Just Another Road Trip

Ok, so it wasn't really a road trip, just a drive to Mwanza from the village.  But it was eventful.  Having a car in Tanzania essentially means you are a free taxi service.  This is particularly true when you go out to a village.  Many villages are hours from the nearest sizable town by car and pretty much no one in the village has a car, so when someone comes by who does, they seize upon the opportunity.

And so we found ourselves leaving the village with a lovely middle-aged woman.  Brett's sister Brittney and Mitchell were with us as well so the car was pretty full, to say the least.  As we were leaving the village our hitchhiker asked if we could stop at the market so she could get some food to take to her daughter as a gift (her daughter lives outside of Mwanza, hence the reason she needed the ride).  "No problem," Brett replied.  Ten minutes later she climbs back in the car with a bag of freshly baked cookies.  A delicious aroma filled the car.  Right.  What really happened is that she climbed back in the car with a bag of dead fish. Yes, dead fish.  The aroma was not delicious.  But we cracked our windows and drove on.  Some 20 minutes later she asks Brett to pull over because she's going to be sick.  Tanzanians often get sick in cars as they are unaccustomed to riding in them.  We were thrilled, however, that she gave us advance warning of her sickness because vomit and dead fish are not a good combination.

While she was tending to business on the side of the road I had Baylor in my lap and somehow her diaper came loose and she peed all over me.  Wahoo!  All in the first 30 minutes of a 3 hour trip (or tour, perhaps?).  There wasn't much I could do about that but change Baylor's diaper and let her sit clothesless the rest of the trip while I endured in my less than dry skirt.

After we got back on the road (and after another quick stop to continue the car-sickness) we saw a bicycle lying in the middle of the road.  Then another and another.  An abandoned purse.  More bicycles.  What has happened here?  What could possibly have made all these people abandon their things?  It was like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  Suddenly Brett shouts at us to roll our windows up.  Then we saw the bees.  Lots of them.  A massive group of killer bees was attacking the area.  We couldn't see that anyone was hurt, so we kept driving, now with the windows closed and that oh so wonderful stench of fish wafting into our nostrils.

After another stop on the roadside, we finally reached the ferry to Mwanza.  We were soon free of fish-filled noses and peed-on skirts. Yes, just another ride home from the village.