WHERE ARE WE SPEEDING TO?

There are many people in a hurry these days. They like everything fast. If they are sick, they don’t want to stand in a queue. Give me service now and ‘upesi’. If you go to Muhimbili, there is something called ‘fast-track’. For the many with no extra money, there is slow track.


You pay with your madafu shillings and you whisk yourself to a brand new building, fourth floor where doctors are waiting to save you from your sins or those of your neighbours. Sins of omission of commission lead to diarrhoea, gonorrhoea, malaria, skin infections, worms, AIDS, and other communicable diseases.


Then everybody discovers the fast-track building, after which queues start to appear in fast track, and the speed goes down to normal regardless of your money. If we used the same speed to prevent disease, there would not be so many breeding grounds for mosquitoes such as the stagnant water ponds and grass-infested roads in Mbezi and Mikocheni. Maybe residents living near seasonal rivers like the Msimbazi and Mlalakuwa creeks would not empty the contents of their sewerage systems into the rivers. Where is fast tracking of disease prevention?


We want to have food on the move. Fast food is slowly taking over our urban lives. Fast food joints are springing up everywhere. We eat standing up, in a hurry. We hurry to an assignment, meet a deadline, and attend meetings, official or private. Maybe we are rushing to an appointment. After work is finished, deadlines have died, lunch time is gone there is no more time to enjoy it. So we get into public or private vehicles and rush into traffic jams.


When it is time rush home to loved ones, we are stuck. Traffic crawls to snail’s speed, or the buses are full to the roof tops. Mini bus drivers take over our lives. Dala dalas run amok, trying to outdo each other, to win the unending competition of which (man) will get to the last stop first. Why do commuter bus drivers drive in a rush, weaving in and out of roads and sidewalks like lunatics? Are they on testosterone, or is this a true case of male competitiveness at its worst?


I wonder why no entrepreneur has come up with fast-track food on the move. All one needs to do is to redesign the interior large buses so that they are tables in the middle with fixed chairs, bar stools on the left and right sides for drinkers and a counter and fridge at the back. In the slow traffic, one can have a beer or two, and dinner. A cold beer at 20km per hour would go down rather well. The lorries we see driven around, full of ‘ndombolo’ dancers, advertising goods and services we don’t need, should start selling food and drinks on the move.


A restaurant on the fast lane is the answer to traffic jams. If you don’t want to join the bus, attendants can walk alongside the mobile restaurants, take your order and deliver it to your car. That will be real fast food, food on the move. I don’t need food that I eat fast in the office, but a warm and tender meal to savour when I am feeling blue, in the slow lane. Where is fast traffic when we need it?


Fast cash has recently become fashionable. Some companies are offering fast cash services. Request a loan from them and get approval in a few hours or just days. Better watch out. You get the loan quickly fine, but you may be paying for the rest of your life, a lifelong debt burden. Banks are cashing in on customers’ lust for quick money. Money chap-chap, pronto, 24/7 or when you want it. That is really fast, like the speed with which the automatic teller machines or ATMs are appearing in Dar suburbs.


But hold on. A cash card is never a cash cow to the holder, but to the bank. ATMs may have many hidden charges. Some thieves, perhaps with connivance of unscrupulous staff in financial services, have taken to robbing ATMs. The banks will figure out a fast way to catch the thieves, when fast cash will turn to fast track to jail.


Some enterprising young and not-so-young madams have created their own ATMs in form of willing male partners. They just enter the personal identification number or PIM which is normally the mobile phone number of the masculine ATM, and the cash bull does the rest. No ATM card is needed, a phone is enough. The password is voice-activated and begins with a silky ‘Hi sugar’. But which Sugar, Ms Fast Operator?


These enterprising madams can open several accounts with different ATMs, thus ensuring temporary financial bliss. As they say, easy come, easy go. You can bet they get lots of takers for real or imagined services but they spend their loot faster than you can say faster, faster. Why don’t they take time to earn and save their hard earned cash the normal way?


This faster, faster culture that is taking root in the young is easily exploited by advertisers. They promise faster credit and faster connection or transfer of phones or banking services. Gullible consumers might swallow all the drivel about faster service but to what end? It may be an illusion. Somewhere there is a catch.


Even plane rides ought to be weighed and balanced against taking a bus ride. Take the trip from Arusha to Dar by plane for example. Arusha to Kilimanjaro airport may take 40 minutes by car and check-in to departure time takes 90 minutes. The flight adds another 90 minutes of comfortable or turbulent air travel. Arrival on the ground and collection of luggage until one gets a taxi or other car may add another 30 minutes. Then the drive from the airport to the city centre or suburbs may take an hour these days of traffic boom.


It may take five and half hours if no delay in the flight to travel from Arusha to Dar es Salaam by plane. We do not see the added times because we only count the flying time. A bus ride would take a bit longer, but cost much less, with scenic views of mountains, valleys, vegetation and landscapes. Not to mention the beautiful people along the way.


Like fast degrees offered on the internet, fast tracking life only takes us quickly to the edge of the journey of life, without us enjoying the view. Let us take time this week to slow down if not for our personal gain, then for the benefit of others. Enjoy your Sunday.

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS