My Taxi Tales: The Male Gender in Trouble

Paul Aruho R.

I recently traveled with two ladies in a taxi on not quite a short journey. They both, to me, represented a class of women we call the working class.

In our journey, both of them received phone calls at different intervals. These calls revealed to me what they are and what they do.

The first one received a call twice. The first one, according to the conversation seemed to be from her Pastor. As they conversed, I came to know she was a teacher.

“Mukama asiimwe,” the other person greeted in that known Balokole (born again) greetings as she picked the call. They started talking about what seemed to be related to family and marriage challenges. She would answer between laughter and then later said, “Pastor, I am in a taxi, let me call you when I reach home.

“It is okay,” the Pastor was heard saying, adding “I will be waiting,” before canceling the call.

This same woman received another call. This one seemed to be from her brother. The taxi occupants came to know that she was coming from the hospital to see her father-in-law who had been operated on.

“He is alright but still weak,” she said. “However, he sounded tired of the hospital and wanted to go home. I don’t know whether his caretaker will manage to keep him there any longer as per the doctors’ advice,” she said.

She went on to tell her brother how she had to spend her hard-earned money to buy drugs for the old man.

“You can't imagine I had to part with my 70,000 for drugs?! I must look for a way on how I can recover my money,” she said before she ended the call.

The second woman later picked up her phone as it rang. “Hullo, your package was ready by 3pm. I couldn’t wait any longer, after calling and you never responded. But drive to the office I will tell Disan (not real name) to wait for you,” she said.

After dropping the call, she rang Disan.

“Disan, are you still at the office? She inquired adding that, “the other gentleman of the package is about to reach the office. Please wait for him.”

“No please,” Disan replied. It is passed 5 and I am rushing to pick my kids from school,” Disan added sounding pleading.

“The man wants to travel to Fort Portal tomorrow with it. He can’t leave it behind. Get back to the office and give it to him,” she said with her raised voice.

The young man at the end of the call tried to beg he would be at the office early the following day. He said that it would be costly to get back to the office and his kids have been waiting for long.

“You know I have been engaged at the office so much. My kids have been waiting and this makes them stressed when their classmates leave them at school alone. Why can’t he pick it the early tomorrow? Disan pleaded.

“But why do you take long to understand? Can you for once listen to me? Stop what you are doing and get back to office. Your family can wait but business can’t. You know you expect to be paid as the month closes,” she said in a commanding voice and canceled the call.

A few distance later, the driver stopped seemingly to deliver some luggage to a lady standing a long the road. She seemed to either be her wife or something else. They hugged and he picked a box at the back of the taxi and started some little conversation as he handed it over to the woman.

“Oba abasajja mwabaki? (what really happened to you, men)? You want every skirt that passes your way. You try to give a man everything but he will move on to have another woman. What do you want in life,” the woman who wanted the package picked up from her office said.

The second woman who was talking with the Pastor surprised me. I had thought that since sounded Christian, she was better off than the other who almost slapped her colleague on the phone.

“We try to do our best. We try to be committed to you. But the way we get surprised along the way, no one can imagine,” she said.

I intervened and asked to tell me what they do to these ungrateful men/husbands. It was as if I had opened a lead of a pressure cooker.

“What haven't we done for them? We cook, do house chores, give them sex but still you hear he has gone running after another woman,” one of the women said.

“We have done what we can as women. We are even providing for our families. For them it is about football and coming home late. It is getting terrible in families,” another interjected.

Men need more than what these women are talking about. Men want to stay in a peaceful home/house. Even if a man has done something seemingly wrong, he needs to be confronted peacefully.

In some cases, men have been accused of what they don’t do. Coming late in the evening doesn’t necessarily mean that your husband is going out with other women. Sometimes they are involved in discussions that are helpful to their families.

Women are responsible for creating a peaceful environment at home, do that and everything will be well. No man will tolerate an arrogant, nagging woman. Do this, and you will thank me later. I told them and the conversation stopped there. Everyone went silent and the noisy taxi was this time as quiet as a graveyard for the rest of the journey.

Working women have continued to harass their husbands at home. When a woman gets a paying job, she will be unruly to the extent of bullying her husband. A man can accommodate an unemployed woman but the reverse isn't true. Such scenarios will tell that the equality we have been singing all these years is a wasted melody.