Sharp Left: Getting Around S.A.

I want to start providing a better understanding of what it is like to live in S.A., especially some of the nuanced differences from my life in the States. Since I reallllllllllllllllly miss my car, Destiny, I figured I would start with transportation or transport as it is commonly referred to here. Can I just say again I SSSSOOOOOO miss my car.

Saying goodbye to Destiny at the airport

With that said many people do own a car here.  You can see French (Peugeot), and Indian (Tata) brands intermingled with the American, Korean, German, and Japanese brands, we are accustomed to seeing in the states, driving up on and down the South African highways.  The type of vehicles being driven are closer to what you would see in North America more so then Europe with people driving everything from pick-up trucks and compact SUVs to mini vans and sedans.  I going to take a swag and estimate that 35% of the population owns a vehicle.  Actually I Googled and found that in 2003 26% of the SA population owned a car so I shouldn’t be too far off.

The rest of the population that doesn’t own a car gets around by walking, buses, public taxis, and private taxis.  There is even a high-speed train system called the Gautrain that will transport you around the Gautain province (this is the province where Pretoria and Johannesburg are situated).

So lets talk a bit more about the public taxis or Kumbis.  Kumbis are vans that hold 14-15 passengers (depending on whether or not 1 or 2 passengers are in the front seat) and run predefined short and long distance routes.  You pick them up on the side of the road or from a taxi rank. 

You will see people up and down the S.A. roads extending their arms and forming a hand sign of pointing up, down, to the side, etc. (reminds me of folks trying to pick up a hack in Baltimore).  The hand sign communicates to the driver which direction the person is looking to go.  If the passing taxi has space and is going in the direction you indicated it will then pull over and pick you up.

In large taxi ranks, like the one I have in Rustenburg, signs designate which cities, towns, or villages the taxi is heading to.  Similar to taking bush taxis in other parts of Africa, the taxi will pull off once it is full.  In a busy town like Rustenburg, taxis don’t take more than 10-15 minutes to fill up.  In less populated areas I have heard waits can be more than 30 minutes.

Rustenburg Taxi Rank

Taxi drivers are notoriously crazy and bad drivers similar to taxi drivers in NYC.  To let the driver know where they want to get off, passengers yell out things such as stop sign, sharp right, or sharp left, or after robot.

The most interesting part of the taxis ride is the payment system.  BTW for reference, I pay 9R ($1.16) to take a taxi to Rustenburg (town or toropo in Tswana) from Phokeng (approximately a 20 min ride) and 6R ($0.77) from the Rustenburg taxi rank to the Waterfall Mall (mallo in Tswana).  When you catch a taxi from a taxi rank, one person in each row collects everyone’s money.  That pooled money is then passed up row by row to the driver, by tapping the shoulder of the person in front of you and handing them the money.  While the money is passed how many passengers it covers is communicated (kind of like a game of telephone).  The passenger in the front seat collects all of the payments and passes them to the driver.  The driver then makes change, sometimes being assisted by the passenger in the front seat, and the change is passed backed to the appropriate row.  To designate which row the change is going to the driver will state how much money he was given and how many people it covered (i.e. 100R 4). The passengers in each row sort out the dissemination of change.

Sitting inside a taxi waiting for it to fill up

 I find this so interesting because the foundation of this payment system is communal and trusting in nature.  I keep wondering if something like this would ever work in the U.S. because we are so distrusting, individualistic, and in some regards prefer not to interact with strangers.  I know it wouldn’t work if for no other reason then passengers sit really close to each other.  Speaking directly about paying though, I keep thinking in the States someone would try to get away with not paying or underpaying, especially since if you get on at a from the side of the road you just pass your money up at some point before you get off.  Imagining how the ride would go if it was full of Americans always gives me a quick laugh though.

So far I haven’t had a taxi ride that was too eventful.  Yesterday, I did have a guy that decided he wanted to be my friend.  Despite my putting on my headphones instead of continuing the conversation with him, he decided to pester me about giving him one of the ear buds so he could hear what I was listening to, giving him my phone number, and me taking his phone number (I took it even though I told him I would never call him).  He even just stared at me (like literally with his head down on the seat in front of him) when I finally just decided to ignore him.  Thankfully he got off before for me.

I am hoping that once I learn Tsawna, I will be able to participate in the very animated conversations that usually take place during the taxi rides.  Hopefully, if you ever visit S.A. this quick taxi tutorial will help you with navigation.

--Mei