Bus Drivers

Compliments to the chef.  That is what gourmet eating folks say after enjoying well-designed food in fancy restaurants.  I prefer good old beans, rice, grits, chicken and fish myself, not food that looks like a Picasso on a plate.   

Long distance bus drivers.  We do not say compliments to the Greyhound driver when he safely drives us from Winnipeg to Thompson Manitoba, 739 kilometers away.  Why not?

Long distance bus drivers do many things besides driving the bus.  First of all, we do not even think about our safety.  We trust them.  They do not text and drive.  That is why we doze off and books we are reading fall on our laps. 

Passengers with head phones do not sleep because of music.  It is a state of mind. They just feel safe in the bus.  They know somebody will get them there safely.  Loved ones at home do not worry about a thing.  ‘She took the bus.’ Which is quite reassuring.

Secondly, we must say compliments to bus drivers because we can see them.  They welcome us aboard, take the ticket stubs and load luggage in the belly of the bus.  Unlike trains.  We don’t know who is driving the train. 

Yes.  High speed trains are computerized but before then, we never saw train drivers.  You have never met someone who introduced himself as a train driver and never heard somebody saying, ‘My dad is a train driver.’

They are anonymous.  Not long distance bus drivers.    They have a face.  We hear them over the loud speakers announcing that we can blog at our leisure because the bus has Wi-Fi. 

Funny enough, nobody is massaging cell phones or i-pads.  They are all asleep and what is nice, is that I’ve never heard anybody snoring on a long distance bus.  Kamaal, as they say in Bollywood movies.

Compliments to the bus driver!

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.