Would someone please invent a teleportation device already? or Public Transport in South Africa

It is a fairly well know fact that public transport in South Africa sucks. Most of it is pretty informal, and if you are either brave enough or quite simply have no other option, you are guaranteed an adventure with no clearly defined time-frame. Transport in this country very definitely remains segregated, with the middle-class completely eschewing public transport (except for the occasional long-haul bus trip or late night drunken taxi scenario) while the poor are to make do with what we call 'taxis'. The local population knows them well, they are often noisy, drive dangerously, and like squishing their cargo, sorry, I meant passengers, in as tightly as possible. (Though this has vastly improved due to government seating regulations). If you are lucky enough to sit in the front row to the left, by the door that is, you even have  the unique and enviable privilege of having the conductor nigh straddle you, with your knees desperately avoiding contact with his crotch, and your head bent to the side so as to avoid his arm. So yeah, if for some reason you don't have your own vehicular transport, but are too impatient and independent to wait around for others to lift you, you may be tempted to give this diabolical form of transport a go. And you know what? I say do it. At the very least, its interesting, you see bits of town you wouldn't normally, you discover people can be friendly and aren't necessarily all out to mug you, and you learn, if only briefly, to reconcile yourself with the unpredictable chaos that is life. We try to order things into rigid predictable patterns (I know I do) to make one thing neatly follow another; but really, anything can happen, and probably will, so why not throw things up in the air just to see where they land once in a while? I've had some pretty random adventures in Taxis, but I honestly have never experienced anything horrific. Sometimes they can be brusque, even unpleasant. I've been asked for my phone number countless times, called some rather interesting things while locating them, (for your amusement I present the prosaic 'baby', the odd but not too obscure 'juicy apricot', the distinctly peculiar 'watermelon', and to trump all these 'Janet Jackson' - colour my lily-white mlungu ass annoyed, perplexed and bemused…) But this has pretty much been by other commuters or bystanders. Generally speaking, drivers have been pretty helpful when I've been brave enough to explore unfamiliar routes, in unfamiliar cities. I've been passed from taxi to taxi and deposited precisely if slightly hurriedly, at my destination. I've been shouted at in a language I don't understand, and self-consciously tried to remind myself that I am most likely not the butt of the raucous laughter surrounding me, and if I am, so what?

I do indeed, at most times, prefer the comfort of private transport. I'm an introvert, and am as lazy as the next sod, but there is the odd moment, while traveling this way and that, that I can immerse myself in the chaos, and both embrace and transcend my otherness. It forces me to recognize that I am a mixture of belonging and not belonging. Humanity is a fucked up heterogeneous mess that inspires misanthropy in anyone with half a brain cell, which is precisely why one must love it so, maybe.