The Window Seat
By Mwivanda Gloria
I love a window seat. I sit pressed against the glass, eyes wide, watching trees rush past, cars blur, people appear and vanish, houses rise and dissolve into the landscape. Sometimes I don’t even blink. I want to see everything there is to see. When traveling on public transport, you only ever get one chance at a view. Especially on unfamiliar roads, there is no way to anticipate what comes next. So I stay glued to the window, my camera poised like a hawk ready to strike.
You might wonder about the impossible timing: the instant between spotting the perfect scene, raising the camera, and capturing it while the train or bus barrels forward. It takes coordination and speed, and even then, it’s always a gamble; a fifty-fifty chance of success.
I once read that the best picture is always the one you cannot take. Nowhere is that truer than while traveling. You could return to the same place, at a different hour, even stop to compose the shot, but there is no guarantee the light, the air, the energy will be the same. The fleetingness is what makes it beautiful.
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With time, I’ve grown better at anticipating. I stand camera-ready, eye to the viewfinder, finger hovering. On the train from Mwanza to Dar es Salaam, I memorized the sharp corners, waiting in the last carriage to catch the arc of the train bending against the horizon. I scanned the distance for mountains, rivers, lakes, and prepared to press the shutter at just the right moment. Sometimes I fired in quick succession, capturing a scene a few seconds and a few meters apart, each frame a slightly different truth.
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At stations, I raced through meals and bathroom breaks, using the rest of the pause to wander and scout. My eye hunted details: gestures, stories, textures that breathed life into the journey. I asked conductors and seasoned travelers what to watch for, and they told me their favorites, the parks, the rivers, the mountains. Often they reminded me just before we passed, pointing out what they loved: a train overtaking ours, a stretch of farmland, a peak rising to the right.
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These days, I am unafraid of declaring my hunger to see. I ask for the window seat, the front seat, the back of the truck. I find that people are generous with their knowledge; they point, they guide, they share what their eyes catch that mine might miss. I no longer fear being called a tourist or a curious George. After all, I am a tourist, a curious one, with an insatiable eye.
And perhaps that is the essence of the window seat: not just a place on a journey, but a way of being in the world. To look out, to look closely, to know you cannot hold everything, but to try anyway.
