taxi drivers

Every weekday morning and sometimes in the evenings as well, my patience is tested. Every morning when I have to get to work and flag a taxi. Without fail. And when my limits are tested, my day is spoiled. With red dust sprinkled over my face, the smells of forgotten garbage along the roadside, I clenched my teeth, I breathed, hoping I'm not about to say all the wrong things when I hopped into the car. I confessed: Taxi drivers are the bane of my frustration here in Freetown. And I have taken a lot of taxis. And each day, I get the same deal, the same story. I go through the same hassles, leaving me very disgruntled. I keep asking myself: why oh why?

There are a variety of them. Sleazy ones, nice ones who speak politely to you, chatty football-crazy ones and so on. The ones I personally cannot stand are those who are are just plain rude and tries to ask you for more money. They will insist the fare is too small to take me that distance and I normally retort by saying that the price has been agreed upon. I tell them I'm aware of the standard rate. If you want a little more, it's fine by me. But not when you try to shake me off 10 times more because my skin colour differs from the average Sierra Leonean. Simply, I hate being ripped off because I'm a foreigner and that equates money.

Some people tell me to just pay the price. Drivers don't get paid that much and that money means nothing to me, some would quipped. That's not the point. It's a matter of principle. To be able to board a taxi without needing to feel constantly at edged, without having to yell at each other and all of that. Taxi drivers provide a service. People like me pay for that service. I pay him to take me from destination A to B. And if I choose to use a different route for a different price, we negotiate the price. That is fine. What is not acceptable is when drivers would argue and raised their voices at me trying and demanding to increase the fee to an absurd amount. There was an incident after work. I flagged a taxi. He asked a price 3 times more than I wanted to pay. I was already offering him a fee 10 times more than what one would pay for an average ride. I told him flatly that that's 3 times more than the standard rate. A guy across the road came over and told me to just pay the driver the amount I asked for. I snapped and told him to shut his bloody mouth up. He is not the driver. The driver, meanwhile sat there and pretended to look almost clueless, which is I must say is a pretty common look around this place. Unassuming, blank, nonchalant, ignorant. I am often disgusted by that look, by such am ambivalent attitude. They insisted I should hire him for an hour and pay the rate. I pointed out the fact that my house is a mere 10 minutes away. At the very most, in traffic, it will only ake 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of arguing and haggling, which left me very very annoyed and ready to spit in his face, I agreed on the price he wants me to pay. When he dropped me home, I gave him the money and told him to shove it up his arse. That's one problem with this country - almost every single one is fucking greedy. Right from the top echelons to the remnants at the bottom.

It's all about the money. I recalled someone once used to say that it's easier to say that when one has never been poor. Don't. Don't even begin to use that against me. Being poor has nothing to do with the need to be greedy and ripped others off in the most blatant way possible at any cost possible. Nothing excuses such a crooked behaviour. Nothing.