Bussin' it

It’s too early, it’s too dark and it’s about 6 am and naturally it’s about the time I get on public transport. I have been forced against my will to sleepwalk out of bed so I can attend a long day shift at my teaching hospital... As I climb onto the top deck of the bus my mother’s voice reverberates in my head screaming abuse at me. It goes something like “FORNICATORS, DRUG DEALERS AND MURDERERS SIT ON THE TOP DECK!”

I am ashamed to say that I practically never take heed from such advice unless it’s the first week of the month and Crime Watch scares the living day lights out of me with crazy reports of lecherously fiendish leather fetishists assaulting or licking the boots of silly young women travelling in darkness. I silently cry when walking home in the darkness along an unlit path wearing my leather boots (a serial killer’s idea of heaven).


A couple of stops into my journey after pathetically waving off my mum in her neon coloured dirac and her large black wool overcoat boasting pockets the size of a suitcase containing my mum’s choice of self defence weapons; a large kitchen knife, Febreeze room spray and a lighter. She is a good law abiding citizen but she somehow loses all her sense when it comes to being outside in the dark. I pray the police don’t stop her when she’s out and about like that. I suddenly hear a man scream out “Aabahaa usheeg!” and 3 other people reply with “Haa, haa, haa, haa miiska!”(translation – “tell your dad!”and “yes, yes, yes yes, table!” ). I turn N*E*R*D down and wonder how a large group of Somali men managed to sneak past without me noticing.

I don’t want to look desperately in need of company which is what they invariably assume whenever an average looking Somali woman turns her head…. It happens, before you know it you have a Faarax covered in 10 day old qat spittle swaggering towards you as you feverishly make up a name, tribe and destination for yourself. So I try the reflection in the window in front of me but to no avail. Then gathering all the courage I can muster I turn sideways to rummage through my bag more or less filled with all the crap in my room I didn’t have a spot for. A couple of seconds later I look over my shoulder and eye a group of suspicious looking oriental men probably Chinese when it suddenly dawns on me that it was probably them making those Somali sounds.

I am of the inclination that I believe Somali and (common) Chinese people are sort of similar in habits. They sound like they’re arguing when addressing eachother, they don’t really care about what others think of them, and they are a bit dodgy.