Travel begets Travel: An Homage to the Taxi

We moved from rainy Dublin to rainy Cork today. Actually, the rain hasn't been too impactful, and it has certainly kept the temperatures comfortable as we move around, and as we look ahead to Italy and Greece where it has been very, very hot lately.

Two hours on the train, in a very easy ride, and we arrived at Cork train station. Our default upon arrival in any new city is walk, train, or bus to our lodging, in that order of preference. Usually the kids need some exercise, we don't have the time or inclination to figure out the bus system on Day 1, and so we default, almost always, to walking. But in Cork, our rooms were about two miles from the station, the threat of rain was very present, there is no subway or rail system in the city, and we had heard that the buses only accept coins for travel. So we chose our fourth option to get from the station to the rooms: taxi.

Despite our bias against them, there are a lot of advantages to taking a taxi, and in a non-European country my preference is to ALWAYS take a taxi upon arrival. Cities can be dangerous, the maps imperfect, the buses non-existent, but a taxi driver will get you where you are going, usually safely. And they are, often, an incredible source of local information on the weather, local cuisine, politics, sporting events, and more. 

Taxis are problematic in Europe, though, for a couple of reasons. They are the most expensive way to get somewhere. They often have only four seats, and we are five. And in addition to the five passengers we have five rather large backpacks. So we either need a big taxi (like a van) or we need two taxis. In this case, we hired two. Luke and Alex and I piled into one taxi, and Becca and Katie hopped in another, and off we went.

My old taxi habits kicked in, though, and I started a conversation with our driver. His accent struck me as maybe West African, anyway clearly not Irish, so after a few questions about Cork I asked him how long he had lived there. "About 21 years," he replied. Well he was about my age, so that wasn't going to be enough. And before that? He glanced at me and said, "I am Cameroonian." I laughed, paused a moment, and asked him, in pidgin, "Wusay yu di komot?" which means "Where are you from?" He says, "I am from Limbe." 

It's a common response for people to say that they are "from" a place that is well-known, even if it's not really where they are from. I might tell someone here that I'm from San Francisco or Seattle, when neither is really true. Limbe is a well-known town in the Southwest Province, not far from Douala, and the kind of answer an Anglophone Cameroonian from the interior of the province would give to someone in a far-away place. So I kept digging. "I'm a Kumba-man," I told him. "Oh, Kumba is MY TOWN!" he shouted. "The road to Mamfe used to be terrible, the cars would fall off that road!" I said, to which he replied, "Mamfe is my village!"

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun. He took a video of us speaking pidgin, no doubt to show his friends the rather amazing sight of a white American tourist in Cork speaking Cameroonian pidgin (I had forgotten quite a few words, but muddled through). He told me that the violence there has gotten better, and that he's planning to visit Kumba this year for the first time in several years (but not yet  to Mamfe). 

Luke and Alex were sitting in the back seat, slack-jawed with amazement as I chatted up this random taxi driver using a weird language they weren't used to.

Somehow I let him get away without taking a photo, but it was a memorable interaction and one of those moments that reminds you that the world is small, and that opportunities for connection are around every corner.

So instead here is a photo from a church in Cork that lets you climb up the bell tower and play the bells!!