Going somewhere?

I was in a rush to get to the gym after work yesterday; the two and a half treadmills that my basement-gym has fill-up fast. So I was grateful when the gaaitjie I waved to from the opposite side of the road left his post at the taxi-door, ran across three lanes, collected me from the middle of the road, threw-out his hands in a dramatic 'stop' sign to halt the oncoming streams of traffic and helped me hop onto the still moving vehicle. As always, he sat with his head hanging out of the window to shout to potential customers. Cape Town afternoon breezes can be a little cold, so after a few minutes he popped in his head, called to the girl in the front seat who was wearing a fluffy hat, and asked to borrow it for a while. She duly consented.

It was like the other day when I was sitting there eating my apple and the gaaitjie pointed to it. "You want my apple?" I asked him. He nodded. "Friend, I'm still busy with it." I was only about half way through.
"That's fine sister," he smiled, "when you're finished."
I took a few more nibbles and passed it forward to him. Taxitiquette.

But it was on the taxi home-bound that things really took a turn for the interesting. About a year ago, me and my friend, affectionately nicknamed Bottles, were chillin' like villains in a taxi in Cairo. Traffic in Cairo is like a sandstorm meets a volcano meets 80s disco mirror-balls and flashing lights. So we were only partly surprised when the driver of the taxi we were in started reversing back up the highway when he missed our turn-off. Yesterday, sitting in the taxi on the way home, stuck in the dregs of the after-work exodus, my Cairo memory was relived. The driver clearly had no time for the traffic, so there in the Main Road, he did a U-turn and positioned himself in the middle of the two empty lanes going in the opposite direction. And then he started reversing.

At first my fellow-commuters and I were confused, mumbling to each other and looking around, someone might even have protested. But the driver kept reversing, getting directions from the gaaitjie and telling the people in the middle of the taxi to put their heads down so he could see out of the back window. Our responses were partly giggled, partly clucked. When he got to Rochester Road he pulled another U-turn, squeezed his way back into the trafficked throng and we carried on. Just like that.