A bus ride to Francistown with Rastaman

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday June 13, 2023 06:00

There’s a firm belief that the commuter has now suddenly lost his reading skills as the waiting bays and buses are clearly marked with the various towns and villages.

As someone once said, “I often think this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum”. That feeling is thick at the bus rank. But as the economy teeters on the brink of collapse, people have to find innovative ways to earn a living. And irritate commuters! The Bus rank economy is one of those with great potential but government doesn’t see much here.

Here there are hair salons, pop-up restaurants which are called Dijo Bagolo by snide people with evil heads, several banks whose design is a chair a table and a cloth to cover the vault and are manned by one female teller. There are also Toy Shops, Electronics Shops, Nasty Factories and all sorts of other CIPA-unregistered factories and businesses.

The tout wanted to shepherd me to the buses going to GC but I nicely spurned her advances. It was one of those rare fulfilling moments when a male says no to a female and I felt completed like a plant that has just been watered. However, people at the bus rank do not give in too easily and she gave me this long ‘you too are using the bus like all average citizens’ stare. Basically with one single stare she dismounted me from the high horse she had imagined I was on. Picking a fight with bus rank citizens is never a good idea.

We have learnt this over the years and yet still the brave and foolish somehow have the nerve to try. One passenger, perhaps more used to franchised food outlets, had the impudence to complain about how the aroma from the Dijo Bagolo restaurants is invading her nostrils. Everyone descended on her like a tonne of bricks and threw all manner of insults, some exclusive to the bus rank only, as she vainly tried to rally but she was light work and ended up in the Embarrassment corner.

I found a seat next to a slender guy whose little frame spilled onto my side of the seat somehow. He wasn’t too happy that a broad-shouldered, broad-bellied and possibly broad-egoed passenger had chosen to sit next to him. I coolly elbowed my way into the seat and kept a straight face. Like a fruit fly stuck in honey, he reluctantly rolled off to his side of the seat.

He was a lightweight and in a fight with me it would have been a total mismatch with no prospects of a rematch. So I settled down and opened a tabloid that fell right in his face. I gave him the ‘you asked for it’ look and he knew not to complain.

Outmuscled and out-bellied, he must have endured a very unpleasant ride but I just did not care. Next time he’d know to share with potbellied folks. I was thankful when Slim Jim alighted in one of the villages bringing an end to the hostilities of the Cold War that had erupted just as we left the Palapye bus rank. But then his seat was taken by yet another passenger who was a whole project on his own.

His hair looked like somebody had put it into a blender and hit the Whip button. In our country, if you have that type of hair, you are automatically a Rasta man. Now Rasta Man was very happy to see me and his vocal chords were in speakmode courtesy of a visit to the local brewer’s yard so he wanted to dialogue some more. There’s a direct correlation between imbibing in local brew (in fact any brew) and activation of the vocal molecules. I suffered through the whole ordeal but it was still better than ordering moist girls and receiving dried fruit. I looked at him with a face like a Pekingese trying to understand French but he was unrelenting and kept switching topics from the weather to football to the arrival of Texas cattle to Tonota girls to politics – basically the usual topics which every Tom, Dick and Rastaman has an opinion on.

His diction did not include the word diction or the word varied or the word vocabulary or the word narrow or many other words. I was thankful when he dropped off at Tonota and made the connection with our conversation regarding Tonota girls.

I watched him amble off and felt sorry he had to deal with those girls again. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com.