South African Uber drivers

A sunset in Big Bay, South Africa

There are few interactions that leave me in such high spirits as those with South African Uber drivers. All they need are a few minutes and a willing audience to make you laugh, cry, and ponder life’s hardships and mysteries. They are resilient. They work long hours and are vulnerable to targeted hijackings, oversensitive and reactionary taxi drivers, and raucous teenagers who haven’t yet learnt to hold their liquor. And yet, many of them are warm and welcoming, always ready for a joke and a chat. In my opinion, Uber drivers embody what it means to be South African: quick with a sense of humour, tenacious, and possessive of an unbreakable spirit.

Cape Town International Airport requires that Uber drivers who park in the E-hailing area for longer than 20 minutes pay for their parking. Upon collecting my fiancé and I, getting to the payment boom and submitting his ticket, our Uber driver promptly pressed the help button to request an assistant. After a few seconds of conversing in an unknown language, the boom magically opened – ne’er a coin to be seen! To our stunned and awkward silence, the Uber driver agreeably replied: “Eyy, corruption. It’s everywhere!”

I was once fortunate enough not only to be transported but also thoroughly entertained by a quick-witted and loud-hearted Uber driver who shared with me his Origin Story. Many years ago, this man landed a handyman job through a friend, who coerced him into doing after-hour repair work at a morgue. While he was working on some electrical fitting or another, the lights went out. With a dropping sensation in his stomach, he realised that his friend had disappeared. “Jesus”, he prayed, “Please don’t let me die like this! Not like this!”. As he was in the process of praying to the Spirits for good measure, he heard a resounding screech. “AAAAYYYY!!” the Uber driver screamed, making me jump with fright. He turned around, and there it was: one of the body trays had snapped open and out popped a humanoid form. “Dear God, no, please no!” he cried, falling to his knees as the tears ran down his cheeks. Suddenly, the humanoid form took the shape of his friend, convulsing with uncontrollable laughter. It was that day that this man became an Uber driver. Never again would he trust this treacherous friend to help him find a job!

A wry but endearing Zimbabwean Uber driver was once describing to me the despicable usurping of his country by the Chinese. He indignantly complained that all their signs are in Chinese – the only English signs are the ones that say, “Made in China”! I will forever think of that man when I see such a sign, however, my memory of him lives on not only because of his humour, but because of his sadness. He told me of the hardships he endured as a child, working in the fields to afford his tuition, before walking the 6 km to school every day to receive his education. He told me of the hope him and his family experienced when Robert Mugabe took over his country, and of the bitterness that befell him when his grandfather let his reappropriated farm fall into ruin. That day, I witnessed in his eyes the glimpse of a bright future slowly slipping away into futility. And yet here he was, still with the courage to smile.

I once met an impossibly buoyant Uber driver who claimed to have been gifted a guitar by a famous female South African singer whose name escapes me. He boastfully confessed to me that this act had made her fiancé very jealous. This Uber driver had dreams of becoming a tour guide, for which a sizeable market exists in South Africa. He took the test, got two questions wrong, and was rewriting it the following week, absolutely certain he would succeed this time. By his own admission, he would be an excellent tour guide. I truly hope to see him again somewhere on Table Mountain, recounting the age-old story of the smoking match between old van Hunks and the Devil Himself.

Uber drivers are society’s wallflowers, overhearing private conversations as they drive clients around while being calculatedly ignored. I often imagine the stories – the lives – that they are witness to every day. As my mom, aunt, and I toured Franschhoek, my partner phoned to ask my mom for acceptance of our plan to wed. This particular Uber driver took the opportunity to arise from the shadows and offer us the key to a happy and successful marriage. The answer was a simple one – you appoint the Auntie as the One Who Deals With All The Problems So That The Father Can Relax, Which Is The Job Of The Father. That way, if ever my husband-to-be acted unfaithfully or caused any disturbances, I was simply to approach the Auntie, make my complaint, and she would fix it. To this day, we call my aunt “Auntie”.

The last time I used Uber, I met a remarkable character. He had dreadlocks, a formidable squint eye, and a good-natured smile. He graciously informed me of his alias, “The Ancestor”, so dubbed because he is wise and knows that driving Uber Black is a waste of time. “You are not Anton Rupert!”, he gestured loudly at an imaginary and significantly more foolish younger brother. “You cannot afford to fix that fancy car when it breaks down!” he shouted as he crashed his side mirror into the wall (“Oh! Was that me!?”).  “This car, if it breaks down, you leave your phone with your wife – that’s the first time you trust your phone with your wife! – you go to Gugulethu, and you get all the spare parts there! Because this car is the same engine as a Toyota!” He chuckles deeply, knowingly glancing sideways in my direction. We all know that stolen Toyotas are stripped down for parts and resold in the Gugulethus of South Africa.

The Ancestor clearly loves his family (“My younger daughter is like Jacob Zuma. She tries to get away with everything!”). He is married to a Xhosa woman (“You just buy her data and then she’s happy. Then she doesn’t go drinking with the other women.”), and his eldest daughter is the apple of his eye (“Jiirrrr. If you want her to do her homework? Bribe. If you want her to behave? Bribe. If you want her to like you? Bribe. How much money does she think I have? I don’t have one-Rands in my couch. Hell, I don’t even have a couch!”). He greatly appreciates the family his wife works for, as they give him rugby shorts that “even Siya Kolisi would shoot to kill for”, and every year for his daughters’ birthdays they bake cakes “from scratch with ingredients from Woolworths – WOOLWORTHS! They don’t buy from Pick n’ Pay these people”.

The Ancestor also shared two remarkable nuggets of wisdom with me. He said that in times of poverty, he knows that the apple he buys will have to be shared into four pieces – one for each of his family. This was his burden to carry. He also said that at the end of the day, we are all people, and like my brother, he has the right to protect me.

It is astounding the sense of profound connection one can feel with your fellow South Africans, if only afforded the chance. At the end of the day, we are all people, with hopes, dreams, disappointments, and loved ones. I hope that every time you look at the cars driving on our roads, you remember the infinitely beautiful and intriguing stories carried within them.