Friday.
Last week the desk got a bit messy and ESCOM people did not help much when it got cleared. Unfortunately there was no guest writer to rescue the tradition so we had to go without an article. There was a promise of a mid week article, I guess. It turns out that Richie is not a man of his word as we all thought. Those are bygones, anyway. We are enjoying the article today.
I have every reason to believe that every reader here has had a feel of public transport. A lot is happening around public transport and the thought of writing this made me wonder why I haven’t written 9 articles about this already.
I was not born a long time ago, and I happened to be raised in the country; Mulanje (ndakulira pa Chisitu), Zomba and Chiradzulu. In such areas, I did not get to experience much of a certain element of public transportation as we know it now; intra-city travel .On the other hand, I had my fair share of Stagecoach, Tuwiche, Yanu Yanu and Zisintha rides. A bit of Shire Bus Lines too.
By the time I got to secondary school, buses were close to non-operational on the Blantyre-Zomba road the only option I had was to take minibuses (or m’dula moyo as the late Twaliki Hassan Wisiki aka Adha Mhone used to call them on Malawi Night) to Mzedi where I was for four years. I didn’t have much of a bad experience with those. I have known a great deal about public transport in the past two years and honestly I do not have fond memories of it.
Those of us who have taken our local buses between the cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe can relate to the delays that take place when you travel this distance. Up to now I still do not get why a bus from Lilongwe to Blantyre takes 40 minutes to travel from the depot to Bunda roundabout; but that happens on a majority of the buses, anyway. When you are on the reverse journey, you have those annoying stops at Kameza, Lunzu, Lirangwe, Mdeka, Zalewa and Mwanza turn-off. As if that is not bad enough, once in a while you can get a treat of more stops in some undocumented areas around Manjawira and Phalula. Some would tell me off and tell me to get a coach instead, but it is important to realize that not all of us can afford to “go the distance” with Premier Coaches or to get on that AXA coach, whose fare from Blantyre is equal to that of a return ticket for the same distance on a Zonobiya bus. You will even have some change for dry chips at Ntcheu and some money for the Area 12-Kauma or Chilomoni-Nthukwa minibus, depending on your destination.
The buses we have for intercity travel leave a lot to be desired in terms of reliability and punctuality and it is not unheard of to have a breakdown or something of the sort. The whole idea of inter-city travel freaks some people out just because of the quality of the means of transport between our cities. In fact you cannot plan to go travel between BT and Lilongwe in specified times if you are on our local buses
Just like inter-city travel, travel within our cities on public transport leaves a lot to be desired. Delays are the order of the day and distances that can be covered in 20 minutes on a normal drive can take thrice as long. I have paid dearly for putting too much faith in our public transport and at one time I failed to make it when I had an important appointment. If you think I was negligent, I left home in Lunzu 90 minutes early for an appointment in Ndirande, only to get there an hour and forty minutes later. Then there are the rude conductors who always seem to forget who has given them what bank note. If you get a minibus along the Limbe-Chirimba-Lunzu axis around 6 in the evening you are almost guaranteed that you will hear or be involved in a squabble involving change. I once got involved in such and made it a resolution that I never hand a “Kamuzu” to a Chirimba-Lunzu conductor.
Caller boys have their own way of adding to the trouble of a minibus ride. I am told the whole shouting thing got outlawed, and as such we do not have the typical caller boys, in as much as we still have some who masquerade as something else. A generation of people called “a timing” has risen and these are fellas who get on a minibus to give you the impression that it is almost full, so that you can jump on it. I am told that these guys have developed an extra trade of fishing cellphones and money out of unsuspecting people’s pockets in the town of Limbe. I personally wasn’t surprised to hear this. I guess we all know what to do in such situations, anyway.
While these shunting minibuses have a lot of issues, you do get to see a good side of them once in a while; for the wrong reasons of course. Once in a while you do meet that clown or drunk who puts everyone in a jovial mood and gets everyone to chip in with a comment and laugh at something that doesn’t concern them. Then there are those sunny conversations between the driver and the conductor, or the radio program commenting on minibus operators’ behavior. Such would make you think you don’t have to part with the beauty of public transport for a moment.
I have travelled a bit and I think our public transport could use a bit of organization. The idea of advance tickets and fixed departure and arrival times on our local buses is not something we would call far-fetched and our buses could use more polite operators and routine maintenance. The biggest challenge to this, however, would be the cost that would come with the services.
A friend of mine who has been to Amsterdam once told me that you just need a fiver (5 Euros) to get a ticket that will allow you to get on any bus of that company within a period of 24 hours. That is an equivalent of about K4000 to travel any distance; Kachere to Mpemba, Lunzu to Chilobwe, Chilomoni to Chigumula. While this may be a fair deal to those who travel a lot, some would think that it is a waste. Out there this is a great deal used by many (grab a tip if you want to visit Amsterdam).
Intercity travel is dominated by trains out there, and you would pay an equivalent of K20, 000 or so to travel a distance equivalent to the Lilongwe-Ntcheu one. For that you get a nicely fixed schedule, no unnecessary pick-ups and comfort. I am not sure if we have people who would be willing to pay such amounts here, but it is such costs that are helping people get the nice services elsewhere.
So…
What are we saying? Public transport out here leaves a lot to be desired, and while it is bearable, all of use could use a more comfortable option. Prescription? Y’all guys should buy cars, because gone are the days when cars were deemed luxurious (if you have one and you think it is a luxury, contact me for special prayers. While waiting for the day you will walk into that BeForward of CFAO office, at least get a coach when travelling between the cities and jump on a taxi when moving within, for comfort's sake. When you have some extra to spend, that it. Other than that, we still have national bus company and our minibuses. They are not that bad, anyway.
Shout out to anyone reading this while on Public transport. You are a survivor.
Special shout to readers Alfred and Mphatso who are getting engaged this Sunday. All the best, lovebirds.
Just reminded on the memory lane of our dire transport system, Yanuyanu and Stagecoach.... my take though is that our economy is suited better with minibuses.. the western country u have cited they don't have minibuses ferrying souls, we are galaxies away from such utopia. However we can do better, we need better roads and saintly traffic policeman to wean out for good coffins that masquerade as vehicles. The gaff'ment since 'we don't know' has never fully invested in a railway, if we had one between Zomba n BT somehow things would have been simplified.. we are still in a fully booked gehena
ReplyDeleteGreat article Madala, Malawi transport needs a major overhaul. As someone who has experienced pretty much everything on the market from m'dula to shire, I must say it has been an adventure. On the inter-city one, my biggest issue is unprofessionalism, upeza the bus yazaza ku depot then it is heading ku filling station to fill up thus wasting customer's time. And some buses, will try picking people on the way even though it is obviously full, clearly implying that they do not care about their customer's comfort. The luxury coaches are good but expensive for most. The city minibuses are not properly regulated and they keep increasing prices all the time and still pakila people up like matumba a chimanga. The other issue is our roads are not wide enough and not properly maintained. If all our roads were two lanes like the chipembere or kagame highway, it would be good for motorists and will also solve the traffic congestion problem especially now that cars are no longer luxuries. On this side of the ocean, buses are quite efficient, I was especially impressed with the service in Milwaukee, all you had to do was get a bus pass and you could fill it up with whatever amount of money you want. And the buses come through the stops every 30 minutes. If we can get such a system in Nyasaland, perhaps it could be better. I miss Shire though, that was life!!! Ps: If you ever need a guest writer, hit me up. I will talk about the advantages of moving to Zembo.
ReplyDeleteAnother PS lol: You can fill the bus pass up to $100, I went on the website to confirm. See even anzathu their bus systems have websites.
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