Mundele on the Bus!!

Wednesday I had a funny experience here in Brazzaville. I went to the tailor to pick up some new outfits I had ordered and took the bus back home. I like taking the bus (vs a taxi) because it’s a point of contact with the people of this city and makes me feel more like a real person who lives here. The buses have various routes with certain stops. They are basically vans with four back seats. Each seat is made for 3 people, but of course they manage to squish 4 in each row.

This particular day I got in a bus that seemed especially cramped, only a few inches of leg room between the rows. After a couple of stops there weren’t any other passengers, just the driver, the monitor who collects the money and calls out for people to get on at each stop, and myself. So the monitor says to me “Vous allez au centre ville?” “Are you going downtown.” “No,” I said, “I’m getting off at Congo-Pharmacie.” “Oh, you live down there?” “Oui.”

Couple minutes later, a whole load of people want to get on. A lady tells her 2 year old son to climb in, but he just looks at me in terror and starts crying! Everyone starts laughing, including me, and I hear them saying “mundele” which means white person in Lingala. They’re like “Ha, ha, he’s afraid of the white lady.” The mom finally convinces him and they ride along with him staring at me in wide-eyed suspicion. I hear the monitor say the words “mundele” and “Congo-Pharmacie.” He’s basically telling everybody on the bus that the white lady is getting off at that stop. I turn to look at him and he seems a little surprised that I understood. I’m thinking, come on now, how many times a day do you think I hear the word “mundele” ringing in my ears? He starts laughing and saying something about “les blancs, les blancs” (white people, but in French this time). The lady next to me turns around and yells something which I think was to the effect of “How would you like to be talked about like that?”

So we get to Congo-Pharmacie. Now with the limited leg room it’s a little hard to get out. Not to mention to climb over someone to get out. Not to mention the fact that that someone has a child in her lap. So I tumble out of the bus with everyone staring at the “mundele” who is getting out at Congo-Pharmacie. I mean, they’ve been waiting for this right? The monitor is laughing his head off. “Les blancs, les blancs!”

This whole time the monitor has been having trouble with change. You may think that AIDS or poverty or whatever is the biggest issue people face here. Nope, it’s lack of small change. Seriously, it’s a problem every day, everywhere I go! Well, a bus ride costs 150 francs (about 30 cents). All I have is 2,000 ($4). He has 1,500 but for the other 350 he starts giving me 5 and 25 cent pieces (the equivalent of pennies and nickels). I say, « C’est quoi ça? Qu’est-ce que je peux faire avec ça? » What is this? What can I do with this?! The whole time he’s laughing, “Les blancs, les blancs.” So I say, “Take it, I’ll just pay for the place of the lady and her son.” His eyes light up and he smiles and jumps back in the van. As they drive away he hangs out the window, “C’est bon, c’est bon! Ha, ha, les blancs!” It’s good, it’s good! Ha, ha, white people. I walked home unable to wipe the smile off my face.