Breaking the kombi rules my teacher taught me

February 6, 2009 by imakando musho ·
Filed under: I was just thinking, Travel Tales

Although I went to a ghetto primary school, my teachers strived so hard to teach us what rich kids were being taught at uptown schools formerly known as Group A schools. Somehow they succeeded- in me at least- because I am so different from other people I learnt with. I am in college, am a freelance writer, just finished on my first book and speak with a ‘civilised’ uptown accent. Since I had turned out to be what every teacher wishes of their students, I actually believed that I had turned out all the ghetto genes in me although I still stay in the ghetto. How wrong I was.

I came to face this cold fact after a six month break from public taxis commonly referred as kombis, when I finally hitch-hiked one for the murderous Bulawayo-Harare distance. My teachers had more than thrice given us the five commandments of travelling in a kombi;

1) Thou shall mind your own business.

2) Thou shall not eat inside the car.

3) Thou shall not interact with the hwindi.

4) Thou shall not answer your phone and speak loudly into it.

5) Thou shall not make friends; there are better forums to make friends.

Anyone who broke such rules was not educated and these laws of the kombi became our indefinite tool of checking who was educated and who was not.

However, I am sure by the way I behaved during my last public taxi ride, my teachers are still turning in their graves with shame. If they had bragged to the angels that I was their best student the only way to reclaim their pride would be to say, ‘There must have been a mistake somewhere, I don’t teach such rubbish.’ Did you say rubbish teacher? What then would you call your students who are forever sitting on drainage pipes smoking pot? Garbage?

So there I am, I get in to the kombi and sit beside a young man who is around my age. I am a nice guy, you know with semi British manners imparted by my teachers so a mutual hi would be proper manners and as they say the rest was history. Small talk on the weather, state of the road culminated into an endless conversation that lasted five cities with the unanimous- to quote Zanu PF- exchange of numbers and a few deals in the pipe line. Although rule number five had been broken it found me blessings. What better way to meet people with personality besides in public taxi?

Since I had broken one rule, it was quite natural that I break the others because they are so interrelated. I mean, how can you make friends with someone without revealing much about yourself? And although my fellow travellers were the noisiest kombi lot I have ever seen, I know one or two ears heard what was not intended for their ears to hear. Like my usual self I was so excited that I lost control of the volume knob to my voice box.

For the first time I got hungry and I responded to that impulse almost immediately. I have always known what those vendors do when the police do their rounds but some how that day comforted to an extent that all the kombi passengers bought some thing I forgot that this was food that had once been hidden in public toilets that were last cleaned in the last millennium. My three doughnuts on my lap and a poor coke imitation in my hand, the last thing on my mind was cholera. And to say I didn’t enjoy would be a lie. This was even better than the stuff we find at Chicken Inn.

I am not sure how many kombi rules I broke those five hours, all I know is; it was the funniest thing I had done in a while. Whoever said breaking rules gives you a sense of achievement was right. Despite my teachers’ efforts to label me as Robin Hood to the angels, I made a friend, ate dirt without getting sick and talked my mind out.

That experience taught me I can be whoever I want to be and do what I can do without being governed by any rules. The only thing that education has done us wrong is the refusal of ourselves, forgetting who we are as a people and that’s catastrophic. It can be of no doubt that this is one of the reasons why our country is in such a state today. We have forgotten who we are and are trying to live our lives as the British or the Americans we see on our TVs every night

Judging by the fun I had breaking the most bizarre rules in the world and the liberation I felt afterwards (although I walked the walk of shame), I am sure that my next expedition will be to break all the civilised living rules my teachers taught me. All I am debating is whether to go and sit by the stoops at Eastgate Shopping Mall or watch those funny dramas in Harare’s First Street. Only God knows how much I would like to be in both places.

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