Cabbies

I don’t mind riding the cabbies but in the past two days I have ridden them more than I like. I had to go to the bank about 15-20 minutes away for the MoneyGram. yesterday when I went I forgot my passport so that was my fault. The lady at the bank told me that was all I needed to receive money. So I went today after class again and another lady tells me I also need proof of address. I was like wow seriously? I wish they would have just told me that yesterday. Now I have to find time to go back again. I guess I was a little bit frustrated today with all this. I had to do a couple breathing exercises so I would stay calm lol. 

Sidenote: I’m going to explain how the cabbie system works here (well as much as I know so far) so that it’ll make sense when I talk about how I think I got gipped out of 4 rand today (about 60 cents). 

So usually when you get into a cabbie it can be pretty empty or really full (like basically sitting on someones lap). There is always a driver of course, but some cabbies have the guy who collects the money and a guy who yells out the window (I like to call this guy the ‘hype man’). The hype man is always yelling where the bus is headed towards and usually that is ‘TOWN TOWN’ aka downtown. Sometimes the money collector is also the hype man for the bus. If there is no hype man or the bus is too full for him to maneuver the money is passed forward about 3 rows until it reaches him. So usually you pass to one person in your row who then passes it to the next row and tells how many people were accounted for so that the money collector knows how much change to give back. Sometimes though you can give change amongst each each other for example if I had a 20 rand bill and the person next to me had two 5 rand coins then I would take the 10 rand and get change from a neighbor and then we would pass the 20 accounting for 2 people. This usually works out just fine and it seems like a fairly honest system. But someone told me on the cabbie once that if someone doesn’t pay then the driver stops and doesn’t move until the difference is paid. And these people who run cabbie system seem to be very good at math and memorizing who gets in and out. If not they would probably not be making money. 

Well today I was on one going from downtown and it cost 6 rand. I only had a 10 rand bill so I passed that to the lady next to me but she didn’t have 4 rand for change. So she took mine and hers and passed it on. Well I never got my 4 rand. I think she saw my 10 rand and just added 2 rand meaning she didn’t pay her whole fare. I was going to ask the guy but I was thinking about it so long that by that time it was time to get off. And I had already witnessed a debate on the bus before and it was quite loud and obnoxious. I was too tired at that time to try and argue so I let the 4 rand go. 

So yes I like riding the cabbies but theres always a lot going on in them. I have a lot of cabbie stories if anyone ever wants to hear them :]