What Happens On The Road To Ijebu Ode

It’s amazing how we all enter a bus without speaking to each other or looking at each others’ faces until something disturbing happens. it could be a gunshot or something funny like a stinking fart, then everyone loses it. We begin to consult each other aggressively.

In case of a fart, someone thinks out loud like:
“Nawa o, whoever farted needs to drink alum or bleach! I mean, how can someone’s fart be this bad. Did you eat your own shit?!

No one responds. Then there’s a murmur. A murmur that grows into audible voices. Someone at the back laughs with a hand on his nose, then everyone follows. The next minute we’re like a family on a road trip. Everyone suddenly gains the confidence to look at each other in the face while we slowly choke on the fart. No one knows the farter. At this point, it doesn’t matter.

Sometimes it’s not a fart or a gunshot or a squeaking bus or a robbery or an evangelist on the bus, sometimes it’s the driver and his inability give passengers their change. A passenger will lean towards you or tap you from behind and say “Bros how Far? Shey driver don give you change?”

You say “No.”

You both pause for 3 seconds then start yelling “Driver, abeg, change o!”
“Three hundred naira at the back”
“Driver, I go collect 700 o!”, You tone down your grammar and ask for yours in pidgin, hoping he understands you better.