Mail from Malawi: 20 Hours

Christmas break came, and Laurel and I decided it was time to go on a little journey, to help rejuvenate ourselves, in the splendor of God’s African nature and wilderness…

I sat in my seat on the already crowded bus and waited for the rest of the passengers to board. The seats were too small, and the aisle even smaller. Somebody who had just gotten to their seat in the middle of the bus turned around to get off, with all her luggage. Nobody moved out of the way. As the lady worked her way past people in the narrow aisle, the passengers waiting to get to their seats were squished this way and that, into other seats, into other people. A purse was suddenly occupying the same space as my face, and then a body moved into that same space. I leaned over into Laurel’s space, hoping to get away from a little bit of the squishiness. It didn’t work. Finally the people were seated and the bus roared on down the road. The air was stale. The bus was stuffy. The atmosphere was hot. I was cramped. And I was about to go crazy.

Buses that we didn't take.

Waiting for our 20 hour bus ride.

Personal space does not exist in Africa. People are not afraid to push in a queue. They aren’t afraid to rub shoulders in the market. They aren’t afraid to touch your arm, because they want to know what a white person’s skin feels like. They aren’t afraid to take up your seat space on the bus as well as theirs.
I don’t like it. But that’s their culture.

When I am around people I don’t know, my personal bubble is a decent size, so after three days of crowded buses, and twenty hours to endure on this bus ride, I wanted to scream. This bus felt more like a prison than transportation to adventure. I hadn’t realized it before, but I missed my personal bubble fiercely. I didn’t want to be squished or touched anymore. How was I going to survive all twenty hours of this bus? I closed my eyes and turned up the music on my iPod, hoping to drown out the bus’s music with The Canadian Brass. I tried to relax and not think about what I wanted - my comfort zone.

But, as I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t come to Africa to be in my comfort zone. I didn’t sign up to be a student missionary to be comfortable. Though some aspects of life here are comfortable now, there are things that definitely are not comfortable yet, and I don’t think they ever will be. But that’s life everywhere, for everybody, isn’t it? There will always be things in life that we like, and there will always be things in life that we don’t like. The key is figure out how to enjoy life through even the things that we dislike.

Needless to say, I survived that twenty-hour bus ride. Without screaming. And the adventure after the bus was well worth it.