My first matatu ride...
Before I begin with this story, let me first give you a little background on matatus.
"Matatu" comes from the Swahili word for "three." It used to cost 3 shillings to ride in a matatu. But what is a matatu? These days, a matatu is usually a minibus, or other public transportation in Kenya. For a few shillings a piece, as many people as can cram in there, with their baggage, and perhaps some livestock, can get a ride to where they are going. And often there would be baggage on the top and several people hanging out the back door. This has changed recently as the government is cracking down and only allowing 14 people on each matatu. Matatus make up 78% of Kenya's public transportation system.
Sometimes matatus look like this:
Or like this:
Or even, like this:
Back to my story…I was downtown this afternoon visiting a friend and colleague from Ghana and needed to get back to The Tigoni area where the language school is located. The time had finally come – Matatu time. Before leaving, I had received some very thorough directions on precisely where to find that matatu stations were, in order to be picked up. The directions were, “near to the Kofa Mosque.” Ok, easy. As we walked around the mosque twice, we soon discovered that “near” was a relative term. Roughly 6 blocks away we found the station. I did not have my camera with me, but my mind has a picture similar to this:
I finally found the proper matatu and jumped in, careful to not look at anyone, in order to not offend – or something like that. I am still getting used to being stared at, as I am the only white guy in every crowd.
The journey seemed to be going quite smoothly. Each matatu has a driver and a conductor. The conductor collects the money and tries to solicit more business from people walking on the road. So, the conductor collected everyone’s money about 8 minutes into the trip and most passengers in van began falling asleep or daydreaming. As we came up on a police roadblock, we were randomly pulled over for an inspection. This is quite common and nothing to worry about, usually. I began to notice people not only waking up but starting to fidget and move around quite a bit as the driver was pulling over to the side of the road. Remembering that the passengers are fined if they don’t wear their seatbelts, I began to scramble as well. After a lengthy tug of war with the guy next to me I flung my seat belt around me and tried to click it into the buckle, only it was about 6 inches too short! After some world class best stomach sucking, the belt miraculously clicked into place. Praise the Lord – no fine today!
Off we went with no further problems. We stopped several times in random areas letting passengers on and off, with each passenger having to crawl over most of the other passengers in the matatu. We arrived at the Limuru stop, with me still needing to catch another matatu toward The Tigoni area. As I jumped in the second matatu, the driver told me he would only charge me 200 Shillings to go the 5 miles to The Tigoni area. I would have felt so fortunate that he was giving me a good deal if I didn’t know that it was 10x the normal rate! I paid him his 20 Shillings and of we went arriving safety at the bottom of our hill.
It was quite a ride and one I won’t soon forget.
GREAT STORY! Brings back memories of a similar type of transportation system I experienced in South Korea 35 years ago while in the army. There, the busses are called Kimshe Busses...they had unlimited occupancy and baggage, including small livestock. They were called "Kimshe" because all the Koreans on board wreaked of kimshe, a very spicey, smelly cabbage that is a mainstay of the Korean diet. I would have liked to see the look on the conductor's face when you only gave him the 20 shillings...did you wink at him? Thanks for the pictures, too. Does the state own the busses, or are they private enterprise? YBIC, MarkMc
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