Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Sweet Revenge

So as you know...I got a car...partly because I was tired of bargaining, partly because I was tired of the added time it took to stop every 10 feet down the road in the taxi and partly because sitting squished in a taxi with 14 other people in rush hour traffic just isn't all that pleasant...

But today...I was back to public taxi...

My car needed some repairs, as well as the transfer paperwork done, so off I went...public transport style...

I have to say, it was probably one of my favorite taxi rides because I realized that I am not the only one in the taxi that doesn't like the conductor and the squished taxi's...the Ugandans don't like it all that much either...

How do I know this?

Well, as we all crammed into the taxi, and were ready to leave...the conductor continued to squish more and more people on...now usually we leave with 15 people, they are licensed for 14 plus the driver, its 3 to a row...5 rows...

Well...we had 15, then we had 16, then we had 17, then 18, then 19, then 20...3 in the front seat, 6 in the second seat, 5 in the third, and 3 in the fourth and fifth rows...there were so many people that there wasn't enough seat room, people were sitting on top of each other, and others were half sitting, half standing...

The Ugandans in the taxi were so humored by the conductor's behavior that they started laughing at him and calling him names, telling him he just wanted to be rich so he was cramming people in like animals...

So at this point I'm thinking...crazy conductors!! Here we go again...

UNTIL...my good ol' locals started up with their little game of revenge...

Because the taxi was so full, the conductor couldn't see who was requesting what, so about every 10 feet someone would yell "massow" which means stop, the conductor would stop, and open the door to let people off, but no one would get off, they just stayed in their seats and played stupid...

This happened about 6 times until the entire taxi let out a huge roar of laughter and the conductor finally realized he was the one that got played and that his attempt to get to kampala with 20 people and some extra money was going to cost him a lot more time than he had originally expected!

I loved the team effort of my fellow taxi riders and I also loved sharing some smiles and laughs with them as well...You gotta love the originality alone!

I call it...Sweet revenge!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

LOL! Great story, Lena!

Neil and Courtney said...

seriously, that's amazing.

I love it!