Cab Muzak

The cabs in South Africa are noisy dirty beasts that crawl the streets with drivers who shout "cab cab cab??!!" at passersby. In a Dodge Caravan, which is a bit smaller than these vans, 3 children fit uncomfortably in one row. Here they cram 6 people per row (no seat belts).

Touching is unavoidable: my knees straddled someone's head, my arms reached over someone else's back, and my head genty rested on someone's else's shoulders. When the van went around curves, I leaned hard into the woman sitting next to me. She seemed completely calm and unaffected.

The physical weight of the passengers seemed to overwhelm the cab engine, which coughed and wheezed as we slowly drove up a hill toward downtown Port Elizabeth.

There were two people who worked for the cab company who were along for the drive, one who drove the cab, and another person who sat behind the drivers seat, and who's responsibilities varied. Sometimes he collected cash from passengers, other times he opened the door to let new people inside the cab, and he also yelled at pedestrians he considered to be potential customers (mostly black people). At multiple points during the ride, when we were on straight roads, he held the door open to let air inside the cab and I imagined falling out of the cab and on to the hard pavement.

Music ranged, depending on cabbie driver's taste. I've heard Barry White, Mariah Carey, and bad techno music. No one in the cab, except for the driver, has any say in what kind of music is played, or how loud it is played. If my next cabbie decides to play some terrible Eminem music (which I've already heard twice here), I have the option of shouting "turn it down!" but the cards are stacked against me. I would probably be the first person in recent South African history to stand up to a cabbie, and that idea scares me.