Originally Posted by: iamthe_eggmanActually, that was one of the cooler things (for me, at least) when I was in Kenya; riding in matatus (like a taxi but more like a bus) with four 12" subs in the front header of the van just pounding out the bass on some reggae/rap song. I thought that was pretty cool.

The Mats are cool.
It's the idiotic wannabe ballers who've never sold 500 copies of a CD that piss me off. Bling bling is vain enough. Couple that with the fact that you're a broke 3rd world "rapper" (the quotes are mine), and it's irritating. Dudes wearing ovesized Dodgers tops and 76'ers jerseys trying to be cool, and clinging to some piece of metallic material hanging from their starving necks pointing it at me like I'm supposed to be impressed.

The Matatu's, on the other hand, are pretty damn cool. They can be very poor at customer service sometimes (unannounced fare hikes when it starts to rain you'd think in Kenya it rains money, not reaching their destinations, general rudeness and callousness) but all in all I like them. And when the music isn't too loud to suppress my heart from beating (it feels like that's what happening sometimes :eek: ), it's all good by me.

Did you get to learn why they are called matatu's? If you didn't, MTH101 (Matatu History 101):
Back in the colonial day when public transport was introduced in Kenya, the average fair was 30 cents. Kenyan shilling cents, not dollar cents. There used to be 10 cents coins, so three of these would make the fair. Now, in Kikuyu, my mother tongue, a 10 cents coin is called "giteni" ( from ten, which loosely means " a piece of ten"). And when they are many, they become "mateni". One ten is called "giteni kimwe". Two become "mateni meri" and three are "mateni matatu". And so the vehicles that charged "mateni matatu" for fare became matatus.

Nice that, huh?