Posts Tagged minibus

Minibus capers in Lilongwe

February 16, 2009 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged ,

While I’m in Lilongwe visiting the psychiatry wards at Bottom Hospital (so called because it is not the Top Hospital), I’m staying again at Paul and Sarah’s, a lovely hospitable Irish VSO couple. The minibus this afternoon from town centre to their house in the suburbs was interesting. In the taxi rank next to Shoprite I walked up and down looking for the bus with the “49” sign in the front window, indicating the area the bus is heading to. All of Lilongwe is divided into areas, like any city, but instead of giving them names, like Newlands or Marchmont or Hampstead, they’ve got numbers, which are difficult to remember. Are Paul and Sarah in Area 49, or was it Area 47?  Easy to make a mistake. And the numbering system is fairly random, with no apparent ordering. The general consensus is that each new area which was populated got the next consecutive number, as there is a trend for the lower numbers to be nearer the centre. But Area 49 and Area 47 could be on opposite sides of the city, so the distinction is important. Anyway, as I walked up and down the taxi rank, I saw one minibus which was especially decrepit, banged and dented, with dirty smeared plastic sheeting hanging over the door in a poor attempt at a window. Read the rest of this entry »

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