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Driving the mysterious Zubeda before elections- Confessions of taxi driver

My Man
 Zubeda is different. She sits in the car, smiles and says, "Hello."

 Alright, so everybody is talking about the elections. Like there is nothing else happening around us. I have never much cared about elections or politics as a whole. It is all white noise to me.

If a passenger takes a seat in my cab and starts yammering on about the latest political hubberdubbery (Not an English word. Actually, not a word in any language coined by man or deity), I pump up the volume to the radio and sing along to whatever melody they are playing over there.

But Zubeda is different. She sits in the car, smiles and says, "Hello."

People don't do that. They don't sit down and say hello. There is this corporate director who specifically calls the office and requests for me every time. I don't know why he does that. I have tried asking but he is not known to talk much.

He just sits at the back left seat, buckles up, yanks out a newspaper and ignores my presence throughout the journey. He never even says, "Hello." One day I will tell him that I think his huge nose is the one that sucks up all the air in my car whenever he and I are taking a ride. Maybe that will elicit some sort of reaction from him.

But I digress. Zubeda dons an expensive-looking Hijab, nails well-trimmed, soft-looking hands, big eyes that seem to experience all the sadness in every soul walking the earth and round lips with a hint of red lipstick on them. OK, maybe I have analyzed her too much. She speaks with a touch of Somali accent. The kind you'd miss if you weren't listening keenly.

"Hello. Where are we going?" I ask as I reverse out of the parking lot at her offices where I had been waiting for her for 30 minutes. I hate picking and dropping off these corporate types. They come with a special side dish of arrogance and entitlement. Like you are a chauffeur of sorts and your only job in the world is to wait for them as they sip their microwaved tea in their swivel chairs in their posh, oversized, lonely looking offices.

"To various places." She says and turns in her seat to look for the buckle of her seatbelt. She is riding what some people call 'shotgun'. "I was hoping I could ride with you for the day. I have a slew of meetings today and I don't like changing drivers that much."

She finally finds the buckle and buckles up.

"Where do we start?"

"Yaya Centre. There is a hotel there whose name is a little forgettable. Let's go there. The name will come to me before we arrive."

So I start driving towards Yaya. Playing on the radio is Mike and the Mechanics' "Looking Back Over My Shoulder" and I can't help but hum along to it.

"You're younger than most of the other drivers at Perfection." She says and I can feel her eyes peeling me back layer by layer. "And more clean cut."

"Well, there is this thing they say about cleanliness and godliness."

"It's more than that. You have certain swag to you. Well, I don't know about the beard, but there is something safe about you."

Many answers travel through my mind at lightning speed. I am trying to find something cool to say but all I can come up with is, "Um, yeah. That's kind of honest, don't you think?"

"You say that like honesty is a bad thing."

"It has been known to propagate a conflict or two."

"Where I come from," She has a genuine Louis Vuitton handbag which she has opened and is now digging in there furiously looking for something, "Women are encouraged to keep their honesty to themselves. An honest woman has been known to bring shame to her family. Can you believe that? Honesty being a mark of shame?"

She finally finds what she was looking for. Spectacles. She clouds the glasses up with her breath, wipes them clean, puts them on and smiles like all is right with the world.

"Fieldlands." She says excitedly. "That's the name of the hotel."

At Fieldlands, she asks that I wait for her for about one hour. I lean my seat back to catch some sleep in the car like all those other drivers I like to hate.

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