Transportation Part I: Taxis of Tana

It’s not that difficult to get around the United States in most places. In rural areas, the majority of the population own their own vehicles. In cities, there is usually enough public transportation to keep people moving from one place to another. And there is always the option of using some mobile app to order a pickup, whether it be Uber or Lyft. The same cannot always be said about Madagascar. However, there are about a million other forms of transportation in the country ranging from scooters and cars to taxis and taxi-be­. In fact, there are too many to recount here. So let this be the first in a two-part series on transportation beginning with one of the means of transportation I use most frequently, the taxi.

Most of the time in Tana I just walk around. I live in a central-enough location that getting to key points is not that big of a deal. My school is about a 30min walk away, the produce street vendors are about 10min down the hill, and a good number of safe restaurants are within a convenient radius of my apartment. But for further trips, and especially grocery shopping on the weekends, its necessary to rent a taxi.

There are plenty of official taxis roaming around the city. They are all a fading mustard yellow color with a beaten and weary taxi sign on top. The drivers, from what I can tell so far, are all men. There are official taxi stands at larger locations such as l’avenue d’independence or the Mahamasina stadium a little past the bottom of our hill. But there are also conglomerations of taxi drivers pocketed at random sites throughout the city. It’s not very hard to find one. In fact, I have yet to walk anywhere without at least one taxi driver asking me if I need a ride. Sometimes they are driving and see me. Coming up from behind, they slow down and beep their horn. Usually I just wave them on. If I’m passing by a taxi-stand, 9/10 times I will get a, “Taxi monsieur?” Before I have to politely reply, “Non, merci,” “Tsy, misaotra,” or “Tsia, azafady.”

That being said, there are always plenty of taxi drivers for me to choose from. But the process of obtaining a taxi only begins there. I think the best way to share a general feel for how the system works is to tell you about my first taxi experience after orientation week.

As you know, my first week in Madagascar was spent at the United States Embassy where we were provided private transportation for the day and anything else we needed. After that, however, we were on our own for finding our way around. Basil, Megan, and I needed to go grocery shopping. We tend to go to a store called Jumbo Score, a Western style supermarket like a small Walmart where we can get most of our staple foods. Fruits and vegetables we buy in the market. We decided to walk there on this particular occasion, a walk that took us just over an hour. We shopped and then made our way to the taxi line.

Now the normal process of hiring a taxi is straight forward. A taxi man flags you down, you express interest, he approaches you, and you tell him where you want to go. At this point, depending on where you are going and if there are multiple stops, there is usually a bit of confusion, the sharing of a map, and sometimes a “vous connaissez la?” Do you know it? Once the location has been established, a price needs to be determined. This is done, like all things here, through the medium of bargaining and haggling. Typically you have to ask for a price to get the conversation going. You never get into a taxi without establishing a price.

So far, half the time they give a decent price. What I mean by this is that since I’m a vazaha, they’ll charge me more, something I know well enough. But if the taxi man is honest, the price will only be a dollar or two more than what would be normal. This isn’t always the case. Such as the time where a guy demanded 70,000MGA for a short trip. We looked at him like he was crazy before another guy offered us the same ride at 10,000MGA. Sometimes you have to be reasonable when you try to rip someone off. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work.

After hearing the first price, or offering one of your own, you can counteroffer. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But you can usually negotiate the price down at least 3,000-5,000MGA below the original price, which, again, is a matter of $0.75-$1.25. If the driver doesn’t like this price or you don’t like it, you move on to another driver. Such was the case on our Jumbo-run. The first driver was demanding 45,000MGA which we knew was too high. Another taxi man rushed up to us and offered us 38,000MGA instead. We took it, and what proceeded to happen, my dear reader, is nothing less than the epitome of how taxis are in Tana.

The man opened his trunk, we placed our groceries inside, and he opened the doors for us to get it. The car was pretty sketchy from the outside. It was more faded than others I had seen, the door handles were either broken or not there, the windows didn’t roll down, nor did the trunk door stay open on its own. He used a stick to prop it open, something not uncommon in Tana. Oh. Oh, my dear reader, we are just getting started.

The taxi man gets into the car and leans down. It is at this point that I realize there is no key or even a slot for a key in the ignition. He starts pumping the gas pedal with his foot, and in his hands are two wires. Yes, the man is starting his car via hotwire. I can’t even make it up. He pumps the gas pedal several times, sparking the two wires together. And after several attempts, the taxi somehow roars to life as if it were some dead ancient monster being awoken by a terrible and malignant incantation. Indeed, it is as if the Balrog from The Lord of the Rings were making its way down the grand halls of Moria. It sounded like a lion trying to intimidate whatever the heck was coming around. It sounded like a dying moose crying out its last painful breaths. The car is barely moving let alone alive as it jolts, bumps, and grinds its way out of the parking lot.

And so we begin driving down the busy streets of Tana in a car that is barely holding together and needs to be started with a hotwire as if it were some old lawnmower your grandpa refuses to throw out. I decided during this drive to take inventory of the car. This is what I found: there were no side mirrors or rearview mirror, the floor was nearly gutted so it was basically just the shell of the bottom of the car, nothing on the dashboard moved or worked (actually I don’t think it was connected to the car at all), there were no functional windshield wipers, and, if you ever thought for a moment that I’ve worn a seatbelt here, you would be wrong because the majority of vehicles lack them.

Anyways, our taxi somehow managed to get up our hill and deliver us safely with all of our groceries. Now a ridiculous as this individual taxi trip sounds, its actually quite frequent. The number of taxis I’ve been in that have to be started with another means other than a key or have about a million problems is uncountable. Each taxi has its own personal character, and there is never a shortage on barely functional vehicles. I’ve been in a few where you have to use a screwdriver to open the door or where you share the front seat with a gas can with a piece of cloth as a cap. Sometimes to save on gas, taxi drivers will just shut their cars off in the middle of traffic or while driving down a hill. And honestly, every taxi driver is different.

Some taxi stands, like the one at the bottom of our hill, have a line of taxis. Whoever is in line first has first dibs on the next customer. Other stands are a free for all, like the one at the stadium. If you really like a taxi driver, or if he likes you, you can exchange numbers so you can arrange a pickup. Many times, you can arrange a taxi driver to bring you someplace and just wait. The price isn’t that much higher. They’d honestly rather get paid sitting around than waiting at a stand where they may not get anything. Again, all of these prices are negotiated ahead of time, which is why it’s important to be honest about where you’re headed and how long you plan to be there. Fortunately, word spreads fast, and the taxi drivers at our stand have quickly discovered that we are rather generous to those who are fair and honest with us.

For example, we arranged for a taxi round-trip out to Ivato, where the airport is, and to Jumbo for 80,000MGA. Between Ivato and Jumbo, we got a text from a friend telling us to come to lunch. We informed our driver who didn’t seem too happy about another stop, one which would extend our trip far past our original agreement. But he did it and waited for us as agreed. When we got back to our apartment and unloaded out groceries, I counted out the money in front of him and handed him an extra 10,000MGA for the extra time. He was extremely grateful. It is not usual for someone to add extra cash on top of an already mediated arrangement. On the other hand, if a taxi driver isn’t that nice or tries to rip us off, I usually make him drive up our hill, which they all hate, without telling him that it’s completely fine to drop me off at the bottom. I figure it’s a fair exchange.

But that is how it generally goes. You never really know what kind of experience you’ll have when you get into a taxi. I take one back from school in the evenings, which means soon the taxi drivers at l’avenue will figure out that there’s a white guy heading home several days a week. Taxi drives are always interesting. I usually pull out my rosary while being driven and just look around. You see a lot of things that way, and I figured it is a good use of my time. In the future I’ll tell you more about other ways of getting around the Red Island. But that is for another time. As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.