Bus Ride: A Royal Banquet

Varying levels of buses carry thousands and probably millions of Tanzanians every day. There isn’t a bus that doesn’t have pressed against its windows ten elbows, five hands, and heads. Here at Stefano Moshi Memorial University College (SMMUCo), there’s a bus stop just outside the gate. But you would never know it. A little wooden structure nearby, with banana leaf thatched on the roof, looks like a bus stop, but I discovered that if I sit in that little hut, the bus will roar on by. I have to stand on the road at the right unmarked spot and only that spot.

For me, taking the bus meant a little freedom, but it also required an attitude adjustment. As a Nebraskan, the sight of packed buses made me gulp. In a church pew, I scoot over for the next two or three persons, allowing them enough room for ten. I noticed I had this need for personal space on a trip to India. I was the first one to arrive at the baggage claim area in the Dehli airport. Soon crowds of Indians planted themselves next to me, and I gave way, allowing them the personal space I thought we all required. In a few minutes, I found myself thinking, how can it be that I was the first one here and the farthest from the baggage claim?

There’s a parable in the book of Matthew that portrays the shift that I needed in order to appreciate a bus ride. In it, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a wedding banquet. A king invites people, I suppose his aristocratic friends and relatives, and they all disregard the invitation as nothing worth going to. Or worse, they abuse and kill the wretched servant who delivered the wedding invitation. They are later murdered by the king’s troops. Having eliminated his guest pool, the king sends out another series of invitations to the regular folk, who appreciate the fine opportunity and appear. However, of those regular folk, one makes the mistake of wearing non-wedding clothes, and that fool is cast into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Since I’m unequipped to comprehend the kingdom of heaven, I think of education as a wedding banquet. Education raises humans to greater levels of confidence, dignity, and freedom. It allows them to become more human. An inspiring example comes from the Washington-Midland Connection, a program where Midland and Fremont community members tutor parents of students of Washington Elementary School. These parents come after long hard days at work and put their hearts and souls into learning. They come in their finest sequins and silk bow ties.

But too often students do not understand education as a wedding banquet. This is not true of all students, but in my experience, it’s true of too many of them. They come to class not having purchased a textbook, or they haven’t done the assignment, or they text-message someone else instead of paying attention to the class session. They come to my wedding banquet in acid-washed jeans! When it came to riding buses in Moshi, Tanzania, I was guilty of wearing my own threadbare jeans.

Mysteriously, my attitude shifted, and I’m not sure whether it happened before or during the trip to town and back, but I finally understood that a bus ride was one of the greatest adventures ever. First, when you’re standing at the bus stop, you never know what will stop and invite you in. This sounds dangerous. Don’t get in the little car with four energetic men yelling, “Mzungu, come join us!”

Today, when the pickup with ten people in the back honked and beckoned me to join them, I climbed on board. Bolted onto the pickup bed was a frame of metal bars that we all clung to, except the young mother who sat on the wheel well holding her baby. I planted my feet on either side of two large buckets and wrapped my upper arms and hands on the metal frame to keep my teeth from being knocked out. With occasional lurches, I was shoved into the guy in front of me who had offered to marry me moments ago. When we stopped to pick up others, we all shifted even closer and at one point, I was able to look around and see that a mountain of people had grown up behind me.

On the way back to the college, I climbed into a van that had the official markings and right destination painted on its front. (Also, the passenger in the front seat grabbed my wrist and said, “Where?”) Inside, I stood against a wall, hovering over the heads of seated passengers. The only thing I could grip was a ledge inside the van from a defunct ventilation system—the grip bar was already covered in hands. The man in the seat below me had his ear in my stomach. When we added more to the van, all of us against the wall shifted even more and now I had a nun’s shoulder. Her head bowed over the seat in front of her, either to pray or make room or both.

I’m not sure what maximum capacity is in these vans. I thought we’d reached maximum capacity until we stopped four more times. After counting 30, I stopped because I couldn’t see. And then the pressure inside was eased when two and then three people squeezed out. They were greatly helped by me, the only one along the wall willing to move out of the van to make way. That’s another part of the adventure – stepping off and getting back in before the van takes off without you. And I did it! Even better, the nun now patted the seat beside her, inviting me to join her. So one-fourth of my rump carried the load for the rest of the way, relieving what had carried the load earlier: my neck, knuckles and elbow.

In the parable of the wedding banquet, the banquet is an invitation. It is clearly up to those invited to choose how they will respond. For me on this day, perceiving this trip as a miserable crowding of people, of bad smells (someone had stepped in dog doo), of total discomfort and undignified positions, was to arrive at the wedding banquet in ordinary clothing. The outer darkness would be the misery that I could easily suffer and appreciate.

In Tanzania, many, most, or all who ride those buses have no choice. For those who are weary or sick, can a bus ride be an invitation? And for those who need to get somewhere urgently, is a sense of adventure possible? I have to accept the fact that I had an invitation for adventure while many others did and do not. Also, I do not know if I’ll have a right spirit about the bus ride after the tenth or fiftieth trip to town.

It appears, then, that the kingdom of heaven, as far as I can tell with mortal dim eyes, comes as a momentary glimpse, one light beam cast through a window into a dark house. And of the glimpse that I got, here is what I saw: riding public transportation in Moshi, Tanzania, is to discover who will stop for you. It’s to discover how many of you will fit together. It’s to discover how you can hang on. It’s to discover who will help whom. It’s to discover how humanity folds together and to join in the communal act of folding.