My leg is on fire...

I look at the clock.  4:30 AM.  My leg is on fire.  I can feel the heat searing my ankle, sucking the moisture out of my calf, almost igniting my light weight pants.  I shift slightly and try not to think about it.  I rub my neck.  The rough texture of the neon red tape on my neck and shoulder is like a giant cat's tongue.  Without thinking, I start to peel away at it.  I stop.  It is sticky and gritty.  The adhesive from the tape mingles with my sweat and the ever present dust.  Yuck.
4:32 AM.  S.e.r.i.o.u.s.l.y.  I look out of the window.  The scenery is beautiful in a desolate, sun baked, brown dirt and brown trees kinda way.  I think the sun is burning my arm that I have resting in the window frame.  I should have put on sun screen this morning.  I notice a dust devil form and then swirl away.
I look at the clock again.  Should I bother to tell the bus driver or conductor the difference between AM and PM?  'Cause they totally have it wrong.  I wonder when they changed the time?  When we boarded the bus, at around 9:40 AM the clock said 4:10 - Swahili time, only about 30 minutes off of that too.  Maybe after seeing the two 'sticky-outy' wazungu on a bus full of Tanzanians, they decided to change it for our benefit.
My leg is still on fire.  I feel extra sorry for my wonderful husband.  BOTH his legs have to be on fire.  There is a hole in the floor where we are sitting.  It must be near the exhaust pipe or something that the engine is using that is EXTREMELY hot because the air coming from it feels hotter than the air that comes out of my hair dryer.
We talked a few hours ago about the possibility of the bag under his chair combusting.  Thankfully the person must not have had anything too flamable in there - but if there were any veggies in there - they are roasted now.  No doubts in my mind about that.
We're still about an hour from home.  I've read two books from start to finish.  I wrote the first paragraph of this post about 3 times in my head already.  I glance at my husband again.  I have given up looking at the clock - it just isn't going fast enough...  What a wonderful man!  He let me take the window seat.  This means BOTH of his legs are on fire due to the placement of the hole in the floor.  This also means that he is the one getting jostled, and hit, and shoved, and fallen on.  He is the one dealing with the posteriors of the people standing being right in his face.  I think he is also playing kick war with the person behind him.  The bag under his seat - the one that hasn't yet caught on fire - doesn't really fit there.  The person behind him kicks it forward, then after a little while, Benjamin kicks it back...  I should trade with him, but my glasses are safer this way.  And such a picture of sacrificial love, should be admired anyway.  Besides which, I offered to trade a while back and he refused.
So far, this trip back from Iringa is a lot better than the one to Iringa.  On a good day in your own vehicle, it should take a little over 4 hrs.  On the bus, maybe 5, but there is construction now.  AND on the way there, they kept stopping to try to fill up the bus.  AND in Africa, the bus is NEVER full.  Bags under every seat, in every aisle.  Speaking of aisles, people sitting in every seat and on the bags in the aisles - and anywhere from 4-7 people standing by the doors in a space that would better hold 2 IF any were supposed to be standing - which they really aren't...
To get from the main bus stand to Uyole (14 km or roughly 8 miles) it took us almost 2 hrs.  The bus just wasn't full enough to proceed.  Oh!  And the driver got out and bought a bag of onions.  Later on, he bought a bag of potatoes.  I wish I had thought about grabbing either the potatoes or the onions and pelting him with them to make him keep driving.  I was over half way through my book, yet not even 30 minutes from my own home...  It took us 9 hrs to get there.  We were hot and tired and dirty.  I had to go to the bathroom for about the last 5 hrs of the trip.  Needless to say, we were also dehydrated and had stopped drinking liquids a while ago.
So, yeah, the trip back was MUCH better.  (Read - 3 hrs shorter).  Except for the billowing constant furnace of hot air lustily licking our legs.