Reflections on sunday: Are you in the ‘My-Car’ family?

If you read the works of Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, these are the people who were reverently referred to as the ‘been-to’s’. The “been-to” in the Nigeria of the 1950s was a revered personage who had been abroad. Woe unto you if you referred to him/her as a ‘person’! Having been abroad itself did not mean simply having been outside your home: it was loaded with so many other connotations, all of them awesome. It meant having been to another continent; having traversed the skies; having crossed all the waters; having mixed with the white race; having imbibed the white-man’s knowledge; and a host of other indescribable experiences. A ‘been-to’ was not an ordinary Nigerian; he was counted among other, higher species, who never missed a chance to say: “My car is doing well this morning!” A ‘been-to’ did not give an ordinary answer to an ordinary question, the way you and I do. For instance, you’d not get a simple “Fine!” to a greeting like “How are you, sir?” A ‘been-to’, if you greeted him/her like that, would first examine you with amazement, then look up in the sky and then around him/her in wonderment, before clearing his/her throat and answering in measured tones and carefully chosen diction: “Well, well, well! If it is not good old Amarinze the cat in person! “How am I, old chap? Well, considering the brazen winds of the winter of the country of my Alma Mater that is graced by Her Majesty’s stewardship, which is Great Britain, and considering that I am back and bathing in the soothing sun of my African motherland, and that my good old faithful Jaguar automobile has arrived in unscathed condition, I would say I am very well, thank you.” Those good old days are gone for Nigeria, just as they are gone for Rwanda. These days a university education does not guarantee you a job, and a job does not guarantee you the possession of that “automobile”. So, if by the stroke of some luck you are the proud owner of ‘wheels’, you are paying through the nose and every time someone mentions it, you talk in harsh tones so that the topic is quickly dropped! You don’t want to be reminded of how the whole neighbourhood came out to curse you this morning, as you feverishly made futile efforts to start your car amid its protesting shrieks as it spewed poisonous fumes. You don’t want to be reminded that the neighbours came out to push the car, not because they wanted to help you start it, but rather to get rid of it. You could see clearly that they were praying that it would be the last time they’d have to push it, that their prayers were that it’d not make it back to your house! To that, add the hazards that have been the hallmark of the Rwandan roads and you will forever shelve the dreams of ever owning a car. For instance, you are cruising comfortably at 60 km an hour along the Gikondo road, when a ‘taxi-moto’ (motorcycle taxi) overtakes you on the left and quickly cuts across your path to go to the right. It hits a pedestrian and they fall right under your tyres as you skid to a stop. You let other occupants of the car do the checking and heave a sigh of relief when they report that you have not run over anybody. Still you are shaken and, from that time, you are a nuisance to other road users because your speed can compete comfortably with that of a swift snail. And so, you ask, why do ‘my-cars’ insist on owning these metallic pests or menaces? Unfortunately, the alternative has been far from sugar-coated. For instance, you hold the coveted job of a civil servant in a ministry in Kacyiru and your hired abode is found in the ‘round-the-hills’ estate of Gikondo-Nyenyeli. To get to and from your office and your leaking excuse of a home, you will have to crisscross all the areas of Kigali in a protracted struggle to get transport and in the process will lose almost half of your working time. Due to this and the increasing population of Kigali city, public transport was becoming insufficient and ‘Kigalois’ were increasingly turning to the scary and accident-prone, but vitally useful, motorcycle taxis. The fact that going to the market, or the church, has been an equally arduous exercise was making the strongest muscleman/woman invest their all in the most ramshackle of roadsters. Fortunately, all this is changing, with the continued improvements of our streets.It therefore remains incumbent upon us all to join our ‘city mothers’ in the struggle to keep our streets orderly and clean so that they are driver-, rider-, commuter- and pedestrian-friendly. To the officials in road construction, let’s say kudos for tarmac-paving all our streets. To our police force, let’s say cheers for being vigilant against road offences. To our army, let’s say hurray for the 24-hour tranquility of Kigali. Kigali leads, the rest of the country hot on its heels! ingina2@yahoo.co.uk