TUK TUKS- WHEN LIFE HAPPENS ON THEM
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, ...