Good sense has
taught me to boot luck and fate into a locked closet labeled ‘for the
happy-go-lucky misfits’, somewhere in the back of my mind. Luck and fate I
believe, are tools often abused, much like the name of God by agnostics whose
state of affairs are ‘out of the blue’, tangled beyond mortal aid. If the odds
are stacked against you, that’s it, live with that and try something else. You
can call me a realist.
Travelling by
public transport in Botswana, Particularly in Tlokweng, an ‘urban-village’
right on the border of the Capital City Gaborone, my realism ideals were sprung
to the winds faster than the speed our taxi was going at. I found myself
calling the name of god and wishing for a lucky miracle aboard a rage of wheels
that surely had us all hovering over instant extinction. My taxi of choice
overtook dangerously, travelled at an unlawful speed and barely waited for
robots ‘to say go’, as it sped off to the main Tlokweng-Gaborone Road. I was reminded
of the movie Taxi and I
knew trouble was brewing. I could swear the life expectancy of all those that
take taxis in this road are reduced by at least a decade!
The Tlokweng-gaborone road is one of the roads in Gaborone City whose slow construction is
making it difficult for prudent driving especially during the mad rush hours. Our Combi
got wedged in the middle of sluggish traffic, with cars kissing each others
backsides.
The driver swerved out, drove on the pavement,
precariously a strand away from the vehicles snailing on the road. A delirious
wail from an aged passenger elicited a snarling inaudible retort from him amid
the now frantic voices in the Combi. We shoved, twisted and twirled back into
the traffic, our heads banging against each other, until our Schumacher was
assured that we were now in perfect tandem with the rest of the cars. With my
heart in my throat, I put a death grip on the opposite seat’s back rest. I
might never know when I would need the grip!
The need to move
around places surpasses safety when one does not have a private motor vehicle
to go about. To some people like my friend, owning a private vehicle at the
blink of an eye, needs a carefully orchestrated plan, nothing else. Taxis and
heart-wrenching moments be damned! ‘The plan is simple’, he told me, ‘become a
parliamentarian’. That is the only job where one is guaranteed a luxury car and
a lavish lifestyle as a perk. Being a parliamentarian does not depend on any set
qualifications and my being a university graduate, I stand a good stead of
making it in the trade, I was told. That is the plan…To execute it he told me,
he gave away all his fancy clothes to the poor families in his home village
whose name I cannot spell. He went into grannies’ yards just to greet and ask
whether he should fetch water from the communal tap for them. Even better, he
influenced his aunts to give the grannies collecting pension, lifts back home;
all in his name of course. The Aunts also gave lifts to the grannies children
who work in Chinese-owned stores in the village and think they are better than public
transport. They are of course not to be blamed for such feelings. While doing
all this he asked to officiate at funerals all over the village. Before long he
became renowned for his love for ‘the common man’. He now sits in high places
and has all a man can wish for; a majestic fleet of cars included. It is even
possible that he owned the very same Combi I was travelling in. Good senses…
Go! Go! Go! Go! Our
driver chanted like an exorcist, shaking me out of whatever false safety net he
had lulled me into. His collar veins strained against his weathered skin as a
female driver dawdled in front of him. Vroom! He went into the pavement again
and thank God just before us lay a Bus Stop. I paid my fare and hailed lifts…With
luck on my side, I could just run into a parliamentarian wannabe on a
humanitarian motive…
