The Ride

It was mid-August in Windhoek, Namibia. The year was 2009. Taokhoes' dad lived on the fancier side of the city while her mom lived in the informal settlements, also referred to as "shacks". It had always been hard for her to fit in on her father's side of the family, especially when there were family-gatherings and she had to play with the other kids. They didn't want to play with her because they said she had an unpleasant smell, from head to toe. Whenever they played hide-and-seek, they would always tell her to hide while they took off to some other place and played without her.

Hanging with her mom's side of the family was more natural and fun because they didn't care if she was dirty or not, they didn't care if she smelled bad or not. Her cousins played with her, rolled with her in the sand and asked her to join if they were going to buy sweets or play uma under a tree. That's where home was.

The day before her 11th birthday, her dad asked her if she wanted to have a pre-party at his house with the pool and everything fancy. She said yes because she didn't want to disappoint her dad by not showing up. The only problem was that her mom was working late that day and couldn't take her to her dad's plus everyone else had stuff to do so her dad organised a taxi to pick her up after school. That was fancy, she thought.

Little Taokhoe stood waiting by the gate after school, waiting for a taxi to pull up and call her by her name. That's what her dad said. It was now a little over 2pm and no driver had stopped and called her or anything. Most of her friends had left too, it was more quiet now.

"Antifun /Uiras!", called a voice from the other side of the street and waved at her. He showed up at last and Taokhoe felt more relaxed.

With a smile, she crossed the road carefully and greeted the driver. She had seen him before at her dad's house so her smile widened because of the familiar face.

"Get into the front sit, I might get more customers", he said kindly and placed both his hands on the steering wheel as he got ready to drive off.

It was an okay ride, it usually took about 30 minutes to get to her dad's so most of the time she tried recalling the times table or counting houses or cars as they passed. Her mom had taught her that counting was a good way to start getting better at Mathematics and she was already doing really well compared to the rest of her classmates.

She suddenly felt something against her thigh and what happened next left her traumatised for a long time, until she started seeing a shrink at the age of 17 to be able to move on from that part of her life.

The driver grabbed her thigh and rubbed her as if he was getting ready to do worse. Her heart suddenly started racing and she was breathing faster, it was hard to comprehend what was going on. Taokhoe was scared, terrified that she wasn't even able to scream. She also knew that would be sort of pointless since the windows were closed.

To be continued...

hearts, Queen

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