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| Drawing by zerihun seyoum |
There was a long line
for taxi, ‘wow that is long’ I said to the woman last in the line. She didn’t
care to talk; she looked at me and turned. More people came to line up behind
me.
I was in line for a taxi from Mexico
to Bole. I keep looking at my watch every 3 minutes, the line was moving very
slowly.
The people and incidents I encountered in my way from home to office, an hour, gave me a glimpse of life.
A blue contract taxi
slowly drove and stops side by side at the end of the line. I looked at the
taxi, I looked at the line, I am far behind, I look at the people lining behind
me, and in few minutes there were actually a lot of people. Thus, I thought, well
the temptation is not just for me. I bet most of these people are also late for
work and tired of lining up for just a taxi and want to fall for the temptation,
the contract taxi. I thought of the money I had in my bag, what I am planning
to do with it, how much the contract taxi will cost me, probably 100
Birr. I can bargain for 70 Birr. I also thought of what the people would think
when I move out of the line to take the contract taxi. Would anyone come to
join me, would anyone say let’s share the price and take the contract taxi. But
no, they wouldn’t, they will only say, ‘yemanat kebet! (Spoiled brat J)
I preferred not to be called that, even in people’s mind. No one else went for
the contract taxi.
I looked at to
the length of the line again, and the people behind me. An old beggar, with white
beard on his chin and a green scarf rolled over his head is playing ‘Washient’,
walking closely to the people in line. He stopped as people on line give him
cents, and start playing again.
Beautiful sound of music!
Then another beggar
came, a man in his 40’s, tilting from his back, he is wearing a grey short,
with many patches sown on and a grey scarf over his shoulders. He looks sick.
He is holding a white card, which seems like a hospital card.
A woman breaked a line behind
me, “hum” no one reacted to that. She came up to the man behind me, calling out to him,
Dr! they greet each other. As I often do in incidents as such, I start to
listen to their conversation to shift off my mind from the line that moves like
a turtle. They start talking about a man, who recently lost his son, Meningitis
killed him. ‘Does Meningitis kill!!?’ the woman asks. ‘Even flu kills if it gets into
you,’ the Dr. responded. '', I said, really? but not out loud.
They start talking
about the father’s depression over his son’s death. The women kept saying, it
is his wife, it is his wife that does this to him. The woman adds, ‘he is too
religious, that is his problem, he even married her ‘beteklil,’ she lives in
States.I started losing her.
Then the woman starts
to talk about her divorce. “After my divorce, I always used to wake up at night
crying, I cried a lot. It is because I was so attached to my children, before
my divorce I always used to sleep with my daughters, I slept in the middle. ‘No
wonder’…I thought.
She said that she
called the man that lost his son and told him about her divorce experience,
probably he is divorced too. He went to Europe, it is better if he goes to his
wife, to States, they said. I thought of how all Ethiopian’s destiny became
going to America.
There were two boys
selling books on the side. As the people in line reach them, all the eyes fell
on the books, reading the titles. A man asks, ‘how much is this book? I looked
down, ‘The Power of Unconscious Mind.’
The boy responded ‘45 birr’,
‘Would you sell it for
40’
‘No’
‘Leave it then,’ said
the man in line.
The boy turns to his
friend, to continue the conversation he started before the man in line
intervened. My attention shifted to them. They are talking about their home
land, I learnt from their accent they are most probably from Gojam.
‘There is no road!
There is no telephone…”
The other boy,
continues, ‘there is no water, there is no light, there is no…”
His friend intervened,
‘what is wrong with you, you simply add on what I was saying, there is light and water.”
They laughed, ‘the
water we pour like this,’ they both moved their hand up and down, laughing
loudly.
‘Have you heard, they
now have started grade 9 and 10,’they continue their conversation.
The line moved, I got
into the taxi and made sure the woman and the man I had been listening to are
sitting behind me.
‘After 20 minutes we
made it into the taxi,’ I said to the woman sitting beside me. I saw that she
is pregnant, she didn’t lose it waiting in line like us, because she was
allowed just to get in to the taxi. I
wished to be pregnant at that moment, I imagined myself, in a tight orange top,
showing of my pregnant tummy just to cut in line.
I shift my attention to
the people behind me, they talked about work, and business, tax…then they took
out their wallets and showed each other their children’s picture.
The taxi stopped
at ‘ShewaDabo’ turned off the engine, and the taxi boy went out calling ‘bole
bole bole.’
Many passengers started
to complain. I heard the woman behind me, making all murmuring sounds, ‘huff!
Heche! Ti! Hai am late for work, can we please go.’
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| Drawing by zerihun seyoum |
In few minutes, people
started to get into the taxi, there was no space, but there were more people
getting in. A tall man with white hair only on the front of his head, black
jacket and white shirt, gets into the taxi, there was no seat. The man had a
big book and an Amharic Bible on his hand. ‘Looks like a pastor,’ I thought. The
young man at the back seat leaves his seat for him, ‘I have been sitting for a
while now, come here,’ he said. The young man sit on the spot, where mini buses
usually sit extra passengers.
‘Oh nice of him,’ I thought.
I heard the woman sitting behind me,
whom I have been giving much of my attention to, asking the man his phone
number. To my surprise, she asks for his name too. ‘Wow she been talking about
all these details of her life, her divorce to a man whose name she does not
remember.
The man said ‘weraj
ale,’ on his way out of the taxi she asks him loudly, ‘you have my number,
right?’
‘I will look for it,’
he said and waved bye to her.
The woman keeps
complaining about the extra passengers in taxi. The young man, who left his
seat for the man that looks like a Pastor said, ‘it is good to help out each
other, there was no taxi.’ The woman keeps complaining, and the young man said,
‘well you also break in the line, we didn’t say anything, because we thought it
is okay, and now you are complaining.’ Oops! That remind me of how most of us,
go to past incidents, which we did not deal with at the moment, just to back us
up our present arguments. Hummm! Why didn’t he say so then if it bothered him
when she broke in line? And if he thought it was okay, he shouldn’t have
brought it up now. The woman tried to defend herself, shortly she was off the
taxi.
I was looking down for
something in my bag, when our taxi stops suddenly. Sitttittttt! It was about to
crash with a silver Corolla, which was parking at the side.
As I look up, I saw I
am almost at Bole, ‘Weraj ale!’
As I walked into my
office, I thought, wow that was just a glimpse of life-
In an hour, I was made
to think of temptations; life and death; sickness and health; marriage and
divorce; pregnancy and children; riches and poverty…much more!
