The Lucky Seat

Do know how exciting it is when you get a seat on a bus in Rwanda and only your thighs and shoulders and elbows are involuntarily pressed up against at least two other people? And your neighbors elbows are not, in fact, poking against your side? They are busy texting. And for some odd reason there's plenty of leg room. Perhaps the windows are left open because there are not sensitive souls who don't like wind.

You feel even more insanely lucky and privileged if you get a window seat on a sunny day and the person who strikes up a conversation next to you is genuinely interesting. "Where are you from? America?" I am asked on such a day when the extra leg room and lack of infants makes me want to answer. I say, "Israel" because those conversations are more interesting. And I get the usual, "Oh, so you believe in Jesus Christ?" "No," I answer, waiting for the fellow passenger's unbelieving laugh and "but he (He?) was from Israel!" On one particular extra-leg-room and open window day, a Sunday morning when most people were at church, the girl politely nodded to my answer and asked what Jews believed in. I told her that, officially, according to religious Jews and tradition, we believe in one God and the eventual coming of Messiah when there is peace on earth. "So you believe in God?" I told "sometimes" but that the official, or at least easier, line for Jews Incorporated was Yes.

She asked if I knew what Muslims believed in, and I said I was pretty sure they believe Jesus was a prophet, though definitely not the son of God. Her openness throughout the conversation was impressive. "What do most Jews in Israel believe?" I told her that some did not believe in God. "Oh, so they believe in science - they are scientists, like me," she said, laughing. "What is your religion?" I asked, and she replied that she was a religious Christian, but that she wanted to learn about all the religions in the world, because it was important to be knowledgeable about the world. We exchanged numbers before she hopped off near the Kigali Institute of Education where she is studying something sciencey. Specifically, something Chemistryish.

Comfort-on-bus-wise, the biggest lottery win of all is if you are the lucky someone to get - and this is absolutely huge - the front-row window seat. Laws mean they cannot stuff in more people than the number of front-row seats, so you buckle up (also required in the law) and feel like your friend is driving you home, if your friend likes really really really loud radio. These are incredibly competitive seats to get, the airy, luxurious room literally protected by Rwandan laws despite the Capitalist urge to stuff another five people in this space reserved for the honorary bus royalty of the hour.

When leaving Rwanda, do you know how long it takes you to forget how awesome leg room is and open windows and not touching anyone at all on a bus? And there's the specialness in many developed countries of your fellow travelmate's polite shift in the direction of the window when you sit down on the isle seat - that half-a-centimeter shift your fellow customer gives you, sometimes only a symbolic nod to show s/he is literally or in spirit assuring your minimal personal space is secured to assure minimal potential awkwardness. The time it takes to forget how awesome isles are? There are no isles on Rwandan buses so when you need to get off exactly ten other people need to either get off the bus or pretend they are small enough to let you pass them by even though the rows of "seats" are about one or two feet apart. Sometimes I look at an especially large passenger with a look of "you have absolutely got to be kidding me if you think I can squeeze by you on absolutely no extra space" and they give you a look back of "This is your particular problem, which I, to, will need to face at my stop, when I am going to get the same look I'm giving you now."

All of the joys of space on public transport take about five minutes to forget about on an inter-city Egged bus in Israel - absolutely phenomenally comfortable buses by even American and British experiences. You get on the bus, and stretch out your legs in the isle, sigh in happiness, and then the mundane nature of transport takes over you, and I tried - I really tried to appreciate the comfort. But I couldn't. It was just another bus.

The ups and downs of the place you get on a desperately uncomfortable bus has it's perks. It is an absolutely inflated happiness, magnified by fantastic views only found in Rwanda.

A flatly perfect and uneventful bus ride is still preferable. But I suppose I will never get back the rush of getting the front seat.

Kigali City has introduced modern buses - the kind with isles where most of the customers stand up and need to not fall down by holding on to the worst invention the developed, Euro-centric world has offered: plastic loop thingies created for giants. Short people hold on with their arms completes outstretched, the double-jointed among us feeling their elbows about to pop out of their sockets, occasionally a sharp bus turn swinging our bodies in all directions, forcing us to profusely apologize for being short, before knocking over someone's coffee and rushing off the bus, strangely missing the types of buses where everyone sits.

Those are the buses Kigali City has introduced. The standing room does seem to make much more sense than sitting in discomfort. Luckily, nobody has hot drinks on public transport in Rwanda.

No one has quite figured out how to change the electronic moving text that tells us where the bus is coming from, going, and stopping. It's pretty fancy electronic boards, and Kigali has an international vibe when Arabic, Mandarin, English, and other languages I don't recognize slide across the buses side, that could say anything, really.

Maybe eventually numbers will be used.

And everyone will forget about the days when sitting like sardines was the only option, and a front-row seats by the window was a cause for private, contemplative celebration.