“Sisi Front Seat”

Every taxi ride has one thing in common, and that is passengers having to sort out the taxi fare amongst themselves row by row until it reaches the driver. When you sit in the front seat you will be temporarily “employed” as the drivers “calculator” and make sure that he gets his money in full. The unfair thing is that you don’t get paid and you still have to pay your taxi fare in full, now that sucks. The job has its own weaknesses though, especially if you miscalculate, people want their change and they want it in full.

Imagine after giving the driver his money you hear someone say, “Ngicela ichange yami” and there’s no money left, you look back and you see the person looking at you like you just stole their soul! Your heart palpitates because you are flat broke and no one is willing to say “oh I got extra change”. So now what must happen? Because the driver is turning a blind eye since he got his money, it becomes a moment of a two minute nyana prayer.

I try to escape the front seat because I CANNOT count, I am mathematically absent, and now how can I handle the whole taxi’s money? I CAN’T!  That’s why the three worst words that a taxi marshal can say to me is “sisi front seat”, and he doesn’t want to hear a story so I sit there and mess up.

A few days ago I came across a miracle, the taxi ancestors are with us, there is a new app…wait for it…it’s the Phambili app ( http://www.phambiliapp.co.za/ ) and it’s an app that calculates the taxi fare for you. This app was developed by Thokozani Memela to help people like me to not be weary of ukuhlala phambili. I accessed the web based app and it’s so accurate and on point now I don't mind the front seat, so if you are like me do yourself a favour and check it out. If you do not have data take the drivers phone and access it, do it at your own discretion though lol! No more four, four masihlalisane, enjoy…

                                                     Four, four masihlalisane!

                               A Zola Budd after years of four, four masihlalisane.

Sometimes in life you don’t get value for your money and this is especially true in the taxi industry, at times it’s like paying for a loaf of bread only to get half a loaf. As much as we complain, we go back, simply because it’s more of a need than a want. And the funny thing is that the driver wants his money as is, not even 10 cents short. But we sit there accepting whatever is thrown our way like it’s a free ride, well I guess for us it’s all about getting to wherever we going.

Mara why ye? We sit there like sardines waiting to be rescued, while we know very well that things are neither going to change nor get better. There’s nothing more life threatening like four, four masihlalisane, it causes shortness of breath, numbness in the lower body and instant weight loss. When you hear the que marshall say these three words you immediately get off the taxi and run for your life!  Well that’s not true, in reality you sit there trying to let the que marshal know that you don’t want to sit on the three seater with four people. You perform gymnastics with your face, to no avail, and if you dare complain you going to get it and no one’s going to back you up.

Imagine squeezing four well-fed people in a three seater and each of those people are convincing themselves ukuthi “yoh mina angeke” I will sit comfortably, there’s pushing and shoving, they end up being mad at each other. And there’s always that one woman with huge hips and she tries to squeeze her entire hips into the seat, she ends up shoving herself for the rest of the ride and she constantly says “Nxa”. Then there’s that guy wearing a skinny jean and his wallet is in the back pocket, so now we have to stand up so that he can take out his taxi fare, as if he didn’t hear when they said “four, four masihlalisane”. And in all this there will be that one person knowing very well that we are immobile but they still want to eat ama-kipkip, and then they close the window! Mara that’s a story for another day…