A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of travelling back from Polokwane to Masealama via taxi after the workshop that Monene and I attended. I have taken this taxi a few times, and it has always been fairly crowded, because people will come into town to do all of their shopping and then try to transport everything home via taxi, which leads to some very creative packing skills. This particular journey, however, was the most crowded taxi ride that I have experienced to date, and the following is a vivid description of the ride, for those who have never had the pleasure of experiencing the South African taxi system.
Monene and I arrived at the taxis with our bags for the week just in time for the one to Masealama to depart. There were two seats left, one for Monene near the front, and one in the very back row for me to climb into. I left Monene with my luggage and headed to the back row, which was currently being occupied by three very healthy ladies. Typically fitting four in one row is a pretty tight fit, but this was tighter than usual. Doubting whether I could fit in that seat I started to turn around until one of the ladies motioned to me and told me to squeeze in. She slid over as far as she could exposing about a three inch gap between her and the lady beside her- and it is into that three inches that I attempted to squeeze. This process resulted in me half sitting on the lap of the lady to my right with my right arm behind her, and me leaning in behind the lady on my left because we had to zig-zag shoulders to fit properly. Then the man in front of me sat down in his seat which reclined more than usual due to old hinges,,, which resulted in my legs being crossed and squished up near my chest.
Just when I thought we were settled, it turns out the lady to my right had purchased a large red bucket to do her washing in, so it was passed back to our row. After hitting me in the head with this bucket repeatedly, the lady finally got it situated on her lap in a way that suited her, but that meant that it rested right below my chin. Also in the back row the metal frame of the van comes down further than the rest, so now my head is caught in between the metal frame and the rim of this very large red bucket,, resulting in a game of pinball every time we hit a bump in the road.
Now we are situated and ready to go, but our proximity to each other and the heat of the day has caused us to break out into a sweat, so the lady to my left decides to open the window. In the process she has to lean toward me, which results in my head being thrust totally into the bucket (which is filled with peaches and bananas) and my ability to breathe drastically diminishes. But at least now the window is open and we can cool off. So at around this point, the taxi driver starts pulling away, which forces high pressure cool air into the back of the taxi resulting in my untied hair whirling rapidly around in the sudden wind storm. I have no hands to calm the hair, so I just have to let it fly. Soon some hair gets caught in my left eye, so I have to shut the eye for the remainder of the trip since I can’t get the hair out. Then some hair wisps by my right cheek causing me to suddenly itch in that location, but I am unable to scratch it. I seriously debated asking the lady beside me to scratch my face for me, but I am fairly certain that would require being hit in the head again multiple times by the large red bucket.
We are travelling down the road, about five minutes into our hour long journey, and I notice a familiar car to my left on the highway. Looking closer I confirm the color and the style of the car to be identical to that of the Dean’s (a lime green Nissan), who lives 20 feet away from me in Masealama. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony that we could have been riding comfortably with the Dean all the way home but instead we were packed into this taxi like fish in a can. It is a good thing I got rid of my need for personal bubble space a long time ago!
And that is the story of the most crowded taxi ride of all time. If only there had been a live chicken in the bucket.
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