Cars and Trucks and Things that Go, Part 2: Dala-dalas

My favorite modes of trans-
portation here are the ubiquitous dala-dalas, the public buses that transport the preponderance of the people and produce on the island.  Dala-dalas are pickup trucks that have been converted into buses with wrought iron bars supporting a roof that has drop-down plastic sides for when it rains.  Inside, there are benches on three sides, and on the back there’s a step and hand rails for the conductor (and sometimes a few extra people) to hang on.  The buses are all numbered with the routes that they drive, and there are regular stops where people know to catch the bus—although it’s often difficult to find space on a dala-dala if you try to get on in mid-route.

Each dala-dala is licensed through the state, but it’s operated by an indepen-
dent owner who is licensed to drive on a particular route at particular times of day.  Each dala-dala has a driver who sits up in the cab with two or three passengers, and a conductor, who rides on the back step, collects fares, and signals to the driver when passengers want to get off—usually by rapping loudly on a metal bar with a coin (handy, since the fare for most routes is 250 Tshillings, consisting of the large and noisy 200 Tshilling piece, plus the smaller septagonal 50 Tshilling piece).

Because the drivers/
conductors keep the money they get on the routes, it’s in their best interest to have a full load at all times.  So the dala-dalas don’t move until they’re full, and they generally will take as many passengers as are willing to get on—and that’s a lot.  The legal limit for most dala-dalas is 20, but I’ve been on ones with as many as 30, if there are kids and babies on laps.  And that’s not counting chickens and 5-gallon drums of smelt or anchovies on the floor or bicycles and bundles of sugar cane on the roof.  Early on, I was surprised when a bunch of people got off a crowded dala-dala seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but it made sense in a minute when we got to the police checkpoint where the people were counted.  Then, a few hundred feet down the road, the same passengers (a little winded this time) got back on the dala-dala and we continued on.

The dala-dalas are sweaty and dirty, and they sometimes break down on hills or have smoky exhaust, but I’ve found them to be among the most comfortable places here.  Unlike in taxis, where the price is however much the taxi driver thinks you can pay, the price on a dala-dala is fixed.  And even though we wazungu (foreigners) sometimes get odd looks on dala-dalas, the people who regularly ride our route to the boys’ school know us and accept us and have even stopped laughing at our inexpert Kiswahili.  It’s sustainable transportation.