Tired of the daily grind, tired of the pampered life we lived in the foothills of Alberta, I wanted to see life, I wanted to feel the teeming blood of humanity. So, I packed my backpack and took off for Africa.
After months of travelling around Southern Africa, I was on my return trip from Maputo to Port Elizabeth via then Swaziland, when we encountered the fierce magnitude of a natural phenomenon.
The day had started like any other vibrant and beautiful day on African soil does, with that rhythm to life…that slow pace with an active beat thrumming from earth to heart.
It was barely eight in the morning and already a sweltering 32 degrees Celsius. The Mercado Municipal teemed with life as vendors, travellers, schoolchildren and hawkers jostled each other to move ahead, to be heard, to be seen.
Ladies carried massive baskets of long loaves of Portuguese bread balanced on their heads as they moved sinuously through the crowds. Swaying hips and steady baskets a sight to behold.
Men hawked armfuls of little girls’ dresses, their glistening muscular arms adorned with ribboned and laced frocks in all the colours of an African landscape.
Little children sold bananas for one meticais (Mozambican currency), and plastic grocery bags for three meticais.
I had soaked up the visual feast as I finished my breakfast of soft paozinho (bread rolls) and black instant coffee. Then I had tucked a long pointy bread and a bottle of water into my backpack for the journey ahead.
A line of battered mini buses, brightly painted dints and all, idled alongside the cracked-pothole-ridden sidewalk. Touts shouted into the cacophony of sounds, their cajoles sounded like threats, but their welcoming waves belied my western ears.
I boarded the blue and rust bus, the one with one door and two passengers. The one going to Manzini.
We sat sweltering for three hours until the bus was suitably jammed up with men, women and children, an old farmer and his two goats, and an old woman and her duck.
I had wondered briefly why the driver’s assistant chained and padlocked the sliding door, but then I had pushed the wondering out of my mind as I thought about my return to the Kingdom of Eswatini, a place that seemed staid compared to the overwhelming culture of Maputo.
The padlock had clinked rhythmically in tune with the wheels rolling over tarmac. The two levels of imprisonment had made me closed my eyes to stave off waves of claustrophobia.
Just as panic joined forces with claustrophobia, I had felt a cool breeze stroke my cheek, and I had sought its origin to a broken window two seats up. Hope had filled my chest. Escape was possible.
After a few deep breaths of fresh air had dissipated the fear, I opened my eyes to witness the most stunning scenery I had ever seen. The Indian Ocean retreated alongside me in hues of undulating blues. The higher the bus climbed the more captivating the ocean appeared to me. I saw far beyond the shores to the gentle white spotted whale sharks I had swam with on a tour the day before. I remembered the boat ride as it rode the waves, I thought I saw the sharp fins of killer sharks.
My memory released the scent of the bloody water.
There are fifty-four countries in Africa, this stunning continent, and I imagine every single one is as beautiful as the next. Every place in this continent takes ahold of your soul and seems to never let go.
People say Africa is fraught with dangers. Don’t believe them, travel smart. Travel with caution and wide-open hearts wherever you go…in the thriving metropolis of Vancouver, or the age-old splendour of African countries.
The scenery changed as palm trees blocked the ocean view and grass huts on little farms materialised. We drove by scrub-spattered sandy yards, where naked children played under the cool shade of trees, and Gogos (Grannies) fanned smoky fires.
Pristine linens flapped in the wind, strung up on twine between stunted trees. Far and near the earth was baked brown under the unrelenting sun.
The grass huts eventually gave way to whitewashed rondavels with faint smoke wafting out of the conical thatched roofs.
The bus stopped to refuel at the midpoint of a mountain; the last ascent before the blessed descent to Manzini, Eswatini.
The passengers, even the animals seemed to breathe easier now that we had made it halfway to the top of the mountain. A sense of freedom consumed us. We smiled with our fellow travellers, exchanged pleasantries, shared our nuts and fruits in good will.
Thirty minutes later, as our bus groaned upwards on an exceptionally winding-steep bit, we heard and felt resounding thunder.
Fires spurted out of the mountainsides like strewn fireballs, and a torrential flood of water assaulted the countryside. The world went dark. We were smack-dab in the middle of an honest-to-goodness flash flood, trapped in a worstcase scenario.
The energy changed to fear inside the bus, putrid fear as babies cried, women shouted at the driver, and men moaned quietly. A few persons tapped out frenzied text messages sending off their last goodbyes, I assumed.
And the animals. The animals were as quiet as the grave.
I had rocked my body as I had whispered my farewell to my daughter, my blessing, back home, I prayed for a quick release into the afterlife. My heartbeats had slowed to the beat of acceptance. I was ready to go to that great beyond.
The driver braked, and braked again, we kept sliding in skids and jerks. Our senses returned; the senses that were lost in the collision of trepidations now surged forth in the human’s instinct for survival. What depths of danger lay before us? What rising wake will meet us at the edge of the cliff? Or worst of all, what awaited us beneath?
In the choke of the dark I heard a rushing river as I felt the bus inching backwards. Were we losing traction against the onslaught?
We sat there for an eternity as man and machine fought the tide of nature, as passengers whispered prayers to their Gods, as we braced ourselves for the finality of a fall.
There was a sound above all others, faint and swift…growing louder in my altered state – like logs slamming around on its way down to decimate the bus. I opened my eyes and held my breath. And waited.
The skies lightened and the rain eased, the sound came closer, and suddenly he appeared with a beatific smile, chomping on a piece of biltong (dried meat).
He was a young goatherd driving his charges home…just another Tuesday in the life of a Swazi boy.
The young boy ran ahead of us, he moved from side to side as he herded the goats on. Our bus followed him slowly. Him in his wet, tattered shorts, his bare feet slapping the sodden ground. Our beacon in the storm.
We arrived in the small village, our place of refuge, and disembarked without a sound. I looked for the boy, but he was gone, like an angel.
That evening I slept in a rondavel, a warm and cosy space, the beautiful home of an eight-year-old child and her grandparents. I ate pap (the local porridge) and goat stew. I felt warmth, love, and kindness.
Faced with my mortality I was profoundly reminded of how simple life is, how beautiful breath is, how easy death could be, how the rhythm of living, wherever I may be, will always be an infinite blessing.
I have tried to make that goat stew several times, but I have never been able to recreate my first real Eswatini meal. Maybe that is what manna from heaven tastes like.