All I wanted whilst growing up was to be a taxi driver.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”. This is the question that has brought supremely – amongst many – hilarious and at times answers that give ambition a bad name among black communities in Mzansi.

Once upon a time in high school (apparently you can say that if you can’t remember specifics) a teacher asked a class I was in this ‘small moment’ question with a ‘huge significance’. Either our class at the time was too unique – or too aware of obstacles created by poverty that we gave answers that warranted a frequent random release of the rod from the teacher (the withholding thereof, notorious for spoiling children). Whether our collision with that rod was meant to wake us up to the reality of the importance of having dreams and achieving them - or to take the teacher seriously at the time – I never got to know. But the question stuck in my mind, more so, the answer I gave – which let me add was not met with the rod as we had observed that some answers were dangerous, thus kept a good distance – it was met with a pronouncement that would warrant a teacher, in today’s terms: a weekend spent in jail.

“I want to be a taxi driver”, said yours truly in all honesty to the teacher. Up to this day I cannot tell you right away what it is about taxis that fascinate me, but maan I have a healthy constant attraction to them. Come to think of it, I haven’t met many people who became what they once wanted to become - when young. Either one or all of the following happened: they out-grew their dreams, dream entirely different dreams, stopped dreaming, or their dreams were deferred. Whatever happened, most people are not where they always wanted to be, I’m no exception. Anyways, the teacher summarized most of our dreams as rubbish – although we objected that they are achievable and have direct results. We also reminded the teacher about immediate wealth to our dreams, she did not want to hear any of it, she even asked “why are you wasting time here”. Duh… me thought. Age! I’m still too young to do that, besides my parents would disown me were I to leave school for that. Point is she gave us a long lecture about the difficult life we would meet and that education is very important, permanent jobs (not necessarily decent) and being ‘normal’. We reluctantly bought the idea – not making any commitments. Frankly, for most of us, our dreams were slaughtered there. Although upon matriculating as we were parting, we joked that ‘we’ll meet in the taxi-rank’.


Since then, I eventually moved away from my dream to pursue ‘clean career which make better money without risking your life everyday’. I was becoming content until about a month ago, whilst working in this knowledge factory (research institution), I met this Zulu guy who also worked there, but based in Pretoria, he was on a week assignment in Cape Town. After exchanging greetings his cell phone rang, he spoke to it a little and thereafter turned to me, ‘taxi drivers’ he said. I asked him, what’s his story there – this guy I had learned that he holds a PhD in Statistics and has produced a lot of publications. He told me that he owns quite a number of taxis – bought them after obtaining his PhD! Attempting to explain this mystery he said “don’t you know that Zulus are in the taxi-rank!”. Infact he expressed his disappointment that in all the years I spent in Cape Town I haven’t secured one or two taxis of my own. So is that why I love taxis? I’m Zulu *more confused*. This is the same ‘logic’ like saying “truck drivers love women because of diesel smell in the trucks”.

It is then that he told me that he always wanted taxi – but couldn’t get them when growing up as it was a frowned upon business – due to killings associated with it – thus his return now. If anything I learnt from this guy is, no matter how ridiculous your dream is – hold on to it, it is yours. Ray Kroc of McDonald franchise once explained his interest in the business by stating ‘It has nothing to do with burgers, I always wanted to own buildings – separate from others, it didn’t matter what was therein – burgers were the fortunate choice’. Perhaps the biggest favor we can all do for ourselves, is not giving up on our dreams – because they have a way of haunting you and giving you no peace.

Yours truly still dreams of waking up one day – in his front yard to see his Toyota Hi-Ace Siyaya parked there!

Private schools, but no private universities – hoekom?

Someone is pulling a joke somewhere, really – otherwise how do you make sense of this? Or maybe my mind is taking being too simplistic seriously. Ok, this thought is sparked by frenzy during this time of the year whereby most parents are trying to give their off springs ‘best of the best’ in life. Education, an inheritance that no one will ever take away from them. Or as my parents would say when I refused to go to school ‘imfundo isinkwa sakho sakusasa’ (Education is your bread for tomorrow – direct translation). I have learnt since then that it is actually not bread but a knife. I am not implying that my parents were not truth-friendly, God forbid, but I am identifying a gap in that metaphor. Education is to me a proverbial knife that one can use to cut anything edible, bread among them, cake, veggies, meat – depending on your proverbial appetite. The knife also helps you to cut the size that you would like to enjoy – hopefully not more than you can chew or less that you starve to ‘death’. Back to school.

During this time kids are registered at schools mostly of their parents’ choice – influenced by parents’ pride, wishes, dreams, guilt, ideals and money – or the lack thereof. You got to love those parents. Most mull-over whether the schools be public or private. Let me be the first to state that yours truly went to public school – exactly ten years ago and hated every moment of it. I always wondered why do parents take their kids to private schools – what was sometimes referred to as ‘model c’ (whatever that meant) and mostly against their ability to finance. Ok maybe it’s for the ‘conducive learning environment’, and that is a good reason, if that translates to what I’ve read to ‘smaller classrooms, maximum exposure, sports, and individualized attention’ – which after identifying something wrong can be referred to in-house psychological help. I believe there is more, but since I didn’t go there it remains unknown to me, so I’ll comment on what I know. My learning environment was nothing like that; sometimes it would be like a war-zone, classes without roofs, no glasses for windows, and no fence – thus cows would entertain us by chasing feared teachers to classrooms. In those classrooms we would be overcrowded, seating four-four, we were usually not below 55 in number. Sports we had were the usual flavour for darkies, like soccer, netball, sadly debate never came, and athletics at the beginning of the year. Well since I’m not a sportsperson, I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I wish we had a library though – mind you, I got my first library card, a year later when I was sitting at home having not a clue what to do with myself. Apparently things have improved since then.

Lastly, perhaps to parents delight – we paid maximum R30.00 per year, now equivalent to airtime today, for the school fees. For instance at STD 6 I paid R19.00 school fee – I kid you not and the parents complained that it had gone up! I hear that some of the private schools charge as high as R150 000 per year! By all means, if parents are eating a R2 potato. But my issue is – whoever that promotes private schooling does not mention that there are NO private universities in Mzansi. In my first year at varsity we had a classmate who found it to be of particular importance to remind us that she went to some prestigious school in Cape Town. But all this for me meant nothing because I had matric and I was there, right next to her, having paid less than R1000 for my entire high school years!

Ok, I guess I’ll never know what I missed and surely am not implying that those who went to private schools should be apologetic about it, no ways! But whether you went to private or public school, in varsity we all sit together, 200 of us at times in a lecture hall. Also the nicest part is when the course is complete, we all have Bsc, or BA or B.Com or LLB, and nothing whatsoever is mentioned about your high school, it all boils down to the amount of work and dedication given. Now for me the most ridiculous thing is that the parents pay R150 000 per year for high school and fail to pay R27 000 for university fees! Even more ridiculous is that after graduation, the person gets a job that will pay him or her per year money equivalent to the high schools fees, how is that for a joke?

So I ask, does it make sense to have private schools which do not feed into private universities; which in turn doesn’t feed into private companies – only; not serving private clients; who do not live in private communities?

For parents, is all this worth the money?
Yours truly!