Travel a little while by backpack through East Africa, and you’ll soon encounter a couple of specialties of the region. The sardine tins, otherwise known as matatus or daladalas, are Toyota Hiace vans. ‘Licensed to carry 14 passengers’ is always written on the driver’s door, but don’t pay too much attention to that. Twenty or more (not including children) is the usual number and when things get really full, someone will sit on the roof as well. Combined with poor maintenance, excessive speed, bad roads and reckless driving, they are deathtraps on wheels – but unavoidable if you want to get to out of the way places. After a near miss (and I had a few), the event is soon forgotten and everyone soon chatting and laughing again. Such is the mentality of the people here.
The conversations while squeezed into a matatu with 20 other passengers are often quite revealing. Some questions come up time and again:
· Does the West have a cure for HIV/AIDS? or,
· Why does the West not give Africa the cure for HIV/AIDS?
· Your government sponsors you to go travelling, don’t they?
· Are black people still slaves in your country?
· Do Rambo and Arnie really kill all the bad guys in the movies (kids kept asking me this)?
I always try to correct these misconceptions, but I doubt anyone actually believes me!
Nice angle-parking
The ubiquitous rolex is my street snack of choice in East Africa. First, the rolex guy fries up a doughy pancake (a chapati) on his little street-side hot plate. He then fries up a 2 or 3 egg omelette, lays it on top of the chapati, rolls the two up together and serves it to you on a scrap of newspaper. Fantastic: a fat-soaked, energy-rich, calorie bomb for less than US$1. For some variation, I replace the omelette with a banana, which incidentally are fantastically cheap here. On a normal day, I devour 3 or 4 rolexes and a dozen bananas. Who needs a balanced diet anyway?!
A rolex assembly line
The wrapping paper's main function is to soak up the excess grease
The conversations while squeezed into a matatu with 20 other passengers are often quite revealing. Some questions come up time and again:
· Does the West have a cure for HIV/AIDS? or,
· Why does the West not give Africa the cure for HIV/AIDS?
· Your government sponsors you to go travelling, don’t they?
· Are black people still slaves in your country?
· Do Rambo and Arnie really kill all the bad guys in the movies (kids kept asking me this)?
I always try to correct these misconceptions, but I doubt anyone actually believes me!
Nice angle-parking
The ubiquitous rolex is my street snack of choice in East Africa. First, the rolex guy fries up a doughy pancake (a chapati) on his little street-side hot plate. He then fries up a 2 or 3 egg omelette, lays it on top of the chapati, rolls the two up together and serves it to you on a scrap of newspaper. Fantastic: a fat-soaked, energy-rich, calorie bomb for less than US$1. For some variation, I replace the omelette with a banana, which incidentally are fantastically cheap here. On a normal day, I devour 3 or 4 rolexes and a dozen bananas. Who needs a balanced diet anyway?!
A rolex assembly line
The wrapping paper's main function is to soak up the excess grease
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