The Trusty Steed

     You can't start a story without first introducing the mode of transportation! This here is a Toyota Quantum (yes, I did say Quantum as in Quantum of Solace)!

And because of its name I will take the opportunity to dub it "James," and in this case "James I" because we got another one just like it later on.
          This car is extra cool, not only because it is named after a James Bond movie, but also because in South Africa these cars are more commonly used as a minibus taxi. Minibus taxis are one of the most common modes of transportation for black people. Why black people? Because the taxis are very cheap and although apartheid ended a while ago many black people are still in a very low economic bracket due to a whole bunch of complex and not-so-complex problems that I won't talk about right now, and also to tell the truth I really don't know . . . but I never once saw a white person on a minibus taxi. My guess is the connotation they have and also that they are usually bound for townships. I found a really fun article about minibus taxis and the authors said they tried riding them, but it is very uncommon for at least the local white people to ride in them.
      For the five weeks that we were there people were always trying to flag us down to get a lift and were always surprised and often very amused when they saw that it was not a taxi and filled with white people. It was a dear old thing and probably the strangest design for a car I have ever seen.

   Firstly, the engine was in the weirdest spot ever (ok, maybe not ever, it could have been somewhere truly bizarre...like on the roof). We only discovered this when we pulled into a petrol station (that's the South African word for gas station . . . just incase you couldn't guess that) and had to change the oil. We popped the bonnet ("hood" in American) and were really confused--it was tiny and didn't have the engine in it. The guys who fuel your car for you (I can't remember the official name for them...helper guys? petrol attendants? filler-uppers?) just laughed at us and un-velcroed the front two seats from the floor and tipped the seats back! The engine was actually right underneath the front two seats! My family all started laughing because my mom had been greatly distressed about her chocolate melting even though it was pretty chilly outside, and my dad had been dying of heat the entire time whilst us back-seaters had been freezing. Mystery of the toasty Dad and melting chocolate: solved.
      Also, because the front seat was right over the wheels, to turn was a bit challenging. I didn't actually drive the car, but my dad said that it took some serious magic taxi-driver skills to move that thing around corners. The shock absorber-do-whoppers (I don't know much about cars so if that's the wrong word...go do a victory dance for being cool like that) weren't very good, so on some of the dirt roads, things got pretty exciting/excruciating.
      Because our car was so big we got either special parking privileges

...or had to drive around forever to find a place.
       We ended up really liking our "minibus", quirks and all. I felt especially safe in it because I felt like we blended in really well with all of the other taxis (with the exception of the passengers) and were never a real target for car theft...I think.  Yay Quantums!