Society has always dragged this continent along like it was broken wing on the side of this great bird, Earth. About a decade ago the First Nations collectively decided to amputate. For good reason, things were deteriorating faster than they were improving. In 2012, after they’d flattened all their forests, Mozambique was sold off by it’s government to become a prison state for China’s convicts. Part of a beautification process to get rid of their heathens (by heathens I assume they mean poor). Soon the North American Union followed suit, as did the Europeans. A land worth sending the worlds worst too. The people living there were all but forced out in lieu of these towering new expensive prisons and this country has become one of the wealthier countries in sub-Saharan Africa as the result. Billions of dollars a year from foreign governments just to keep the lights on in prisons thousands of miles away, in a country most of them have never seen. Free meals for life, a cool place to sleep, a decent connection. These prisoners are the envy of the region. It’s too ironic, then, that even this prison is above the reach of the local people. When they commit crimes they go somewhere else, this prison is for First-World offenders only. I know what life is like there. It’s only this job that got me released.
My parents, conceived me in early 1999 in Mumbai. They talk about the night often, often failing to omit the parts that make me want to wretch like how father had locked himself out of his flat, so they got it on in the shelter of his auto-rickshaw. Her father was so furious at the man who had defiled and impregnated his virgin daughter that they fled the country, eloping in the one place where they knew he’d never bother them, Nairobi. It was there that he opened his restaurant The Sultan Pepper which he still owns today. I was born shortly after the opening of the restaurant, which is why I’ve never been back. My parents had no desire to return. So I am Kenyan. I learned to walk, I soiled many diapers, I scraped my knees, I kissed a few girls….and then a few more...it wasn’t long before I discovered a love for computers.
I became a walking contradiction; I worked for a Cyber Terrorism Squad by day and I used what I learned to hack better than the criminals that I apprehended at night. I was a burglar of sorts, pilfering mainframes and databases for banking information, stealing money from corporations that were too big to notice what amounted to petty theft. It was a way of life for a lot of us. We stole from the rich to become the rich. If I had been any less of a cyber-thief I’d have ended up in the local prison and eventually dead, but since I became known as a world class hacker they sent me to ‘Mo. I spent the next five years in that prison. I’d still be there if it weren’t for, again, my skills as a hacker.
A developmental group had come to the prisons looking for engineers, mechanics, programmers and architects. People with aptitude and a certain intuitiveness for things high-tech. As an internationally sanctioned program, they were able to work out a deal that let white collar criminals out on parole while doing work that benefited society. If you completed your sentence with them you could apply for release on good-behavior. They offered everyone an alternative to living in ‘Mo for the rest of their lives. We could earn our freedom by becoming teachers for those that the last fifty years seemed to steamroll over in the blink of an eye. We’d get our passports back and we’d be free to travel within continental Africa. In other words, they’d let us leave one prison so that we could make a bigger one our playground. We were given electronic kit and visas that allowed us roam freely, from assignment to assignment, until our chore-time was served. At that point we’d get extracted and sent back to wherever we’d come from and we’d be reinstated as citizens. Space travel was the only thing that remained off limits. Only scientists and the filthy rich and their families lived on the orbital station, which had a population of less than 5,000. Felons couldn’t leave the planet, which meant that even when we could leave this landmass, we’d still just be trading one continental prison for a planetary one.
And so, I volunteered to become a teacher of technology; a digital man on this depressingly analog continent, on his way to Gulu to teach villagers the difference between a mobile and a tablet. In some cases… a rock.
My cab driver was a Chinaman (most of them are these days). My chinese isn’t so good but it’s getting better. After the Chinese government began subsidizing it’s entrepreneurial citizens bids to conquer the African market, there was huge boom in the sino-expatriate population. The “African land grab” was back on, this time from the Asians who came from China, Korea, Japan, India, Taiwan, all over. But that five year subsidy had more Chinese coming here than all the rest combined. I assume this one is here for the same reasons, or perhaps he’s the relative of a contractor. I don’t ask, Cabbies have a way of stretching conversations out longer than they need to be. There’s a pigeon dialect called Swahinese (swan + ha + ease), an amalgamation of English, various Bantu languages like Swahili and Mandarin. I picked up quite a few new words in prison. Mainly the Chinese, speak it to cope with the plethora of languages spoken south of the Sahara. They just start throwing out words and hope the locals can catch at least one out of every three.
“Yo wa Chinese very good,” he says to me over his shoulder.
“Gǎn xiè, bwana. Better than your English!”
The quick car is an American invention. From deep in the labs of GM. It looks something like a smart car with wheels but it uses a combination of compressed air and magnetism to fly between ten and eight feet off the ground. It can only sustain such altitudes for a few minutes at a time, which takes a wicked toll on fuel. They’re meant to be two seater vehicles, three, tops. It’s what a glorified auto-rickshaw, designed by MIT students; perfect for cabbies and bachelors but bad for everyone else. The locals call them hopahs (hoppers) because of the way they take to the air for short distances. They used to think boda-boda were dangerous but hopper traffic is like ten people on the road firing sling shots in the same general direction and trying not to have the stones hit each other. Considering the fact that many of the drivers are often drunk and you start to see the problem. There’s been at least a hundred cases of them coming down on top of pedestrians and cyclist as well. Still, it’s fastest way to get anywhere in a teeming urban center like this.
The cars and their hybrid engines weren’t cheap when they debuted in the first world, but they proved so dangerous that they were promptly banded and sent to places like this. Again, nothing but the worst for us! I’ve heard that in New York and in London they use fourth generation quick cars that have fusion engines and higher powered magnets. All the cities, I’m told, are lined with neodymium rods. The rods help stabilize the flight of the vehicles, also providing a natural order to traffic. Vertical neodymiums allow for their vehicles to get as high as 100 ft. Half the vehicles in those cities don’t even touch the ground any more. It’s beneath them I suppose.
The shīfu zhàn on the other hand is full of all types of vehicles, mostly traditional taxis, share taxis (motatus), coaches, and quick cars. But you also see the occasional sky-cycle and other such exotic things. I assure you, the story of how each of those vehicles ends up here, is much more interesting than mine. Some come through the black market, stolen in Europe, smuggled through Spain, brought to Africa via submarine and driven on massive trucks all across Africa. In prison I met one of the men who managed such an operation. He told me that the ingenious part was the submarines, there are so many pirates and warships terrorizing the shores that no one thinks to look below the waters. “Of course,” he told me, “If my mariners were ever caught by European or American Naval radar, they’d be blown out of the water immediately. It’s a high risk job but it’s also incredibly lucrative, I made millions in only a years time.” He went on to tell me that they sold mostly to the Egyptian, Moroccan and Nigerian governments. The vehicles then somehow trickled down, through a system of distribution I didn’t bother paying attention to, into the hands of the wananchi in countries all over Africa. It was a fascinating story, really.
Many are cast-offs from the first world, especially from Japan. The Japanese basically pay African importers to take their junk automobiles. Space is so limited there that it’s cheaper to pay the cargo and refurbishment fees for African manufacturers and resellers than to buy landfill space. Plus, for them it’s just another way to sustain their businesses by clearing out their warehouses, selling off back-stocked parts.
A sharp turn distracts me from my thoughts, jolting me as the driver makes a sharp turn to dodge a particularly tall payload on a truck. They don’t get that high above traffic, the quick cars, it amazes me that there aren’t even more fatalities. They’re far from the most graceful man-made inventions to take to the air. I think they might get their name because of how quickly people get sick in them.
“We are near,” the driver says pressing his horn down at the other hoppers whizzing past us. “You pay now. Fare 7,000 shilling.”
Runners, as they are known, are people who take special hires, knowing they can’t afford them. When they arrive at their destination it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they got their name by taking off as soon as they can. I’ve heard stories of some leaping out of the cars while they’re still in there, rather risking a broken leg or sprained ankle from the ten foot fall than arrest or vigilante justice from a furious cabbie. I hand over the fare looking over his shoulder. Outside, just a few feet below, the taxi park was alive with the fervor of a thousand men hustling their services. I’m not offended by his demanding, in a city this large, and poverty this high, I’m sure most of his passengers turn out to be runners.
I should explain the way it all works for any of you who haven’t been to Africa in the past forty years or so because it hasn’t changed much:
MOTATU (SHARE HIRE)
You gather with the crowd of other people waiting for a lift, hovering near the entrance of the park -- it’s not really wise to go inside, lest you want to get robbed. You wait for a vehicle to either pass by, with what’s called a hanger leaning out the window, screaming out the direction of where his vehicle is headed and how much cheaper his fare is than every other driver in the city. If the place where the driver is head is anywhere near you want to go, then you just hop in.
TAXIS AND QUICK CARS (SPECIAL HIRES)
You hover near the same entrance but as an empty vehicle leaves, you simply wave your arms to flag it down. You’ll often get quite a few guys approaching you directly, but these are usually the scammers who are no longer trusted by even the other cabbies, thus, they can’t stage their vehicles in the park anymore. Faring with them is always a gamble…
AUTO-RICKSHAW, BODA BODA AND SKY-CYCLE
All the danger of the quick car with none of the protection or bulk. Still, if you’re this daring just wait by the entrance, they’ll swarm you in seconds.
COACH
There are only a few coach hires, but the ones that are available tend to be crowded, expensive and slow. The advantage is they go directly to their destination with few stops along the way. Whereas motatu’s stop every fifteen minutes for any idiot on the side of the road, these guys just keep going. They tend to be better kept and they smell nicer than the share hires. These come by on a fixed schedule and stop three places in town. The shīfu zhàn, somewhere near the nicer hotels and a more affluent suburban area. Simply wait at the stop and these will come right to you. Although the ride is nicer, the perceived wealth of the passengers makes them targets for frequent hijackings and hold-ups. Sometimes the thieves take the luggage and go, sometimes it’s far worse.
“G’day, sir.” I tell the cabbie as the vehicle lowers to the ground and the door whizzes open. He nods, not really hearing me at all, his mind has already moved ahead to his next challenge for the day, the next person, the next location and the next potential runner. The thin layer of red dust that covers the ground is stirred by the rising quick car, as I step down to the pavement. My mind too had moved ahead, to Gulu.
This is really great. I hope you carry on writing.
I'm off to read chapter 3 now...
Posted by: Diaan | 05/19/2009 at 03:51 PM