aggienaut | A Bus Journey

Tuesday, June 6th, Day 33 - The usual lecture the first part of the day.

   Around about 15:00 a big red charter bus arrived to take us to the bee site. Usually, well I think literally without exception previously, I've always driven to and from the bee site separately from my trainees, usually me in the organization's vehicle and the trainees in some kind of van-bus. But this time we had a 50 person capacity bus so we all went together!

   As usual I'm the last to learn anything, and at some point prior to departure I learned we'd be going to one of the bee sites up near Walewale two hours away. I don't carry my passport if I'm just going to be in town because I'm concerned about the constant wear and tear on it, but if I'd known in the morning we'd be traveling long distance through multiple police checks I certainly would have brought it.

   As this is the bee site where we'd arrived to find we forgot the smoker two weeks ago I semi jokingly asked if we had a smoker as we were getting on the bus and was assured we did.

   There was a minor controversy where the leaders didn't want to let the five young women, all of whom have small toddler children, to come along over concerns about having their children with us. The women were very disappointed about this. I don't think I can take credit for changing what happened but I did speak up in favor of letting them join us and in the end they were allowed to.

   Took two hours to get there, which felt like ages. When we got out and everyone was getting suited up, I looked around and didn't see a smoker, so I asked Sam where the smoker was. He looked around a bit and then came back saying "you're not going to believe this... they forgot the smoker"
   "That's a bad joke" I informed him
   "No I'm serious."
   Facepalm.

   So we once again had to use the chicken feed dispenser like a censer to smoke the bees, which once again worked fine to calm the bees but I suffered far more from it than the bees, at times being blinded by smoke, trying to talk to my trainees with tears running down my cheeks from the smoke hurting my eyes.

   We only had time to go through two hives (plus two more we opened up but found unsuitable), and then departed around 18:30.

   I've commented before about how I feel the field visits are a bonding and team building exercise. You could really see the difference wherein on the way up everyone had been kind of quiet, talking to their friends; but from the start of the homeward bound leg everyone was singing and full of joyous ruckus. I realized this is a part of the experience I never see since I'm not usually in the bus with them.

   While the police checkpoints had waved us through during daylight, I found that after dark they wanted to inspect this bus every time. The first time this happened I thought there would be trouble but as the police officer, in his black tactical uniform, stepped up into hte aise he was already grinning, and he asked the group in a friendly manner "they say you're from a farm??" to which he was met with an laughing affirmative chorus.

   Everything proceeded relatively smoothly as we headed home through the darkness, usually a police officer just quickly stepping aboard to look at us at each checkpoint. Then just before the airport the man who stepped aboard was wearing military green camo with "IMMIGRATION" emblazoned on it.. and he immediately fixated on me. "Where's your passport??"
   I couldn't help but hesitate a moment when he asked me where I'm from and I was unsure to say Australia or America before saying Australia, and producing my Australian driver's license. He had me disembark and took me to his supervisor, who was sitting in the chair eating something out of a bowl. That first guy was urging his supervisor that I probably didn't have the right visa or had overstayed it, to the point that his supervisor told him to calm down but he was still not exactly about to let me easily go. Sam, the organizational leader when Dr Courage isn't about, had come along with me and helped me argue with them. Finally the sergeant told us they'd send officers to my hotel the next day to check on me and see my passport, and let us go.

   And by and by we eventually made it back to the hotel the end.