Around the world carrying fishy luggage, yet surviving scrutiny of nosy taxi drivers

"Oh, I see you are an international arrival," remarked a mild-mannered driver at the George Bush International Airport in Houston. He wore a blue shirt and khaki pants – as do all Super Shuttle taxi drivers. He also had curly hair and a sneer the size of Mount Kenya.

"Are you carrying food in your bags?"

I froze at the question.

"If you have food, I won't carry those bags," he grumbled. "Last week, I carried a man who had fish in his bags. My van smelled for a whole week..."

This was the frosty welcome that I received upon my recent return to America, and were it not for the freezing temps outside, I would have chosen to make the driver recall his words or eat them, if there is something like that. Instead, I told the man his comments were so offensive I could not dignify them with a comment.

Still, I was enraged.

And as though they had heard my silent plea, by the time I arrived at the hotel, Super Shuttle had emailed a questionnaire seeking my response and rating of the quality of service offered.

But by then, I had extracted my revenge and decided to do nothing at all against the driver.

This is why: I kept telling myself I had travelled half across the world to defend what I had spent four years writing, and even longer thinking. So why would a taxi driver who thought I was a fishmonger trouble me? At least he hadn't called me a fisherman!

The rude driver's antidote came in the form of an ageing woman, wiry hair in her face, her broad frame propped up on a single crutch. She had first elected to sit next to me, displacing some guy who kept phoning his associates to say he had just arrived "from Africa" and would be available for business the following morning. The man kept slipping from Hindi to English, in a voice that was remarkably soft, before he moved to the back seat.

But the ageing woman eventually took the front seat.

Minutes into the ride, she gestured furiously at the driver: "Can you play music that's not religious?..."

There was a slow gospel tune playing on the radio.

The driver acquiesced and tuned in to the public broadcaster, NPR. There was a raging political debate that seemed to push the woman to the edge. She turned off the radio. It was suddenly very quiet.

After a few miles on the road, the driver asked if my hotel was on campus. I said yes. We were actually on the road leading there. He looked at his GPS and took a wrong turn. I kept my silence.

He made three more wrong turns. This enraged the woman warrior even more. I kept my silence still.

Finally, we made it to my hotel.

"I'm sorry I asked about the fish," the driver apologised with a wan smile. "You know, you are my neighbour. I'm from Ethiopia and I hear you are from Kenya. I thought you are from Nigeria. They carry fish all the time..."

I smiled and said nothing. Hours later, as I was unpacking, I came across some interesting find: a three-kilo pack of dog food called Top Dog. It had been accidentally packed in my travel bag, instead of being deposited in Brownie the dog's food bin back home.

The dog food would have provided some food for thought for the Ethiopian driver and challenged his presumptions...


 

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Taxi drivers