The Terror Squad

Lord of Sound. Destination. Seduction. Teddybear. Pavarotti. Ice Baby. Terror Squad. Redemption. Lion's Power. Shakira. Cool Squad. Shark. Who's Your Daddy? Scandal. Twisted. Alaska. First Choice. Da Base Line. Honey Luv. Juicy Fruit.

So, what do these words have in common? This may seem like one of those awful SAT questions, where you can stare at a group of words for hours and not find the common thread. I'm sure you're as puzzled as I remember being when faced with some of those impossible vocab questions. But when I hear this litany of names, I am flooded with emotion. Exhilaration, fear, and apprehension mix with my amusement at the English phrases, so strangely put together and seemingly out of place. These names are my companions, a part of my daily life, essential, and yet they never fail to strike terror in my heart. They are the names of kombis, those incredible custom-built machines that form the backbone of the Swazi public transportation system.



A section of the busrank, relatively quiet at 8 am. Notice Teddy Bear featured in the foreground.

However, these essential, much-needed players in Swazi daily life are also, for me, the terror squad. When I am out on my morning run at 5:30 am, I enjoy breathing in the fresh, still-cool morning air and watching the lights of the valley wink off as the great red sun crests the eastern hill and vaults up into the sky, already blazing. The peace is shattered the moment I hear an ominous rumbling coming down the dirt road. The moment the van comes into view, I swerve to the side of the road and immediately lower my head and hold my breath in preparation for the huge cloud of dust that will linger long after the vehicle has blown past. Numerous times, while lost in thought or concentrating on my running, or simply not quite awake yet, I have been surprised by a kombi, and more times than I can count, I have had to literally leap into the weeds at the side of the road to save my life.

The irony of the situation comes when, an hour or so later, I reappear on the road, scrubbed and breakfasted, ready to travel into Manzini to work. Then, one of these holy terrors will pull up in a cloud of dust, the bus conductor grinning as he slides open the door for me, and the driver cheerfully greeting me. And I can’t help but look at them and think, “Do you not remember that earlier this morning you practically ran me down?! And now you’re grinning at me and asking how I am?! I’m just glad I’m still alive!” But it’s not like they have it in for me personally, since pedestrian rights are virtually non-existent here.

So I accept the terror squad for what they are, a fact of life here. Let me introduce you to the ones on my route, which runs Manzini-St. Michaels-Moyeni. There are two superstars, Cheese Boy and Peace Train. By superstars, I mean that they have built up quite a reputation for themselves, and everyone knows them by name. Cheese Boy is notorious because of its driver’s behaviour. Everybody knows that he was in jail for murder and that now he’s out on bail. His style of driving certainly reinforces his image. Cheese Boy never moves an inch for me when I’m running along, and I’ve had to pause in the weeds to recover my breath more than once after a close encounter with Cheese Boy. I’m scared to ride in it ever since I witnessed the driver jump out and leave the full kombi running to go beat up another driver who wouldn’t move his vehicle aside quickly enough.
In contrast, Peace Train is my favorite kombi. It’s painted a deep greenish-turquoise color and the windows are decorated with decals spelling out its name amidst little red hearts. The driver is always sharply attired in a long-sleeved, collared shirt, and the bus conductor has some of the most beautiful, big brown eyes I’ve ever seen. Everything seems better when I’m riding Peace Train.

Other characters on the route include Ingcamu, whose driver always wears a hat that makes him look like he’s on a safari, and who always greets me by name. Then there’s Centipede, with a big golden picture of its namesake on the door, and Liyandiza Lituba, “the Flying Dove.” Joy and White Heart are less frequent carriers on the route, and their staff aren’t nearly as flamboyant. Then there are the new boys in town, the twin Besuthus. They’re brand new and look exactly the same, so it took me a few days to figure out that there were two of them. They are definitely the pleasantest to ride in: they still have all the shock absorbers so the bumps are less jarring, they haven’t yet installed extra speakers along the ceiling so the music isn’t blaring an inch from your ear, the seats are all well-fastened down and free of poking springs, the windows don’t rattle in their tracks and the door opens and closes securely and quietly. Of course, they still tend to overcrowd, so that a van meant to seat 15 can frequently squeeze in 20.

That is, if there are no police checkpoints. The police like to surprise kombis by controlling traffic at a certain robot (stoplight). They will demand papers, which drivers dig from underneath sun visors and below seats. More importantly, if they see that the kombi is loaded beyond official capacity, the extra people have to get out. Understandably, this causes a conflict, since everyone has already paid their fares by this point and it’s still a good 10-15 minute walk into town. But you all simply sit there, and the policeman waits until someone finally caves in and gives up their place.

Paying bus fare is another adventure. Collecting money is one of the principal activities of the bus conductor, who also opens and closes the door and announces the stops. When he decides it’s time to pay, he will get out his change bag and hold his hand out to the passengers closest to him, which is a signal to everyone else to start digging around for the E 2.50 fare (roughly 35 cents). I frequently end up in the crowded back seat, because I can squeeze into smaller places than most African mamas and because I am frequently disgusted with those who will loiter around the kombi in the bus rank, delaying everyone as they wait for someone else to crawl to the back.

Paying from the back seat is interesting, because the money needs to be passed up through the rows to the conductor, who always sits nearest the door. So frequently the back-seat passengers consolidate their fares, making change amongst themselves, to minimize the times that money has to be passed back and forth. It’s amazing to me how quickly and efficiently the BC collects fares and makes change, remembering who has paid for whom and the amount of change each passenger is waiting for. On a few occasions, the BC has “forgotten” my change. Usually I just say politely, “Bhuti, ngicela ishintje yami.” (Brother, can I please have my change?) Once though, I had to follow a BC through the bus rank to the Spaza phone before I was finally able to claim my money.

Another complication resulting from a back-seat position is that often the BC can’t hear you requesting your station amidst the rattling of loose kombi parts and the blaring of terrible American hiphop, South African house music, or perhaps even a Zionist chant turned up full blast. So when we pass the Emseni Supermarket (which doesn’t really deserve the name, since it stocks about 20 different items which are spread out to take up shelf space) I wait for a slight lull in the rattling or a pause in the music and use the opportune moment to yell out “STASH ESHAWENI” at the top of my lungs. This is the stop about a 5 minute walk from my homestead. It’s called Eshaweni because there’s a concrete building housing showers at the crossroads, which was once used by local residents but has now ceased to function, with no hope of being repaired. So we all continue to enjoy our bucket baths – at least I do! But sometimes even the bellowing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs fails and then I resort to the “telephone” system, tapping the guy in front of me and asking him to pass the message up. Also, since the BCs all know me by now (after all, how many white girls ride on their route?) sometimes they just announce the stop before I ask. But I always ask, just in case. After all, they nearly kill me every morning, can I really count on them to let me off at the right stop?

Despite all this, the kombi system works surprisingly well, most of the time. I’ve always gotten to where I was going, although the amount of time it takes to get there is never guaranteed. Once my kombi broke down trying to scale a steep hill, and we rolled backward down it. Then we just had to sit by the edge of the road for 30 minutes until the next one came along. The kombis run roughly from 5:30 am to 7 pm (dawn until dusk), on no particular schedule, leaving the bus rank when full and collecting as many passengers as possible on the way back to town.

I have frequently observed “kombi wars” for passengers, where two kombis traveling the same route in the same direction will play a kind of relay game. While one is stopped to pick up passengers, the other one will pass it, but then that one will stop a bit further down, and the original frontrunner will regain the lead. Once, riding in a kombi behind the infamous Cheese Boy, we were coming down a narrow mountain road when Cheese Boy stopped suddenly in the middle of the road for no reason at all. It was too narrow to pass, and he sat there stubbornly for 10 minutes, ignoring the hooting (as they call it here) and yelling, until a line of vehicles had formed behind us. Suddenly, he started up again and tore off down the road. The only reason I can see is that he was doing it from sheer spite.

The “kombi wars” extend to the bus rank, where each bus conductor roams about his parked kombi, yelling out the destination to passersby. They often reach out to try to get me into their kombi, and I dodge, thinking “Yes, maybe if you shout at me a little louder, I will change my mind and go to Siphofaneni with you instead of going home to Esiyeni.” If there are two kombis boarding for my route at the same time, the competition is fierce as each BC yells at me to choose his kombi.

At other times, the kombis have way more passengers than there are spaces, and all vehicles are operating at full capacity and breakneck speeds. The major rush hour is in late afternoon when schools get out, and streams of uniformed school-children flood the bus rank. At this time, you can stand in line for 45 minutes waiting your turn to board. Curiously, there are always two lines for the Moyeni route, and it’s always a gamble as to which one will be the shortest wait, because the arriving kombis seem to pick one to load at arbitrarily.

However, there are some unspoken rules governing the madness. I’ve noticed that the kombis park in a certain order in the bus rank, and they’re supposed to fill up and leave in this order, to give every driver an equal chance. Also, if you’re in a kombi still collecting passengers in the morning, headed out toward Moyeni, and you meet one on the road going into town with empty seats, they will stop and allow you to switch kombis so you can get to town faster.

These falling apart, over-crowded, hilariously-christened vehicles, staffed by interesting characters and driven at alarming speeds but with tremendous skill, are an integral part of my life in Swaziland. Kombi rides never fail to provide an adventure, whether I’m ready for one or not. They are also a place for meeting friends and neighbors, attempting conversation in Siswati and, of course, the experiences always generate a wealth of good stories.