Our Family: Serving in South Africa: September 2012

Taxi & Bus stories

From mid January 2012 Kim and I have been a bit short on transportation so I decided to “bite the bullet” and ride the local taxis. Now, when I say taxi you may envision Yellow cabs driving down-town with a passenger in the back kinda “chillin’” out. That’s somewhere else. In Durban South Africa, the Taxi is usually a Toyota HLACE with a Kamikazee one-eyed 17 year old suicidal, homicidal, semi-psychotic man who wildly gesticulates and honks at the world and drivers around him as he narrowly negotiates with everything and everyone on the road. Well, actually it isn’t quite that bad, most of these guys are way older than 17 years old. Thank God for Major miracles.

The HLACE is designed to seat 11 comfortably, and most times I’ve been in these mini-vans with about 14 people plus the Taxi driver. One time I was in a “Taxi” with about 17 people in it. The van pulled over and his partner in crime, a young man who sits at the door yelling “Marketplace, Musgrave, Workshop (in Zulu)” out the window, and this young man wild-arms me into the van, but there are no seats. At all. I look at him with “THAT” look in my eyes. I shrug and ask “Where?” and he looks at me resigned to the fact that I’m not that bright, and points at his own seat. I sit down next to the two ladies already on the seat, and sit down, only to have him shove against me and close the outer door. I’m now firmly squishing the ladies (my backpack is on my lap), and the lady next to me smiles up and begins snickering. We only get about 20 meters before the driver pulls over to stop again and lets another man get on and squish behind us. Shortly one more person (I couldn’t believe it either!!) points his finger in the air (this means he wants to go to the workshop) and the driver pulls over. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to get out now, but I wait too long. This guy sits in the middle divot between the drivers seat, and the first row of passengers (me and my new lady friend) and he squeezes in while the helper dude squishes back onto our mutually shared seat.

I look down at the lady on my right, smile and begin to laugh with her. So, All cares to the wind, and a slight breeze blowing through the windows and our “taxi” swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane and back (4 lanes of traffic), and making his way to my stop at the end of the trek and God’s firm hand on the Van and another day starts off with great excitement. Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning??

And then there was this morning.

I arrived at my local pickup spot and a BIG bus pulled in front of the Taxi that stopped to pick me up. I young man of about 65 got off the bus and told me he was picking up for the workshop and told me to get on. Looking at the Taxi I was abandoning, I was thinking with great amusement that I was about to get another 1^st time experience! Now, when you think Bus, you might be visualizing the picture of a long lean dog on the side of the bus, but that is mid-american, not south African. The bus driver was more like the Taxi driver who had finally graduated from the Grand Prix training while he continued as a taxi driver with his training wheels still on…

This bus was a real hoot. It does help to know that your vehicle is literally the largest thing on the street, but wow, this guy drove just like the taxi driver, but wilder. The guy at the door kept the door open so that he could swing out and get a good view of the street behind us as he guided the bus driver to go ahead across the 4 lanes to get quickly to the other side to pickup more passengers. The bus was the same size as a greyhound, and was full, including people standing and holding onto the hand-rails as the bus swerved from side to side. The big speakers in the front were booming and the whole bus was rocking.

I think I laughed about ½ way to my destination. Some of the folks on the bus were laughing with (at) me. Great adventures! At the end of the day, God has kept me safe.

Cost for the ride ~ R 4 (about 50 cents USD), value? Priceless