Living for Disco

I flagged down the taxi and told him I was going in the direction the Central Hospital. In Windhoek, you have to guide taxis by landmarks – Kalahari Sands Hotel, KFC, Simon de Wet Bridge – because people don’t use street names here. Also, taxi drivers are not required to study a map of Windhoek before they take the job, so half the time they don’t know where anything is. Despite this, they often have an annoying habit of thinking they know where you want to go better than you do.

“Are you sick?” asked the driver, while his companion smiled at me, nodding.

“No, I’m not going to the hospital, I have a friend who lives near the hospital.” He nodded, as if he understood.

“Are you visiting someone who is sick?”

“No”, I said. “I’m not going TO the hospital. My friend lives NEAR the hospital. Ooh, he lives down there actually – can you take that road on the…”

We sped past the turnoff, and I pointed and said “It’s there – that’s where I need to go.”

“Don’t worry Meme. You don’t know the way round here. It is fine.”

“But… I can see the road where I want to go. Where are we going? What are you doing?”

My destination rapidly shrank into the distance through the back window, and we took a road that looked as if it led onto deserted scrubland. I started to panic. I imagined them hauling me from the car, beating me over the head and stealing my alcohol-free lager. And maybe my phone. I hoped that they wouldn’t make me bleed.

He told me again not to worry, that he would make sure everything was fine, that he would get me to the hospital.

“But I don’t want to go to the hospital. I already told you. I’m going somewhere near the hospital. I showed you where I want to go. I want to go that way.” I waved my arm in the direction from which we had come. I was getting a bit exasperated by this time. And my lager was getting warm.

“Yes, don’t worry Meme. I know the way.” he said again, clearly assuming that I was a mental patient. I think he probably wanted to get me to the hospital before I started foaming at the mouth.

We pulled up by the side of the road, opposite a couple of small stalls selling bruised apples and unidentifiable smoking meat on sticks. The women sitting around looked at me with a complete lack of interest. One of them moved the apples around a bit.

We sat in the car in silence for a few seconds while he waited for me to get out.

“Do you know this place Meme?” he said eventually.

“Yes”, I said resignedly. “This is the hospital.”

I did eventually manage to persuade him that he should take me to my friend’s house, but it was tough. He seemed irritated with me for some reason I can’t fathom.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under Under African Skies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.