In Which It's Time For Another Blissful Saturday
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 20/Nov/2010 21:17, 34 days ago
In the first of a new series may I present5 Fun Facts... About Freetown Cabbies1. They turn off their engines at the first sign of slowing traffic or the mere hint of momentum (to coast for a bit):“fuel is expensive”Question: how much does it take to switch the engine on and off? How long does it have to be off for to make it worthwhile? Like with lightbulbs, does anyone even know?2. They like to make you play musical chairs. The best bet is the front seat but even then you might have to share (standard cars easily hold 7 people...you didn’t know?) If you’re in the back you’ll either have to let people out, or make them get up to let you out. If there’s an empty middle seat, you’ll be expected to scooch over. The stereotypical picture of starving Africans is just that. Or, at any rate, most of the ones who have enough moneyto take a taxi areverywell fed, if you get my drift...3. They can multi task. In addition to talking and texting, they like to sort out change while they drive as the roads are too narrow to stop for long / they don’t want to waste time. This means they are just as likely to be looking at their passengers or at their bundle of notes as they are at the road. Sometimes they even try to stop taxis coming in the other direction to get them to change large notes. This is not a way to make friends with traffic ineither lane.4. They never have much petrol, so may need to stop at a petrol station, with you on board. Still, not seen one with a‘check engine’ light on (yet) meaning they’re not quite as bad as BBT's Penny.5. The cars make the thing I almost wrote off look showroom-new. It is highly likely that at least one of the doors won’t open from the outside (or even have a handle), and expecting there to be 4 windows is a bit excessive, doubly so if you expect these to go up and down. Windscreens with cracks are of course acceptable, so long as there’s a nice Man United or Arsenal sticker sealing it somewhere (though theseare like trying to bridge the Thames with steri-strips) Seat belts are compulsory in the front only. In the back they’re not. Just as well since they rarely exist.I join Banke for lunch at Bliss. It is everything is should be, and more. The garlic bread is good, the biscuit cake is better. As we're paying, one of the guys brings over a free sample of a new smoothie he's testing out, chocolate mint. It's good but you wouldn't want more than a shot glass full. The mint tastes so natural, like it's straight from a garden. It's unbelievable. Then we walk down to Freetown supermarket and I amuse myself following round some surely just arrived Brits. 3 middle aged women, 1 middle aged man, 4 very definite fish out of water. Should they make a darling Risotto tonight? Oh I say, what a splendid idea. Except one wants pasta and needs tomatoes as they’re going through 6 tins of the things a day. Golly. And they also need corn flakes. Corn flakes cost £5 a box. Something tells me they’re not subsisting on our sort of per diem, though quite frankly who has employed them to do what boggles the mind (unless the rather quiet man is some sensibleexpert type, and the others are his wife, girlfriend and mistress? Anyone know a blonde, British Penny in Freetown? If so, probably best not to show her this.)