The Car Challenge: You up for it?

i took a taxi today for the first time in a long, long time.

Two actually, and it was great.

This morning my friend and Improv aficionado [always wanted to use that in a sentence] Megan and i went to a primary school to volunteer run four thirty minute classes of Improv with grade 5’s and 6’s. It turned out to be a lot more fun than i was expecting. Especially cos we made it all up when we got there. As one does. But the kids were amazing [apart from one group of boys who were maybe juts dmazing] and it was loads of fun.

Then Megan dropped me off at the train station cos tbV had the car and i needed to train back to Diep River.

And that’s where the adventure began.

Because there was a note on the train ticket buying place that said no single tickets or returns could be sold. When i asked the lady what this means she said, “No single tickets or returns can be sold.” Okay, wait, she didn’t, but she did say that there was a TWO HOUR DELAY on the train.

But…But…But…I’m important people… Places to go… People to see… [mostly cups of coffee to catch up on and some bloggering actually, but still!]

So i walked back to the road and started walking and looking for a taxi.

Now Megan had offered to come and fetch me if there was a problem, but i didn’t want to put her out. i could have also called Val and she actually offered on the way to come and pick me up but i also refused that.

But that’s privilege number one – Network – the fact that if i’d really needed a car, i know at least 15 people i could have called without thinking about it [but in reality probably close to 100] who would have driven out and picked me up and taken me home.

Or maybe that’s privilege two, because privilege one is having a car and more often than not the ability to – without giving it much though – grab the keys and climb into my car and drive somewhere… because i’m married and we have one car [intentional decision] that does reduce that privilege somewhat and require some juggling on occasion, but it’s still a massive privilege many don’t have.

BACK TO THE JOURNEY

So there i was walking along, looking for a taxi that wasn’t going to Bellville [as all the taxis i saw seemed to be] and reached into my wallet to count my cash on hand, figuring that a taxi would more than likely not operate a card system.

Privilege three is being able to hand people a piece of plastic in exchange for bags of shopping or a car filled with petrol or some clothing and typically not to have to think too much about will we have enough.

i had just over R10 and a LARGE portion of that was in twenty and ten cent pieces. Now i haven’t taken a taxi for a while but i suspected that R10,50 might be just on the edge of just about enough to get me some of where i wanted to go. So i walked on, keeping an eye open for ATM machines [so i could draw a R20] and taxis that didn’t say ‘Bellville’ on the front. After a while there was ‘Bellville’ and ‘Manenberg’ which was also not too helpful.

So walk and walk and walk and walk and eventually get myself on to Main Road which i realise gives me a better chance of being picked up in the right direction. i see a taxi that says ‘Wynberg’ and ask the guy ‘How Much?’ and he says ‘R10’ so ja, wow, let’s do it. Halfway home, find an ATM, get the rest of the way home.

Pay my money, head to Wynberg, find an ATM, draw some money, spits out a hundred rand note, figure that’s an awful thing to give to someone in a taxi when the fee is around R10, buy a pie and slush cos MMMmmm Slush… and get change and head outside and start walking towards Diep River, keeping an eye out for taxis.

Taxis now say Wynberg, which is less than helpful. Walk some more and Wynberg Main Road is a super rad place to walk cos i think it has the most rest of Africa feel of any place in Cape Town and maybe South Africa. Just a buzz of all sorts of shapes and sizes and fashions of people and street vendors and vehicles and just a beautiful mess… So walk a bit more.

Find a taxi to take me to Diep River, get in, sit right at the back, pay and drive and be dropped off on Main Road maybe a five minute walk away from our house.

And finally make it home, although i did have to throw out the last mouthful of grape slush because a fly somehow flew into my cup and dove into my remaining pile of juiced ice – it is THAT hot today.

Probably an hour and a half trip, that would have been thirty minutes in a car and maybe 45 in the train.

Which brings me to privilege number four which is time.

Because i own a car [which was actually a gift from a friend in the UK – network privilege again] i can typically jump in and go to where i want to go, do what i want to do and be home. Quick quick. There are people who wake up at 3am [if not earlier] in the townships to grab a taxi and then a train and then sometimes a taxi again, to get to their place of work [do some maths on the numbers of what that costs day in day out] and then work all day and return home [taxi, train, taxi] with the requisite waits in between [for the train to arrive, for the taxi to be filled if it’s at a stop and leaves once it is… for the stops it makes on the way] and then typically have to cook for family, do own house cleaning and anything else that needs to happen [despite being exhausted from what has been a long, long day].

When i posted about my journey by taxi on Facebook, someone immediately jumped on and suggested i take an Uber because it’s faster and cheaper. And therein lies privilege number 5. The reason i have never taken an Uber before is because in my experience of looking up/asking for Uber prices online it is not that cheap. This person may have thought i was talking about a taxi taxi and not a minibus taxi. To my estimation, Uber feels very much like a privilege/wealthy option.

THE POINT

The point of all this was that it was good for me to do a relatively simply journey that could have been done much quicker, cheaper and with other people’s help, in the way that many South Africans have to get around every day.

It is good to be reminded of different layers and levels of privilege that exist in the area of transport and vehicle ownership. If tbV and i had two vehicles it would make life a lot easier and a lot more comfortable. But we certainly don’t need two. And so we make decisions around the fact that we only have one vehicle. We could also get by without any vehicles, but that would definitely affect the decisions we make and the opportunities we have.

The challenge i would love to leave with you – if you are a vehicle owner – is this:

# Try and make it through a typical day where you need to get places and do things only making use of public transport. If you have some flexibility in your time then i’d suggest you try do this for a week because it will give you a better reflection of the pitfalls and obstacles that might get on the way. For example, arriving at the train station to find that the train is delayed for two hours would really mess a lot of people around a lot more than me.

# If you ate a two or more car family, then experiment with using one car for the week. If you have grown children staying at home and you have three or four cars even, then still go with one and negotiate times and appointments and necessities and try it as a family experiment.

i would love to hear how any of those go. The less cars per family has an added element of cutting down on your destroying-the-planet footprint [which is one of the main reasons tbV and i went for it i think] and so i would seriously consider the possibility of losing a car. For some people in some contexts that might be pretty tough [and require bigger decision making to get you there] but for those of you who can, despite it being a little uncomfortable and frustrating at times, seriously give it a think for 2017. Maybe you could even gift your car to someone who is without a car or consider some kind of car-sharing space between friends who live nearby?

i REALLY hope you will give this a go. And i hope you will come back and let us know how it goes for you.

And if you are a South African and have NEVER been on a minibus taxi, then shame on you. i will come with you if you’re too scared to go alone, but it really is a part of South African culture and life [same to those of you who have never ventured into a township, but that’s another post] – get a friend, jump on a taxi, pay your R12 and head somewhere…