The Vans

"In Libya, you don't catch buses. The buses catch you!" as Abdul Hamid put it. And on one score, he was certainly right. You could be walking down the pavement, minding you own business, maybe whistling a tune from the new Mohammed Hasan MP3 (maybe you wanted to get the original one and send some money his way, but you just couldn't find it. 'What the hell?' you might think. 'He's got enough money'). And while you are whistling the tune, minding your own business, you may find yourself accosted by the sound of a blaring horn from a driver on the other side of the road, who is actually heading in the opposite direction to the one who are walking in. A quick shake of the head suffices and they take off in another burst of speed, just to slow down at the sight of the next pedestrian.
On another account, though, Abdul Hamid was wrong. They are not exactly buses. There are no buses in Libya. Like many other things in a groaning infrastructure, there used to be buses and I have asked people about them but I have never got a clear answer. There were buses with uniformed drivers, tickets, bells, everything. But one day everyone woke up to find that they were gone. Or so it would seem. Or maybe it was just some hazy dream.
Instead, public transport (although the drivers seem to inhabit that grey area between public and private enterprise) is served by Peugeot 405s, but in the main converted Japanese mini-vans. There are Mitsubishis, Mazdas, Isuzus and Toyotas with as many seats crammed in as is humanly possible. Normally, humans manage about 14, with folding seats springing down from the side when all the others have been taken.
Riding in these vans is a lottery, or as Forrest Gump's mother put it, a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. At the crowded lower end of the scale, often the doors do not close properly and the windows do not open, particularly bad on summer's days. If you are a bit luckier though, the windows will be broken, wafting hot air into your face, relieving you from the stench of unwashed humanity inside the van. The seats often collapse at the slightest of touches. On one occasion, I sat down to find that my seat had an unusual reclining function. As I leaned back, I realized that my seat seemed to be reclining further back than should be physically possible, as I was at the back of the van. To my horrostonishment, it dawned on me that the back windscreen was open, and I was leaning back towards the surface of the road. I spent the rest of the journey in a forward foetal position, contemplating whether I would have survived the initial contact with the tarmac and if I would be conscious as the incoming traffic drove over me. I suppose falling out of a mini-van would be a slightly humorous way to go though, sort of like having a grand piano fall on top of you as you are walking down the road. I can just imagine the conversation in some faraway scene.
"What happened to that guy, who know what's his name? The guy who went to Libya."
"Oh him. Didn't you hear about him? Dead. He fell out of a van in Tripoli. Anyway, what are you having?"
"That's a shame. I'll have a pint please. And some crisps. Salt and vinegar please."
On another occasion, a mini-van driver who had been chatting on his mobile pulled over to the side of the road mid-journey and ordered everybody out, did a swift u-turn and drove off. He was apologetic, but there was just somewhere else that he needed to be.
As unpredictable as the mini-vans are as a means of transport, it has to be said that they are extremely cheap, at a quarter or half a dinar (about 15 or 30 euro cents) and very regular, with one passing by virtually every two minutes most of the time.
The absence of a bell means that the driver must be verbally requested to stop, with either of the commands "Alla yemin" (to the right) or "Alla genb" (to the side). At least in theory.
In my early days in Tripoli, I boarded an empty mini-van and naively sat in the back window seat, the same type which I was later to nearly fall out of. I anticipated that it would provide greater legroom, which it did, until someone sat in front of me and his seat involuntarily reclined to about six inches from my lap. Indeed, as more people got on, my initial smugness at having bagged the best seat on the van slowly waned and then evaporated as I realized that I would have to dislodge or clamber over at least seven bodies barring my way to the exit of the sliding door. Besides that, poised as I was on crying out "Alla yemin" as we neared my planned destination of the Orange Shop, the words would not come out. I knew that I would have to say it at a volume loud enough to distract the driver, who was deep in conversation with a passenger over the sound of Scorpions on the stereo. I was so conscious that my pronunciation would come under the scrutiny of 13 people probably desperate for a little amusement that I froze as we flew past the Orange Shop and I caught a confused glimpse of the Orange Shop proprietor, sitting as he always does, in a plastic chair on the pavement, with a bottle of mineral water at his feet and his mobile in his lap. In the next life, it was said, the meek shall inherit the earth. In this one, they must sometimes walk the extra mile.
If I had been wiser, I would have opted for the long front seat, shared by the driver. This is the most comfortable of seats though there is one drawback in that the incumbent must take on the responsibility of collecting fares. This seat is sometimes designated by the driver's companion, much in the same way that Maltese bus drivers sometimes have a buddy sitting to their left, to chat to and relieve the boredom and frustration they encounter as they traverse the island's perilous roads. In Libya, the prized front seat is normally up for grabs. I am always impressed by the way drivers strike up immediate friendships with whoever sits beside them. When Libyans complain that Westerners are unfriendly, I used to think that their definition of friendliness was a mis-diagnosis of what is actually an intristic reluctance to talk bullshit with every stranger that you come across in every given situation. However, there is some credence to what they say. Western people are less friendly than they used to be. Even I remember it, and I am not old. When my car broke down in Libya, I was surrounded by swarms of people offering to lend assistance. The very same people who, I have to confess, I would probably have no hesitation driving past if the tables were turned and they were in my predicament. Perhaps even with a smirk. Ah, what have we lost? And how can we ever get it back?
This week, for the first time, as an empty van slowed to pick me up, I decided to take the bull by the horns and sit next to the driver. And this was no ordinary van. It was an 8-seater Hyundai Trajet, in truth more of an SUV than a mini-van and it looked like it had just come out of the factory, replete with plastic covering the upholstery (The plastic still on the furniture/car seats is a common motif in Libya. The driver who takes us to work, Aymen has even fashioned his own plastic covering on his headrests, using polythene). Sitting in the front, in the cockpit, of this fine vehicle, I was more than ready to assume the role of half-dinar collector. I would even bark "Nofs dinar biss!" (only half dinars!) at anyone who gave me a note of denomination that was too large. Sadly, I think the unusual sight of such a grand car put people off. Perhaps they thought it was a taxi. Whatever the reason, despite generous helpings of horn being administered at every pedestrian in sight, no-one got on board. We didn't catch anyone.