In Transit: The Two-Face
Matatus. We love to hate them but can’t live without them. ( I call your attention to the last time there was a matatu strike. Wasn’t very pleasant for those with places to go and things to do, and no alternative, was it?)
I observed something. Using myself, my friends and colleagues as the case study so you know it’s legit. Lol.
Anyway, I noticed that when you’re in a personal vehicle, yours or otherwise, and a matatu cuts in front of you or gets on the pavement, or any one of a handful of other things matatus do to piss off private vehicles commuters, you get so MAD.
Who do they think they, are right? Everyone is in a hurry. None of us enjoy the early morning/afternoon/evening traffic jams. And how dare they switch lanes like that? and what about those that threaten almost daily to run over pedestrians, while driving on the pavement to escape traffic and breaking a myriad of traffic rules. They should be arrested, like yesterday.
Now let’s look at the same situation from another lens.
You wake up a tad late or you intended to arrive reasonably late but not ‘fire me sir’ late. Regardless, the traffic raises the middle finger to your arrival plans to wherever.
You don’t have a car or gas money,
The matatu is now your friend. You board one, and discover that nothing is more maddening than adriver who pulls over every two minutes to pick up another person and some of them don’t even want to go aaargh! Wasting so much TIME.
Worse still, you can’t believe how you matatu driver is faithfully following the traffic rules and not overlapping to the front of the line yet the oncoming . The cars in front of you in jam are probably not even going the same way.
And so what if they are. You’re not about to mind other people’s business, not when yours is in danger of going up in flames.
You fantasize about the kind of driver that can cut in front of other cars like King ‘Slay the Space’ , given half an inch. Boy! he would be awesome. You’d probably be in town already if you’d gotten on that one.
And why has the matatu gotten on Mombasa Road/South B when south B/Mombass road is obviously the better option! Why is the world against you!!!
So when you’re late and in a matatu, the buck moves to the other hand. You get upset if the driver isn’t as road ‘savvy’ as all the others overtaking you and getting their passengers to their destination on time.
Interesting!
Well like I said, this is a study conducted on myself, my collection of friends and colleagues . It may or may not apply to you. Heck it may just apply to me and mine.
Whichever the case. Do you feel me? Yes you do.
