I sat right at the back of the kombi. A foul smell like rotting cabbage and uric acid filled the air. The woman sitting near the window refused to open the window and even the other man sitting in the next row.
I felt irritated and this was made worse by the loud sungura music which blasted from the speakers. The volume was too high.
“Can you reduce the volume?” I appealed to the conductor.
“There is nothing wrong with the volume, tonga kumba kwako,” the foul-mouthed conductor or hwindi replied.
The driver was driving dangerously and over speeding. I paid my fare by passing it to the man sitting on the next row. The man disembarked soon after the golf course.
I knew both the driver and the conductor. I was thinking that I would never board the kombi again in future when the conductor said, “I am short of one dollar, at the back seat, one of you has not paid the fare.”
The radio was switched off. There was silence. All the other passengers sitting at the front rows cranned their necks as they looked backwards. The assumption always was the backseat passengers played truant with the bus fare. At the back seat, the four of us all looked at each other.
“The guy of talking too much about reducing the radio volume, did you pay?” The conductor said.
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I had passed my fare to the man who disembarked at the golf course.
“Yes of course, I passed my money to the man you let out at the golf course,” I said. I looked at the other passengers at the back seat for confirmation.
“I did not see anything, I was on the phone,” said the woman sitting next to me. She was scrolling on the phone half the time.
“I want my money, you talk too much,” said the conductor, with a raised voice.
It looked bad. The other passenger had disembarked with my bus fare. That was the only money I had.
No one believed me. You can tell this by the stares you get.
“Driver, stop the vehicle, one passenger has not paid,” said the conductor.
There was a police roadblock just ahead.
“I will stop after the roadblock,” the driver said.
At the roadblock, the driver was flagged to park by the side of the road. There were several other kombis already parked by the roadside. It seemed there was a major police operation. A police officer came and peered inside the kombi, counting all the passengers. After that he checked on the window screen for the vehicle licence and insurance.
He then went by the driver’s door and said, “Let me see your driver’s licence and route authority certificate,” he said.
The driver checked on the dashboard. It was not there. He was looking for something he knew he did not have. I don’t think they had the route authority, if they had, it had likely expired. The driver disembarked.
They were ordered to pay a fine and there was more delay as there was a small queue of other drivers paying their fines.
The driver came back after a few minutes grumbling. He was holding a ticket in his hands.
After driving for about one hundred metres away from the roadblock, the kombi screeched to a sudden halt.
The conductor pointed at me with his forefinger, “this is where you get off,” he said.
I tried to say something but the conductor was having none of it.
“Don’t waste our time mudhara, get out,” the conductor said harshly. Some of the other passengers looked at me with disdain. When I disembarked, I heard two or three other passengers laughing and one of them said,” what example are you setting old man?” and the kombi drove off. The conductor hurled insults at me as he hung on the door.
I was embarrassed. I was late for work and I had to complete the rest of the journey into town on foot.
It was all fate. Sometimes you don’t need to blame anyone if things go wrong.
- Onie Ndoro X@Onie90396982
