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Taxi to eKasi

A taxi just seems so wretched and black. I prefer my car and should my car breakdown, lucky for me, there are so many options, Uber, Taxify and a good old cab. This is the new generation of black South Africans, who grew up in former white neighborhoods and attended fancy white schools or model C schools. The reality of poverty and lack, seems like a foreign subject to them. Them that speak with English that confuses even their white counterparts, “is he black or white”, you really can’t tell over the phone, but that is good, isn’t it? Now they can get better service than the black person who sounds black, just as long as they don’t use their real name, they should be find.

The desire to distance ourselves from poverty, has turned to the desire to distance ourselves from blackness. There seems to be so many things wrong with being black and the further one distances themselves from this image, the better it feels for them.
The “Kasi”, seems to be a foreign land to those who live in white suburbs or towns, there is just to many black (poor people) at “eKasi”. If one moves from the suburbs to “eKasi”, immediately without even realization, we all think what possibly could have gone wrong in their life, that they would take such a big step backwards.

However we lack to talk about the millionaires who own football clubs and big corporations in South Africa, who decided that they would never leave their “Kasi” and those who fought in the struggle for liberation, who decided they would not move from their “Kasi”, what about those who are ministers and serve in some of the biggest governing bodies in the country, that too decided that the “Kasi” was home for them. If the “Kasi” is too black and has too much poverty, then you are looking at the reality of the country. Welcome home.  


The taxi has the biggest stories of this country. Full of a mix of young and old, those who have lived in the old South Africa and the new South Africa. Those who have seen the betrayal of this land we call home and those who have tasted the fruits of the land.
The Taxi route, takes you from “eKasi” at 5:30 am, to pick up those who are chasing the sunrise to setup shop or to catch an early class. Driving to the suburbs at 7:00 am to pick up school kids, whose parents have worked “hard” enough to afford a model C schooling system for their kids. The taxi drives further to pick up those who are working close by, getting paid enough to pay their rent in a good enough suburb that won’t be laughed at.
In the evening the Taxi will take the same route, taking all its passengers home , those who woke up later, who live in better neighborhoods, get to be dropped off first and their taxi-fare is lower and those who woke up first to catch the first Taxi, are the last to get home and pay a higher Taxi-Fare. This is South Africa and the Taxi to "eKas" is for everyone, but it’s not an equal taxi, there are young and there are old, there are poor and the better off, the taxi’s conversation are a free lecture of the state of the nation.

Once you make it out of the Taxi and buy a car, you cannot return, there is no way you can be seen in a taxi, there are too many poor (black) people, your English qualifies you to be removed from the cluster of black poor people (majority of South Africans). Your parents have worked “hard” for you to go to a white school and those taxis are not meant to be forever, like those poor (black) people in “eKasi”.



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