Romeo One – A Disguised Box of Flaws

On the morning of the first day after I had been assigned Romeo one, I was extremely excited. For the first time, I was really looking forward to going to work. I was also looking forward to night time because I could now go anywhere and at any time because I could see the road. There would now be need of waiting for unwitting guides to escort me in the darkness. Romeo one was reputed as being the car with the brightest headlights in the company. My colleagues profusely congratulated me on my “enviable” upgrading and I really believed that they were genuinely happy for me. Only it was not so.

Romeo one was the only station wagon and so all jobs involving luggage were assigned to her. This was an obvious advantage because I now had my work cut out for me. What I didn’t know was that there was a downside to this. Most clients did not want to be picked up by this “truck”. A lot of them actually believed that this car should remain parked until a client with excess baggage showed up. They even said as much, to my face every time I went to pick them. This was not a flaw on the part of Romeo one – at least not in the true sense of the word – but it was bad for business. This however did not stop the romantic one from literally becoming an airport taxi.

Romeo one and I would show up at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at least once every shift, but often more. Additionally, I had regular clients who usually had a lot of luggage. There was one who was a professional photographer and he had lots of bulky equipment packed in duffel bags. He was also often accompanied by shapely girls who were apparently his photography subjects, but judging by the way they carried on I believed they were more than just that.

One of the main reasons why many clients did not like to be ferried in Romeo one was the fact that she was not particularly comfortable. Her cushioning was rather hard and the back seat resembled a bench with a back rest. Those clients who liked riding back left did not look quite so elegant on Romeo one’s back seat. They looked out rightly ridiculous. This was because the back rest was rather short and any adult would look like a clown in those tiny circus cars. The whole interior assembly was also constantly squeaky due to being overworked during the regular folding up of the rear seat to accommodate more luggage.

Romeo one was a convenient car to have but she had absolutely no style (imagine she was plain white!). She didn’t have the features I had taken for granted in Victor, the main one being the radio. Romeo one had a radio alright but it qualified to be a museum exhibit – to teach children about the historical development of radios. The radio only received in mid-wave and the most interesting programs I could listen to were primary school radio lessons. At least I got a refresher in elementary education. That however was not the worst thing about the radio. The worst was the speaker. It was only one and it couldn’t have been more than 2 inches in diameter. It was fastened somewhere inside the dashboard and it snorted more than it talked. If at least the speaker had been good, it would have made my “school work” a lot more interesting.

Romeo one was not intended to be driven fast. She had a four speed manual gear box and a manual steering. Getting her to move fast required all the skill I could muster. When I did manage to accelerate her fast enough for my taste, she would ruin the mood by ringing some chimes from somewhere behind the speedometer. This was ostensibly to warn me that I was over-speeding – at 110 km/h! With Romeo one, you couldn’t just floor the accelerator pedal. If you did, the engine would cut off – like the rudest kind of a speed governor. Instead, you had to woo her gently in order to accelerate her. This, I came to learn was because she had a long running problem with her carburetor (yes she had one), and no one had been able to fix it. The problem also made her a guzzler and now I knew why the other drivers had avoided her. This was because fuel “ate” into a driver’s commission – which was calculated as a percentage from the money which remained after the fuel cost had been deducted from the daily collections.

The carburetor problem made Romeo one to smoke badly (really thick black smoke) and nobody wanted to park behind her unless he didn’t mind ending up with a black patch on his car when she was started and revved. On its own, this problem would have been bearable had it not been compounded by another more serious one. Romeo one had been involved in many minor accidents in the past and all had involved her boot door (tail gate). The panel beating jobs had been done well apart from the fact that the door was now not completely air tight. The black smoke would therefore find its way into the car if it was driven at more than 60 km/h. At first I never realized why I was always teary eyed every time I drove fast – and I am not an emotional person. When I look back now, I don’t understand how my clients and I didn’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Saying Goodbye to Victor – And Falling in Love!

During my last few weeks with Victor, I was not recording the mileage in my work sheet. This was because her odometer was not working. I had driven her until the speedometer cable broke and I was not even driving that fast. The problem was with Victor’s speedometer needle. It did not move proportionally to the speed of the car. It used to add about 40km/h to whatever speed I would be driving at. If I was driving at 120km/h (which for Victor was easy), the Speedo would indicate 160km/h. On the day that the cable broke, I was driving at 140km/h – and her top speed was 180km/h!

My colleagues were really envious of me driving a car with no odometer. For them it would have meant making a lot of unaccounted for money because everything was based on the Kilometers covered. For me it made no difference owing to my honesty and inexperience, because getting work was still a problem. What I didn’t know then, was that the time of bidding my beloved Victor goodbye had drawn near. I had driven Victor for only three months but it felt like a lifetime. It was probably the most eventful three months of my life – at least that’s how it seemed then.

In the taxi business drivers come and go. Attrition is extremely high and it is rare to find a cab driver in Nairobi staying in one company for long. Not all the reasons for leaving are bad though. A big chunk of the drivers leave for greener pastures – mostly NGOs and foreign embassies. Every taxi driver constantly dreams of the day he will get employed by an International NGO and be assigned a big off-road SUV with a winch and high-lift jack clamped to its mean looking bull bars. To many of the drivers it remained (and to a few still remains) a dream. For some it came to pass sooner and for others, much later (like was to happen in my case years later). That particular time, it happened to a guy known as Cyrus. He got a driver’s job with the UN. We were all green with envy but we were happy for him – me in particular because I stood to benefit the most from his leaving.

During those days in that company, there were three classes of vehicles – and by extension three classes of drivers. Victor and I were, of course, in the third class of vehicle and driver respectively. Cyrus, the guy who was leaving was in the first class with his vehicle known as “Yankee”, or as we fondly used to refer it, ”Ile Nyeusi”, which is Swahili for “The Black One”. Now don’t get me wrong. There was no way I was going to inherit the Black One. No one ever jumped classes. We had to move progressively from one level to the immediate next one. There was a second class guy by the name of Alex who was going to be the heir of the Black One. He used to drive a station wagon (the only station wagon) christened “Romeo One” (Drivers used to call it “Karori”, which is Kikuyu for small lorry owing to the huge payload it could carry). It was this Karori (Romeo One) that was going to be the ticket to get me away from Victor.

I expected a lot of competition for Romeo One but I was surprised to realize that I was the only one who was interested. There were several other class three drivers but they seemed content with whatever they driving. I didn’t have to play any politics or do any lobbying. Romeo One was given to me on a silver platter, quite literally. When she was handed over to me officially, I instantly fell in love.

It made a lot of sense then that her name was Romeo One. She was everything that Victor was not, and more. Her headlights were like X-rays, they could illuminate the road for miles ahead. Her wipers worked – at three different speeds. Her windows could be smoothly rolled all the way to the top. Her seats could be tilted until they were like beds, and her heater worked. I could not believe my luck.  I was going to learn later that she had her own issues which were quite different from those of Victor. I would understand the reason why nobody wanted her, and why everybody had literally encouraged me to have her so that they are not forced to take her. That however, is a story for another day.

Having an Accident or Two – and Living to Tell the Tale

During my long career as a driver, I was involved in only two accidents. They were not accidents in the true sense of the word. They were more of road mishaps and they caused minimal injury and damage. Perhaps I would have considered them inconsequential and not worth writing about if it was not for the reason that they both involved that moody girl, “Victor”. Both of them also happened within the first three months of my being hired.

The first accident occurred on Christmas Eve of 1999. I had been working for slightly more than a month and was asked to take one of the company staff members to the city centre. She wanted to buy some personal items for Christmas and we went to a street in Nairobi known as Moi Avenue. I was very tired and sleepy as I had just worked overnight. I stopped at the shop she wanted to go into and she walked in. I was particularly grumpy that morning and couldn’t wait to drop her back at the office and go home. I decided to make a U-turn while she was still in the shop so that we could just drive off as soon as she came out. I checked in my side mirror and the road was clear so I swung the car round onto the middle of the road. Previously, I had only heard of a rear view mirror blind spot from other people. It was my turn to experience the danger it can pose.

I heard loud hooting and the screeching of tires as an oncoming car tried to avoid hitting me. I applied emergency brakes just as Victor was positioned straight across the road. The other car swerved just in time to miss my door, and then swerved back again to avoid hitting other cars parked on the side of the street. Victor could only manage to inflict light damage in the form of one long scratch on the side of the other car right up to the rear wheel. If this was how Victor behaved on the open road, then it was apparent why she had those scratches on the corners of her bumpers that I had noticed when I first inspected her.

The driver of the other car and his passengers were not going to let me get off easily as I was clearly on the wrong. They were inciting each other to extort money from me to pay for the damage to their car. I was angry at their taking advantage of my misfortune. I was also scared because there were five of them against me – I was alone as my colleague had come out but was keeping a safe distance to let me take the fall alone. It was unnerving to see a crowd starting to form as usually happens in Nairobi when an accident happens. These crowds have been known to rob accident victims and vandalize their vehicles. I had to decide fast or have the situation escalate to unmanageable levels. My “victims” were demanding two thousand shillings. It was the only money I had in my pocket. The only problem was that it was not my money. It was company money which I had collected through the shift and was supposed to submit before I left for home.

I had no option but to pay the money. I picked my passenger, and went back to the office. I explained that I didn’t have any money in cash as I had used up all I had to pay for the damage I had caused. The supervisor would hear none of it. I would have to pay that money to the company or consider myself jobless. We broke for Christmas – A dark Christmas indeed it was – and I had to think of where to get the money from. I had not accumulated a single coin in savings and I was in a fix. I shared my dilemma with some friends in the village and they came to my aid. Each gave me a loan of one thousand shillings. I was elated when I went back to work in the New Year and was given back the keys to Victor.

About one month after reporting back, I had my second accident. I was driving through a Nairobi slum known as Kangemi just after having dropped a client. Kangemi is a place which had, and still has so many people that even walking through the throngs was a problem. Driving in Kangemi was a nerve-wracking experience because you literally had to push your way through the mass of humanity. I was inching my way forward slowly as people moved out of the way hesitantly and crowded back into the road as soon as I passed. I noticed a young man crossing in front of me as I approached. I never expected him to turn around and attempt to cross back again, but he did.   By the time I stopped, I had hit him.

There were screams from the guy I had hit, and also from onlookers. A huge crowd quickly gathered and I didn’t know whether to protect the car, attend to the injured man, or deal with the crowd. The guy was writhing in pain but most of the people in the crowd were baying for my blood. They were listing the number of people who had been hit by vehicles in the area recently, and blaming it careless drivers like me. My heart was pounding like a drum. I was terrified and didn’t know what to do. I thought my end had finally come.

A young guy came out from the crowd and everybody seemed to respect him by the way they let him pass and listened to him. He advised me to take the guy I had hit to a doctor and he offered to accompany me. This seemed to appease the crowd who would not have wanted me to leave with the injured man alone. They claimed that people had previously left with those that they have hit purportedly to take them to hospital, only to dump them some roadside to die. I took the guy to a small local clinic where the doctor diagnosed him to be having soft tissue injuries but no fractures. I parted with four hundred shillings for the treatment, and I also had to drop him at his house. The guy who had assisted me did not ask for any money. He just wanted to help, which I found to be a rare quality in such an area.

I had already reported the incident to the office but by the time I got back, the supervisor was frantic. This was because I had conveyed the wrong information due to the incorrect use of the radio call. The radio call microphone has a button which one is supposed to keep pressed when talking. We were always advised to press the button fully for two seconds before starting to talk. This was meant to ensure that the full statement was conveyed. New users however, always pressed and talked simultaneously causing the first part of the statement to be cut off. This was the same thing I had done when I was asked by the radio operator if the person was badly injured. I answered in Kiswahili, “sio sana”, meaning not badly. However, having inadvertently cut off the first word from the communication, it came out as, “….sana”, meaning very badly. The supervisor had imagined that he would be dealing with a case of causing death by dangerous driving.

Finding a Way of not Getting Lost

During my first days as a taxi driver, I had an unbelievably poor sense of direction which led me to getting lost several times during every shift. It was the one trait I needed to lose if I was to survive in my new found profession. It was losing me respect, clients, and money.  The loss of money was of course the most significant since I had not accumulated much of the other two. It didn’t do well for me to build up hundreds of shillings in bounces every day. On the road to my financial freedom, this was like walking one step forward and two backwards. I had to find a way out – fast.

I assessed my situation and realized how precarious it was. There were only two ways out. One was to quit and go back to the village, and the other was to stay put and learn what I needed to. Being the fighter that I was (and still am), I had only one option and that was to stick where I was and learn. Learning something as complex as the routes of a big city is easier said than done owing to the fact that there is no known teacher on the subject. Most people believe that learning any route is best achieved by getting lost. There is even a Kenyan community proverb to that effect. I could not, however, afford to use that method because in the taxi business, getting lost meant paying up – in hard cash.

The solution to my problem occurred to me during one of the deep meditation sessions that I used to have in those days. It would still cost money but would be worth every shilling. That is each single one of three hundred shillings. It would put the whole city of Nairobi, including the suburbs, right in the palm of my hand – or on the bonnet of my car, quite literally. The way out of my predicament was through one of the greatest inventions of all time. It was also one of the best investments I ever made in my life – a map of Nairobi. Up until then, I – like most other Kenyans – used to think that maps were only meant to be used by tourists. I knew then that many lost people would not have been lost if they had a map.

Geography had been one of my favourite subjects in school, and this knowledge came in handy. Reading a direction from my precious map, and going there physically made me know (unusually fast) the routes to take to many different places. I never let any of my colleagues know about my map. I never removed it when I was parked at the base. I would wait to be sent to a place by the control room and with my newly discovered confidence, I admitted to knowing wherever it was that I sent to. I used to drive out of base, take the general direction of the place I had been sent to, and then park by the side of some lonely road. I would take out my map and spread it out on Victor’s (my red car’s) bonnet.  From that I was always able to find any place as long as I knew the name of the road it was located on.

My colleagues started noticing the fact that I was not getting lost anymore. They erroneously attributed this to what they thought was my high level of intelligence and a supernatural memory. I still pretended to ask for directions but always cut somebody short saying I had already understood. I let them take the credit that rightfully belonged to my map. I also took some of the credit by being referred to as the easiest new driver to give directions to. I trusted that map 100% until I came to learn that not all roads in Nairobi have names, and not all those with names have them written on a sign. I also came to know that not every square kilometre of our beautiful city is mapped, and potholes are not indicated on maps.