A ride in a ‘Fofo’ shatters all the tranquility that envelops rural life
I sobered up as I was to be loaded into the back of a van (a taxi) to town
I now reside atop the evergreen hills of Zululand, in the midst of natural forests and grazing fields that extend freely beyond the reach of the eye.
Choral serenades of the season’s bird life announce beautiful sunny days, absorbed into the glaze of fresh water rivers cracking through the valleys ...
Nonsense! I stay in the bundus, right across the chief ’s court house – an institution that serves “goat fines and a bottle of brandy” justice.
The weather is insanely bipolar, the soil here will crack your heels into something like coin slots. I normally drive around in a Corsa, which is currently broken, so I do find myself in a taxi now and then. I remember the first time I had to use public transport.
There I was strutting on the damp sandy road, stunning in high heels and polished catwalk when a guy in a white van starts calling for my attention and making familiar hand signals. I was puzzled for a while. It took a good hundred seconds to accept that THAT IS the taxi!
I sobered up from my pretentious sophistication. I was about to be loaded into the back of a “Fofo” – as the vans are affectionately called in this neck of the woods.
Worse, there were half a dozen other souls already fighting for the little oxygen there was. I thought of refusing the ride and walking the odd kilometre stretch, in my 6-inch heel sandals. No.
So I gracefully climbed up the crate provided. I was awfully uncomfortable.
On boarding, I discovered just how interesting my community was. I looked at the various characters I was encaged with. I was clearly the metropolitan. I could just
‘‘ I could not breath, worried I’d succumb to temporary unconsciousness
imagine what was going on in their minds as they stared at my shoes. Oh but wearing stilettos in the cab of an overloaded van was peculiar.
There was a traditionalist, crouched and unashamedly staring at me and shaking his head in disapproval.
Well, I did not approve of his wristband either, thank you. He wore isiphandla with the longest fur I’d ever seen. That could not have been from a cow. No! It looked like he had skinned a mane off a baboon from Dlinza Forest.
This man clearly had an ancestral crisis that could not be solved with the slaughter of a Jersey thoroughbred. I felt sorry for him, but my primary concern was in fact the lady sitting next to me.
That would be simpleton makoti. If anyone alleged that she was clad in five petticoats under that pinafore, I would not deny it. For all I know she was hiding a live goat under there – especially as she reeked of a cocktail of impepho and a medley of stroke-inducing potions – like a Mai-Mai chemist. I could not breathe. I was worried I would succumb to temporary unconsciousness.
Only her loud outbursts, as she reprimanded her kids, kept me alert. It was in fact this makoti’s putrid odour that increased my discomfort. I suffer extreme cases of anxiety. Confined spaces, heat and a morguetype aura are definite precipitants of an anxiety attack. And true to my nature, I was not about to miss an opportunity to have a fit in public.
Fortunately the van came to a halt as we had reached town and the first stop where an elderly lady was to alight.
I quickly jumped off and threw up almost all my intricacies onto the town’s pavement, somewhat celebrating the fresh air.
And I paid the full price fare for the torture.