Kabu-Kabu Love is the 4th and final short story in our December Short Stories series. Today is also the last Monday in 2019. *sigh*

The first three short stories were:

Kabu-Kabu is the local name used to refer to taxi cabs in Lagos. They can be unpainted or painted yellow with black stripes, similar to Danfo buses. They cost of riding a kabu-kabu tends to be higher compared to okada motorcycles, keke maruwa and even danfo buses.

Thank you to everyone who has followed this series from the very beginning. I appreciate you guys. 😀

Here is Kabu-Kabu Love: A Lagos Taxi Romance. Happy New Year in advance. Enjoy! 🙂

Kabu-Kabu Love: A Lagos Taxi Romance

Rain descended on Lagos in a fury of thunder and lightning. It was not gentle or slow. It fell fast and hard, pelting everything and everyone in sight. Buckets, bowls and a myriad of colorful containers sat under rooftops and out in open compounds, collecting rainwater. After all, unlike many sources of clean water in the city, rainwater was free.

It was just after 6:00am and raining hard when Nike decided to leave her home and head to work. It was the first week of December. Some people prepared to travel outside Lagos to their hometowns and villages for Christmas. Many would not return until January. But many others would be spending the Christmas season in Lagos.

But for all the busyness of the Christmas period, Nike hardly saw anyone on the road as she trekked to the bus-stop. Her plan was to catch a danfo bus to the closest bus-stop to her office, but depending on which bus she took, it could be one bus ride or two.

The sky was gray as she braved the rain with an umbrella in tow. The umbrella was the only thing that stood between Nike and the relentless rain. It was one of those wide, multicolored, sturdy umbrellas that served so many purposes in the lives of everyday people. Nike had seen the same type of umbrella shield roadside merchants from the hot sun. She had seen a mother with a baby on her back use the umbrella to protect herself and her infant on a sunny day. And when there was no sun in sight, she had seen it protect people when the rain fell in buckets. Like today.

By the time Nike reached the bus-stop, her trousers up to her knees were soaked, and so was the long-sleeved black chiffon blouse she wore. Her feet were clad in brown rubber slippers, out of which peeked wrinkly toes, drenched in rainwater. Her work shoes and an extra set of dry clothes were tucked in her large handbag.

By the time she reached the bus-stop, a large crowd was waiting there. Some people wore raincoats, a few even wore rain boots, but most people huddled under umbrellas. There were more people there than was normal for a Wednesday morning. Within ten minutes of her arrival, Nike discovered that there was fuel scarcity, and so there were less buses on the road. Many of them were queueing at filling stations, while others were looking for ways to buy petrol on the black market.

“I should have stayed at home today,” Nike grumbled under her breath. “Who wants to deal with all this stress just to get to work? Only God knows how long I’ll be waiting here for a bus.”

Then, a bright idea jumped into her head. Why not take a kabu-kabu instead? These were the days before taxi ride sharing services like Uber and Taxify became commonplace in Lagos. Yes, taking a kabu-kabu could be quite expensive, and something Nike would only use on the rarest of occasions, but that day was not an ordinary day. That day, she would know whether or not she had received the promotion she had been waiting for. It would not do to walk in late on such a special day.

Nike mentally calculated the amount of money in her wallet, and decided that she could afford a kabu-kabu on a certain budget. It all came down to the reasonableness of the kabu-kabu driver, and her own negotiation skills. She started looking out for the yellow taxi cabs with black stripes, which many people called kabu-kabu. She saw an empty one, and flagged him.

There was no meter inside the kabu-kabu and the drivers were some of the most cunning human beings on the planet. So, Nike prepared herself. She knew she had to be careful.

Read the Full story on:

Okadabooks

An Understanding Woman

At the End of a Long, Loose Braid

September Short Stories

A Bouquet of Promises

Mr. Perfect Shoes

Considering Mr. Wrong

To the Man I Once Loved

Tags: Best Love Stories December Short Stories JAMB Kabu Kabu Lagos Taxi Driver Nigerian Romance Stories Rain in Lagos

4 Comments

Debola on December 31, 2019 at 5:27 am

Awwnn…this kind kabu kabu love na wa.????
Straight forward love not like the complicated uncle Tunde and aunty Eyimofe’s love (okada love)????.
- Sharon Salu on January 6, 2020 at 3:11 am
  
  Debola:
  
  ???? at your reaction.
  
  Yes, their love story is much more straightforward than “Okada Love.” I like both stories sha because there isn’t one single road to love.
  
  Thanks for reading and commenting. ????
Temilade on January 2, 2020 at 6:30 am

Awwwnn.. I love this story too although it wasn’t so long. Very direct. I went to a computer school too after secondary school and I met one of my old friends there recently when i went to visit my Grandma and we had a swell time catching up.
- Sharon Salu on January 6, 2020 at 3:20 am
  
  Temilade:
  
  Wow! Thanks for confirming that these things really happen. And thanks also for sharing your own personal experience. Yes, this story was direct. No corner-corner. ????
  
  I’m glad you enjoyed this one too.