Each matatu is packed with cowards

By Ted Malanda

The first thing the matatu conductor announced when I approached his vehicle was that he was charging Sh100 for every stop.

It didn’t bother me because it was end month. But when he kept saying it again and again, we told him to shove off. We were not short of hearing.

Half an hour later, when he had packed us all in — including a bleating goat — he hammered the matatu to announce imminent take off. But not before repeating for the umpteenth time: “Kila stage ni mia (Sh100 for every stop)!”  Of course, we told him to go to hell. We had heard him the first time.

But barely a kilometre down the road, just after he began collecting fares, he let out an angry shout.

Games

“Who didn’t hear me say every stop is Sh100? What’s this you are giving me? Bring Sh100 or alight. I don’t have time for stupid games!” he shouted.

There were two reasons for his belligerence. It was already dark and matatus were in short supply because it was ‘visiting day’ and the road was littered with nervous passengers. He could have charged the heavens and gotten away with it.

“Unalipa ama haulipi (are you paying or not)?” he threatened.

To everyone’s shock, the person he was addressing didn’t bother to reply. It infuriated the conductor so much that he signaled the driver to stop. We pulled up at a rather dark and bushy place, the sort where thugs armed with crude weapons loiter around in a manner intended to cause a breach of peace.

“Shuka (alight)!” he thundered.

But the fellow he was addressing who, I had by then gathered was sitting next to me, didn’t bother to reply.

Wasting time

I studied the situation, decided the two were wasting my time — I had travelled more than 600km that day — and angrily told him to drive on. I would pay the difference. I knew they were going to argue for ten minutes, get on everyone’s nerves, and maybe even slap each other a bit— because of Sh40. I was too tired for that nonsense.

Only after I had paid up did I turn to look at that ‘rude’ man sitting next to me. To my great shame, he was no man but a boy, hardly 15. He had been silent all along because all he had was Sh60 and was too terrified to say a word.

And I was ashamed because they had almost flung him out in the dark, far away from home, in his own country and county, because of Sh40.

And 22 of us, except that bleating goat, had kept mum and not stood to defend him.