Public buses in Dar es salaam carry passengers of all sorts. In this case, the bus that we were journeying in to the city centre was no different. Who will know who in a sardinepacked like bus unless they were reletives or close friends.
In addition, one could not miss to notice, especially for those who had lived long enough to know about the DMT and UDA buses that respect for the aged, the pregnant, handicapped and the sick was no longer the ideal and the favored African custom. It seems everyone was busy with his or her own thoughts and things not to forget the omnipresent cellular phone.
The youths loved to play with it especially when an elderly person was standing while he or she was sitting right beneath him. As a doctor who had no private or hospital transport I belonged to the milliard of the commuters whose date with the horrible daladala was a must every day. And todaywas just like any other working day.
I could not help noticing how beautiful the young lady sitting below me was. But as a faithful Moslem I brushed these satanic thoughts from my mind. I was relieved to get off at Buguruni where I had a pharmacy before proceeding to Muhimbili as the surgeon on duty.
When I reached Muhimbili two hours later one of the people lined up for an urgent surgery was the young beautiful lady in the bus but now a multiple fractured hospital case. The bus, I was told later, had an accident at the junction of Kawawa and Buguruni/Uhuru road later on its way to Kariakoo.
How do you treat a young person who had no respect at all for her elders I wondered as I got ready to put up my operating room gear ready to operate on her. Evading vengeful calls from Satan and the passing wind and buzzing mosquitoes in Muhimbili. Hoping all doctors and nurses where like me despite the politicians eating too much, living well and dotting on their families and having a chauffer-driven car or two while we sweat and heave to treat the sick!
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