A Day in the Life of a Combi

            As I’m sure most CIEE students would agree, one of the best parts of studying abroad in Botswana is having the opportunity to travel on weekends and breaks. We are only a little over halfway through our program, and yet we have already managed to visit three other countries: Swaziland, South Africa, and Namibia. For financial reasons, we’ve had to make a few compromises along the way in terms of activities, accommodations, and mode of transportation (I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise, but we have to travel on a budget––after all, we are broke university students). In a perfect world, we would take comfortable, hour-long flights across all of southern Africa. This, of course, is impossible. We would still like to have enough money to feed ourselves.

            In reality, we do all of our travelling via combi. If you’re not familiar with combis, don’t worry––I hadn’t heard of them before I came to Botswana either. In essence, a combi is this kind of large van-bus that typically seats thirteen passengers and is an important aspect of the public transportation system here in Gaborone. My relationship with these so-called combis is a complicated one, and I have come to regard them as both my salvation and my torment. Why? Because they provide us with relatively inexpensive and easy transportation, all the while ensuring maximal discomfort. They are generally hot, slow, and make any semblance of personal space difficult to maintain. Having said this, despite their disadvantages, I am indescribably thankful for our combi––with it we have seen, and will continue to see, many of the amazing things southern Africa has to offer.

            My most recent extended soirée in the combi ended a little over a week ago. For our ten-day midsemester break, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Namibia. While many past students opted to fly from Gaborone to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, we choose to drive there. In a single day. I’m not going to lie, it was a grueling fourteen hours that culminated in a 4:30 am arrival to our Airbnb. How we managed to pass the time during that drive, I’ll honestly never fully understand. It certainly involved more group singing to early 2000s songs than could possibly be healthy. And yet despite the heat, repetitious music, infrequent bathroom breaks, and total lack of leg room, our group became closer than ever. With good company, discomforts such as these are less noticeable and easier to laugh at––so what if you have to listen to “Who Let the Dogs Out?” for a fourteenth time? At the end of the day, it simply comes down to perspective. Our time in the combi went from something we dreaded to something we, to some degree, cherished. These were the hours in which we got to spend quality time with our best friends, all the while going to see some of the most beautiful places in the world. So sure, the combi may not be my preferred method of transportation, but it gets me and my friends to where we want to be. I couldn’t ask for more.