“…it’s a tourists van”

“The first five passengers pay 200/- all others will pay 250/-”

“Yes, Friday morning offer”

“Three are in already. You are fourth, one more and the deal expires”

“And lastly, oh these ones are two so the sixth one is lucky”.

The success of your work will depend largely on how much love you attach to it. Even when the pressure is too much, having the task at heart takes away all the anxiety or rather, your energy will not be siphoned off by the force compelling you to deliver.

Early in the morning, in a town where few people travel upcountry mid week, it calls for tactics or to refer to it in a better term; improvised means to get passengers board one matatu and not the other. On this particular day, the above quoted sentences were from a tout drawing travelers to his vehicle. His method really worked and the journey seemed to be almost starting. The fourteen sitter matatu would start earning the owner the first coins of the day.

I had imagined the times had passed when wooden pieces were placed between two seats in order to create additional sitting space for extra passengers. Three of these were carefully put in place and that meant seventeen passengers, no, eighteen; the tout’s seat too had been occupied and he (tout) had to half seat and half hung on the seat nearer to the door.

It is easier for a passenger to board a vehicle that already has a number of others than one without, this must have been the point the tout was taking into consideration when calling in passengers for an early morning discount. How would you convince the last passenger who boarded the vehicle to pay 20% more than the others? No notice, not even an offer given to them since after the first six passengers nothing of the sort was mentioned.

“Wee ni polisi ya wapi?”-you call yourself a policeman?  the tout responding to a by stander who noticed the state of the vehicle and attempted to stop it.

200/- is the amount each one on board gave out in payment for the two hours journey.

I wasn’t enjoying the situation, being my first time to use this particular route; I wondered how people managed the travel hassle. One hour into the journey, by which time we were already out of urban settlement, the vehicle now had twenty two passengers and the tout at some point signaled the driver to take up extra persons.

His reply to a surprised passenger: “Usijali, hii ni gari ya tourists. Bado kujaa”-don’t you worry, it’s a tourists van. It’s not yet full.

This triggered my memory to go back to an episode that had occurred almost two weeks earlier; a man who had seemed to have taken quite a good deal of substance, also the tout had proudly told three passengers at the back seat to create space for a fourth person, a request they never obliged to. Then he had spoken out loudly; “Ai bwana, hii gari ni ya utalii. Haiwes jaa hifyo tu. Tafadhali songea mtu mmoja. Ni ya tourists”-hey sir, this is a tourism van. it doesn't fill up that easily. Please create place for one person. it's a tourists van.

Our journey would continue with the vehicle picking and dropping passengers several times. The surrounding dry vegetation characterized by grey trees was what I resulted to watching, thinking of how it would be put into meaningful use, just to avoid seeing the drama that was happening in the ‘tourists van’.

So is this love for ones job? Now that the one way journey had earned the vehicle operator quite a good sum of extra coins!