Taxi! Taxi!

Tuesday July 7, 2009
Take a Taxi!
In the last year, my car has changed batteries four times but that is another story. A week ago Sunday my car stalled again and I for the rest of the week I had to get by without it. After my initial fury, I decided this could be the start of an adventure. For the most part I would walk but that plan fell through because of a series of muggings nearby. My friends all urged me to call them but I could not bring myself to do that at all hours of the day so I decided it would be a taxi week. I actually enjoy taxis. Wherever I have travelled around the world I have taken taxis in the sure knowledge that they would not kill me, even when death seemed too close! Where I live in Fish Hoek, it a taxi paradise. Taxis run all day from Ocean View and Masiphumelele to Fish Hoek and back. They are called "bakkies" or what we would call in the United States a van. Generally they are barely maintained and some remind me of the old cars I saw in Cuba, held together by tape and more tape. With the 2010 World Football games approaching, the police now check them more than I have ever seen since I lived here. But what I like the best, and this is a feature I have seen in other places, is their color and individuality, each with its own slogan that describes the owner. Make no mistake, the taxi business here is serious. They are the most popular form of public transport and taxi turf wars often lead to taxi deaths. The thing that surprised me most however this week was the way I was greeted or to be more accurate, ignored in the taxi. Once I approached a taxi to get in, immediately people looked at me like a curio in a shop. Seeing I was a well dressed foreigner, I expected them to welcome me into the taxi but for the most part I was greeted with stony silence that made me uncomfortable and angry. "If they only knew the good I was doing here" I fumed inwardly. And yet, why should they welcome me more than any one else. Immediately I step into their world the differences are huge and these days with tensions high in Masiphumelele because of the terrible housing conditions, one sees the anger and weariness in the faces of the informal dwellers more than ever before. It got better though. When it was time for me to step down from the last taxi I took to get my car, one of the men held out his hand and helped me down and with a smile That made all the difference in the world. That probably too will not be the last time I take a taxi here!