EVOLUTION: JUST GETTING BETTER

THE heats scorches so violently, as if the earth has somehow migrated a few inches closer to the sun. Brown bodies glisten with sweat, some with water bottles in hand.

They maneuver the congestion with a certain knowledge, I envy. The taxis honk and form a long, unmoving line that seems to stretch all the way to the ends of God knows where. One enters a kombi and 30 seconds in, you’re dripping in sweat and the kombi is yet to fill up. You pull down windows, shift and turn, fan yourself and nothing works. Even after the kombi fills up, you still have to mission out of the rank via that unmoving line I previously mentioned. It’s a crisis overall.

This is the Manzini Bus Rank. After months of absence from the Manzini Rank, I HAD (wasn’t a choice) to go catch a kombi there. Sure people say you get used to it, but it’s an attack on the senses. Overwhelming (excuse my problematic stance as I speak from a privileged perspective, I am aware of this). From the amount of people, the noisey triggers and did I mention the heat?

It feels like the heat in Manzini, has its center at the bus rank. Sure, I’ve survived the overwhelming and honestly Russian roulette ranks of Wanderers and the infamous Noord in JHB but I honestly feel the Manzini Rank is a microcosm of that.
Anyways, the state of the Manzini Rank is simply unconducive. I’m aware a new rank was built near the Pick n Pay but apparently the public and involved stakeholders didn’t take to it as it wasn’t central enough. Cool, I get it.

But after years, the bus rank is still in that state? Even more so, there hasn’t been a move to atleast improve the efficiency of the ranking system so people aren’t forced to be sitting in kombi’s for 20 minutes while it’s stuck in a line LEAVING the rank.

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