The Minibus Misadventure

As I have written before, the minibuses are usually pretty packed. So one day when I get on an empty minibus at the minibus 'station' (read: dirt parking lot), I assume the driver is going to wait for the minibus to fill up before starting. I tell him where I'm going, hoping he understands. (At this point, I hadn't learned the Chichewa phrase for "Drop me at  ____, please" which is basically one of the only three Chichewa phrases I know which is completely shameful and unacceptable). Anyway, I don't have a chance to make sure he knows where I want to go, as he immediately pulls out of the station and drives off down the main road of town, heading toward my university where I need to go. I feel very uneasy, since I've never seen a minibus with only one passenger, and with the cost of fuel and the current fuel shortage, I know transporting one passenger isn't something that any driver will do. 

My first thought is that I am going to get robbed. I am thinking this as I hand my 50 kwacha bill (about 30 cents) to the other man on the minibus, the money collector. He takes the bill and smiling asks me, "What kind of drink do you like?" I assume he means alcohol, so I reply, "I don't know. I don't really drink that much." (Okay, of course the correct answer is wine and the more correct answer is Reisling or merlot, but I mean did I need to share with strangers?) "Sure, sure," he replies, not in the accusing 'you're such a liar' way but in the 'I'm not too fluent in the language you're speaking, so I have no idea what you just said' way. The driver, while driving, then immediately turns around grinning, holds up a plastic packet of gin, and asks if I want one. Sold in Malawi, these little plastic packets hold a shot of gin and look like large ketchup packets from fast-food restaurants. They're easy to transport and, apparently, easy to drink on-the-go, as my minibus driver soon proves to me.

"No, no thanks," I say, and the money collector somehow thinks this is his cue to question me again with, "What kind of drink do you like?" Again, same response from me, and this time I think he realizes that we will never be able to communicate and he turns and starts talking to the driver.

OR, I suddenly think, perhaps he has turned to the driver because, since they can't liquor me up, they're just going to take everything I've got and then leave me somewhere. I think about exit strategies and slide open the window as far as it will go. I determine that I could fit through it and that I'd go out feet first if I needed to make a break for it. Just as I finalize this plan, the minibus stops and a young woman carrying a Bible gets on. I think she has saved me and am grateful she doesn't get off before I do. Before I get off though, I notice that she hasn't been offered any gin.