Taxi Driver Union

            It has been a pretty low-key week for the most part. Visited the kids a couple of times, but worked at the office mostly. It rained some days and it was sunny others. Oh, and I became a member of the Taxi Driver Union.

I rode with the taxi driver to go get Nicholas from the airport because the driver didn’t speak English very well, and I figured anyone traveling to Tanzania by themselves needed to at least be greeted by a fairly fluent English speaker. It was with my credentials that I was chosen for the job. I decided since the taxi driver and I had a good 45 minute car ride ahead of us, I would make the most of it and try and make conversation with the good man.

            His name was Kacey, he was older (I would put him around 56, but who can ever tell) and has four kids. The oldest just graduated from university, the younger two were still in university, and the youngest was still in primary school. He is very proud of them. He’s been a taxi driver for the last ten years and loves his job and owns the car he’s driving. I couldn’t actually tell you what kind of car it was, because it had Chinese symbols all over the dash, but I can tell you that it was white and not a full sized SUV, and there was a radio station playing all the greatest Tanzanian hits. The music sounded like a mix between raygay and Spanish music, and when I asked Kacey if this was the type of music the kids were into these days…he didn’t understand me. Kacey says that in a couple weeks “Mazungu” are going to be all over the city and business will be “very very good.” He’s Chugga, one of the other big tribes in the Tanzania area besides Maasai. He’s climbed Kilimanjaro three times, but won’t make it a fourth time when I asked him to come with me because he was an expert at tackling Kilimanjaro. And that was the first taxi driver I met.

            We reached the airport in due time and I asked Kacey if he was going to come inside with me, but he responded by staying in the car. I respect his decision.

            There was a good thirty minutes to kill before Nick’s flight arrived, so I leaned against a wall and listened to music to kill the time. It must have been an unfamiliar site for the taxi drivers, a Mazungu casually leaning against a wall with a sign at his feet to pick somebody up. A few of them ventured over to me and asked uncertainly if I needed a ride.

            Once the flight landed, the pack of taxi drivers swarmed, with me thrown into the mix. We stood behind a yellow line that separated us from the arriving passengers, and must have looked like an ocean of black holding up white signs with names, and then there was the one white head standing out in the crowd. I was nervous because I somehow forgot the first rule of picking up someone at the airport with a sign and that’s writing the person’s name on the sign. I was hoping that Nick would at least know what organization he was volunteering for because at least I had Make a Difference on there. Still, you never know. Every time a person walked through the arrival door everyone would hold their sign up and make it dance in the air to get the person’s attention, and once they found who was picking them up you would hear a quiet sigh of disappointment from the “Taxi Driver Union” (Name I gave it). Everyone, including myself, started to become frustrated with the constant disappointment of each arrival not being the one you were supposed to get. It was that constant disappointment and rejection that made it inevitable for some serious bonding time between a Mazungu and the Taxi Driver Union.

It started when the guy next to me, a young lad with half a Mohawk and half braided hair named Archibold (I’ll call him Archi) noticed I was standing stagnant with my sign and not waving it around like the rest. He leaned over and told me, “That’s your problem, they can’t see your sign with you just standing there,” and then he held his out and began spinning his and flipping it around. “Just like this,” he said.

When in Tanzania, do as the Tanzanian’s do.

I started flipping my sign around, backwards, upside down, and even one time put it behind my back. Archi did the same, and kept telling me that the only way to get your guest to come out of the gate faster was by spinning your sign faster. Simple logic, really. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. We began taking bets on who our passengers would be. He was convinced he was picking up a pair of Latinos and I looked over at the name on his sign and just shook my head at Archi and told him he was definitely going to lose this one. He asked why I was so certain and I shrugged and said, “Just a hunch.”

The name on his sign: Patel. 

            It was interesting being in the ranks of the Taxi Driver Union as opposed to the other way around. I got to hear their chatter and little comments when a guest would pase back and forth unable to find their driver. “Over here mazungu,” “Where you going? I’m right in front of you,” and my favorite, “Screw it just get in my car.” An incident occurred when a Latino pair (not the Patels, to Archi’s dissapointment) walked over to two drivers standing next to each other and pointed at them and asked which one they were getting. The taxi drivers, confused, looked at each other and then at their signs and realized that they both read, “Jose.” These things happen sometimes in the Taxi Driver Union, we just had to keep going. A pair of stereotypical Frenchmen came up and asked if I was their driver, and when I say stereotypical I mean they were each wearing a long sleeve striped red and white turtle necks and had little moustaches…and spoke French.

             After literally standing there for over an hour and the pack of taxi drivers dwindling to only a handful, Archi and I were becoming discouraged and thought that perhaps our guests had missed their flights. In a last ditch effort I pointed to someone standing at the customer service window and told Archi that I was calling it, that was either my guest or he just wasn’t coming. Sure enough, none other than our friend Nick came walking through and thankfully knew what organization he was volunteering for and didn’t get thrown off by there not being a name on the sign. The airline had lost his bag and so that’s why he had been one of the last people to come out of the airport.

            An Indian couple conveniently with the last name Patel walked out a minute afterwards and told Archi he was their driver. Fancy that. They had all their luggage with them so I don’t really know what their excuse was for being the last ones off, but Archi was a little frustrated by it. We parted ways, Archi and I, and I told him if I ever had to pick up another guest hopefully he will be there to flip signs with me.

            And that’s how I came to be a part (if only briefly) of the Taxi Driver Union. 

            I’m also losing weight over here, and I really can’t afford to lose weight. Good thing Theresa stocked up on bacon, sausage, and chicken at the house.