This evening I took a taxi from the beach back to my home in town. The driver spoke no French and looked barely old enough to be driving a car. I noticed he beeped his horn rather a lot, but said nothing. I then noticed, to my horror, that he drove like a manic and that his car could barely take the turns he was insiting on speeding around to overtake another car in the face of oncoming traffic. He beeped his horn some more and the driver of the car we were overtaking at the time made an angry hand gesture as we went by. I asked the boy why he used the horn so much.

"Me!" he shouted above the din of his rustbucket slamming over potholes. "Me, no", he went on, pointing at the horn at the same moment that it beeped, all of its own accord. "Connection," he went on.

I got it. The connection was dodgy and the horn was beeping on its own. But why did he have to drive so dangerously? I threatened to get out of the taxi if he didn't slow down, and he eventually did.

When he dropped me at my place and handed me the change, he said politely,

"Thankyou, Mama."