I sometimes volunteer to sit at the shop, and be a sales-girl when life becomes too mundane for me. In this case, having volunteered for a stint at the shop, I had to leave from home at 2.00 pm, along with Sam, the other sales-girl, so that we could get to the shop and open it by three. This was during the time of the post-election riots, but since we sell bread, which is essential to most of the living in Mombasa, staying at home like sane people do was never an option. We called up one fellow called Richard, who happens to own a tuk-tuk asking him to come and pick us.
In case you’re wondering, a tuk-tuk is a Thai word which means Auto-Rickshaw. In Swahili slang, the word tuk-tuk is substituted for piki-piki. By now, you must be coming to the conclusion that in Swahili, syllables are oft repeated to make the word; which is a rather hasty conclusion to be making of this language, for no other words have repeated syllables.
Richard, unfortunately, had left for his village, and another chap, by the name of Juma, had come to pick us up. After bargaining (unlike India, in Mombasa you have to haggle in terms of denominations of Ksh. 50 only) and agreeing on a sum of hundred bob, we got into the dirty green auto, settled ourselves, and he took off. Kuze is the locality where the shop is based, and it is, fortunately, a fifteen minute ride from Makupa, where we are stationed for our daily life living.
Juma turned out to be a daredevil with a zest for death, and to ensure that our lives maintained the same quality they had when we rode out, we held on to the top of the tuk-tuk, tightening our fingers on the grips. In moments, Juma showed us that along with having a death wish, he also had no remarkable expertise in driving a tuk-tuk! Born with the characteristic arrogance of an F1 driver, with none of the redeeming characteristics, Juma handled the driving with an innate sense of doom, felt by both Sam and I.
After narrowly missing scraping the side of his tuk-tuk with a matatu, we ran into an accident between a matatu and a tuk-tuk, which had managed to block the road. After much maneuvering, Juma decided to let go of the bit between his teeth, and started opting for another way out, which consisted of going the opposite way on a one way street. This led to bigger problems, and after getting into a slanging match with another driver, he turned around and proceeded to another route.
In Mombasa, when weddings occur, the roads are taken over by the wedding party; which puts up tents, chairs, tables and the like on them, and close them off at both sides, effectively preventing vehicles from crossing over. Juma, having lived in Mombasa all his life, happened to think that he knew best, as is a characteristic associated with people who live at the Coast. Taking a turn inside a forbidden lane, he thought that there was a way out, only to find building materials lying strewn across the lane, effectively blocking passage.
After a long wait, we cleared and finally managed to get to the shop at 3.15, one hour after we were supposed to reach there. Juma was paid the hundred bob. The shop opened. The tuk-tuk survived. So did we. I’m not too sure where Juma is now. Wherever he is, I do wish he learnt how to handle a tuk-tuk. They can be deadly.
Comments