I push my luck when I return to site on a Sunday, but because some method of transportation has always come along there hasn't been a reason to change this risky habit. Whether it's a taxi-brousse, eighteen-wheeler, pick-up truck, personal 4x4, or ox cart (OK, so I haven't gone by ox cart yet, but I wouldn't turn it down), I've managed to traverse all of the 20 miles between Fianarantsoa and my site despite the long hours waiting or bizarre adventures it requires.
Yesterday, though, was certainly the longest and most bizarre of them all. Arriving at the taxi-brousse station around 11AM, I was informed that there were no cars going my way. This seems to be a ritual between the people hanging around there and myself, as they never fail to discourage me from taking a seat and opening a book. There are usually more fellow journeymen, journeywomen, and journeyscreamingchildren waiting alongside the shop fronts (closed, though, on Sundays), but the general rule of thumb has been 'if you wait, it will come.' But, "if you need to get there today," they said, "you'd better start walking." I would have considered doing so had I not been carrying a backpack full of food and a tote bag full of books. And so I sat, reading a book, for the first 6 hours of my attempt to get home. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and forsook lunch for fear I'd miss my chance, so as it got darker I started to lose hope. I hadn't left this late before, and now I was the lone passenger. The only car that had passed was a rented 4x4 with 5 screaming tourists that sped by, not noticing something of the anomaly of a white kid sitting alone against a closed store in the middle of nowhere, with a pathetic sort of 'help me' face.
As desperate as I was to get back (I had to teach the next morning at 7AM), I threw in the towel and picked my stuff up to grab a bus back downtown. Miraculously, at the same moment my knight in a shining white metal taxi-brousse flew around the corner. It was Ralita (rah-LEE-tah), resident of my village and among the most respected and reliable people I know. Unfortunately, he was going the wrong way--he had come from my town, not going towards it. "Are you going back home tonight?," I asked. "Well, yes, but not for a while." At this point, a French man stepped out of the car and walked around to where we were talking. "I'm showing him around Fianar and helping with a concert." Sounds good to me! I hopped in, elated that not only do I get to go home, but it's with a trustworthy guy--you might even say friend.
To make a long journey short (if only), the next 6 hours--and yes, it took me 12 full hours to travel 20 miles--saw me traveling back into town, picking people up, dropping people off, meeting more French people and bungling most attempts to use my recently-reconvened-study-of-French with them, skipping dinner, and then going off to a seminary. More specifically, after 9 hours of trying to get home, I was at church. God was clearly angry with me for something and now he had home court advantage. It was here that the concert would be staged, and it was then that I realized that not only was this thing holding up any chance of eating that day and delaying me further, I've seen the damned show before! I don't know if I mentioned it in my blog, but two guys do a whole song and dance for about an hour and a half about why we shouldn't shouldn't practice slash-and-burn farming methods. It's a really neat show, and the two guys are really talented musicians and performers, but, as much as I'd like to slash and burn this country sometimes, I think once is enough to get this message across to me.
More waiting, more French people, more flute playing with costume changes. Around 9:30PM, we packed up the instruments, backdrops, and people and did another tour of the city dropping people off at their hotels. Before leaving, we passed the Peace Corps transit house that I had left what seemed like days ago, and, at last, sped home. Ralita insisted he feed me once we got back to town, but I demurred and protested that while it was true I was hungry, "reraka mandresy noana." Sleepiness beats hunger. Fumbling in the dark to find my keys, and then my door, and then the two locks, I collapsed through the threshold at exactly 11PM, scheduled to begin class in 8 hours. Exhausted, starving, and bumping into the walls, I smiled as I fell onto my awful foam bed, relieved that I made it back in time, still undefeated in my ongoing battles against Sunday transportation.
