the cluster of building we went through was Mpaka. Fortunately, we pulled to a stop at one moment, and I say a sign for Mpaka High School, and so I hopped off. Getting off the kumbi, I started to ask another man who had gotten off if he knew which way I should walk from here to get to the refugee camp, but then one of the Peace Corps volunteers who lives at the camp and knows me came up, and asked what in the world I was doing all the way out at the camp. Anyways, I thanked the first man, talked to the Peace Corps guy for a few moments, but he was hopping onto the kumbi I had just left, so he had to go. He pointed me down a long dirt road, with no end in sight, and I started walking.
Let me make this clear – no matter how great kumbis and hitchhiking is, that only works when there are kumbis and cars where you’re going. The biggest mode of transportation in Swaziland is by far your own two feet. So, I made us of them, and walked down this long road, until it ended, and then I turned onto another long, dirt road, until that ended, but by then I knew where I was, as I’ve been to the camp before, and recognized the gate.
As this is getting to be much too long of a post, I’ll skip the bit about what I did at the camp, and save that for later.
My way getting back from Mpaka to Mbabane was much easier. I hitchhiked from the camp to the main road with some random Swazi guy who refused to believe that I wasn’t Peace Corps. He wasn’t headed towards Manzini, so I hopped out and promptly got another ride in another carful of Swazis headed for Manzini. There were two loud, obnoxious guys in the front, and a silent girl in the back next to me who just kept doing her nails. They were all really keen on the fact that I could speak siSwati though, which they alternatively laughed at, and were amazed at.
Anyways, they dropped me in Manzini, and I found my way to the bus rank, which is easy enough – follow the crowds. I jumped on a kumbi from Manzini to Mbabane, and then one in Mbabane back to Mbuluzi. A few minutes down the road, I call out “staysh” and the kumbi pulls to a stop, right in front of my door. I’m never going to get over how convenient this is.
Well, that’s it! Hitchhiking and kumbis is pretty much how everyone gets around in Swaziland, with a lot of walking thrown in there. America complains about greenhouse gas emissions – and then you see hundreds of people driving along, with hitchhiking as a lost art. Sometimes I think that America is more backwards than Swaziland.
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