Emergency Taxi (ET) in Harare

The long queue snakes along the busy main road.

It is full of all sorts:  a woman carrying a baby on her back, a father in his suit and tie.

They wait patiently when the tout called Hwindi orders them to stop pushing.

No one knows who Hwindi is or who gave him permission to order people around.

Hwindis are all the same: if you don’t listen to them they throw you out of the queue.

An ET arrives, spitting out its last passengers from its small, fat belly.

Everyone knows the ET rules: two passengers in the front with the driver and sixteen or more at the back;

Children sit on the lap unless they pay full fare.

Hwindi has no seat and squeezes himself into the corner by the door.

Heavy goods are strapped on the roof, secured with strips from tyre tubes which stretch long and tight.

In seconds, all seats are full and the ET is on its way, weaving in and out of traffic at speed.

It is a very squashed affair inside, with strangers’ hips intimately touching in an uncultural fashion.

The small seats barely contain one half of a gifted African woman’s bottom, never mind two.

Feeling hot and squashed, the baby on the back begins to cry but there is nothing mother can do.

There is no room for mother to turn her head, never mind removing the baby from her back.

Batanidzai!  Hwindi instructs them to put their money together.

Row by row the passengers hand over two dollars each and forward it to the Hwindi in order.

Mukwasha ndisiyei pamusasa apo.  My son-in-law drop me off by the musasa tree, says the woman with the baby to Hwindi.

Who knows, maybe Hwindi will marry her daughter one day.

Hwindi instructs the driver who knows the exact tree at which to stop.

Further ahead, people line the road flagging down the ET as they desperately try to get home.

One ari ega!, shouts Hwindi. One man by himself, says Hwindi, in ET lingo.

If there is a couple or a family, only one of them can board this ET.

The ET slows down, door open, with Hwindi propping himself in the door way,

But everyone is with someone, so the ET doesn’t stop.

It carries on along the familiar route, door still open and Hwindi hanging out his head.

It stops down the road for the lady in a mini skirt and high-heeled shoes, but she looks away.

Voetsek! Piss off!  Hwindi shouts at her.  Hure remuHarare! Harare prostitute!  Stop wasting our time!

Hwindi has an amazing array of colourful language, enough to make a black man blush.

He thrives on the power he wields in the vehicle and will not be contradicted.

The ET is a taxi with neither the comforts nor expenses of one.

It stops exactly where you want, paCorner (at the corner) or pamaRobots (at the traffic lights).

It has no timetable and is likely to come in five minutes or ten or forty to pick you up along its route.

Beware if you are a lady wearing stockings, you are sure to have a ladder up your leg or a hole in your dress,

As a result of all the rough surfaces and improvised metal seats that wobble on the ET.

There are no seat belts in an ET except at the front,

For it is near impossible to strap on four or five passengers in a row.

If a road accident should happen, it is an ‘untimely’ death.

What choice does a poor commuter have?

Road accidents happen to the rich in their Mercedes and four-wheel drives too.

Britain is closed due to 5 inches of snow

I feel obliged to notify you as soon as possible that Britain is closed due to 5 inches of snow. Trains are cancelled; the underground is partially closed; buses are off the road and flights are cancelled from most airports. How does a typical Brit handle this? He gets into his car after shovelling buckets of snow off the roof and windscreen. This, despite the fact his inappropriate tyres for driving in snowy conditions are half-buried in snow and he can barely see where the road is as he drives. It all makes perfect sense. Of course when he hits an invisible kerb and bumps into someone else’s car, he calls the RAC expecting them to send out a rescue team and they gladly oblige. They too arrive driving a vehicle with inappropriate tyres, barely equipped to tow away anything. The whole thing defies logic for anyone who has experienced a number of countries functioning properly despite heavy snow falls every winter. The whingeing by the entire nation is embarrassing. I come to that same conclusion I did in my first year in the UK that the Brits can only have colonised the world by accident rather than by design. They are incapable of doing anything that requires a bit of forward planning.

In February 2009, the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson) was interviewed on the news and asked what Transport for London (TFL) is doing to clear roads and rail tracks. To begin with, he said he had actually cycled to work. Silly man! I have always suspected he is a danger to himself and others – but not to this extent. And then he commended TFL for doing their best considering we have ‘the right kind of snow but the wrong quantities’.  Asked why there are no snow ploughs in the UK , he said they are not a worthwhile investment in the long term. The last time England in particular saw this much snow was several decades ago. So in January 2013, we find ourselves recycling the same excuse from 2009. 

So what to do on a day when the country has ground to a halt? I walk across to the farm, camera in hand, in search of that picture perfect photograph.  I decide to go Canary Wharf afterwards. I am  pleased to find my DLR station still open but feel slightly nervous. The DLR tracks around the Isle of Dogs are suspended on stilts with the little train weaving in between buildings. It’s a long way down if the train slips on ice and plunges to the ground. I focuse instead on the stunning views of snow-laden trees and branches, rooftops – everything white and beautiful and the river weaving in and out everywhere you look. The view is especially breathtaking between Cross Harbour and Heron Quays stations.

A typical London woman does not own a single pair of sensible shoes – I mean anything less than 4 inches high. So on an average day, she is hardly prepared for these adverse weather conditions. We have boots (with high heels), but we wear them in the summer with short-skirts because it looks sexy. When we are practical, we wear ballet bumps made of nonsensical fabric. I find Canary Wharf full of people at lunch time. There are women teetering on their high heels, wearing short skirts and fishnet stockings. Did they not have to walk through the same snow I plodded through to get to work? London women are firm believers that beauty will keep them warm, even in sub-zero conditions. In C. Wharf, some who have made an effort to dress for the weather conditions are walking around in their wellies. We love our wellies in Britain and these days they come in cool colours as well as leopard, zebra and floral prints. This is the only country in the world where wearing wellies to the office is not a criminal offence. The Polish women amongst us are easily visible in their elegant thick-lined coats and accessorised right down to their faux-fur hats and leather gloves. That too looks over the top for London.  Despite this cold spell driven by winds from the North, we are not in Siberia yet!
 

Snowy days always turn into unofficial public holidays. It is such a shame that tomorrow is a Saturday, robbing many of the guilty pleasure of skipping work for a lie-in and walk in the snow later. I decided to return home via my local supermarket. I noticed the older generation Bangladeshi women who usually wear sandals in all types of weather had upgraded to trainers and were slipping and sliding about the place in their traditional dress made of thin cotton fabric. On the way back, I came across a small snowman that someone had built on a footpath.  He is a miserable-looking little fellow but drew a smile from me nonetheless.  I hope he lasts the night because it is awfully cold out there.

Tube Life

Tube Life

The mechanical stairs take me down to the belly of the earth.

I mentally switch off as I glide down the vertiginous slope,

The 180 degree angle of descent does not phase me.

Instead, I rummage through my pockets for that magic ‘open sesame’ card.

Time is of the essence.  The Tube waits for no man.

There is a train arriving in two minutes, so says the neon sign above me.

As I wait in the fifth row of people, I see no one, too engrossed in my copy of the Metro;

Just shapeless, colourless, sexless human beings on their way to somewhere.

I automatically step into the carriage and move right in as instructed by the Voice,

Until I am standing buttock to buttock, armpit to armpit with a bunch of strangers

The tube is not for the shy or the reserved at peak hour.

The smells of perfume, coffee, curry and compounded sweat violently clush.

It is best not to think of smells and such,
As I swing like a monkey hanging onto the railing each time the train sharply breaks at a station stop.

There is not an inch of space to open my Metro, so I close my eyes and listen to my ipod.

The Tube is bearable only with something to read, listen to or both.

Ten minutes later there is a seat which a gentleman kindly offers.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I quickly accept to rest my weary feet.

I examine said gentleman covertly from behind my Metro news and find him very appealing indeed.

Perhaps he could be my Tube romance, if I catch the tube at the same time every day,

For we know the Tube makes creatures of habit of us all.

Oblivious to her surroundings, the passenger to my right transforms her haggard face with make-up.

My reverie is disturbed by the passenger to my left.

As he unashamedly leans over to read my Metro, his breakfast breath makes me want to gag.

Instead, I ponder his disrespect for the Rules of the Underground.

On the Tube, you may look up for divine intervention, down in contemplation but never sideways!

When I look up, my Tube romance is gone.

‘This station is Liverpool Street.  Mind the gap!’ says the Voice.

I think to myself, a few more stops to go and glance at my watch only to realise

S**t! S**t! F***k! I am going to be late! 

What?  Don’t be so shocked! I learned to swear on the Tube.

I should have run down the escalator to gain a minute or two, as I always do.

All the swearing in the world, to the bemusement of my fellow passengers, cannot help me now.

On the Tube, time waits for no man but each journey’s experience is soon forgotten.

I will be on it again tonight and tomorrow and the day after.

Some passenger or a driver with a sense of humour will make me smile once in the hell hole.

9 January 2013