Matatu Shenanigans

Image via Wikipedia

I live in Nairobi and work in Thika, which is 26 miles away (43km).  It doesn't seem like a long journey but this is Kenya and the infrastructure hasn't been developed until recently so that sends commute times through the roof!  However, the highway from Nairobi to Thika is currently under construction by the Chinese (thank you Jesus!) so the long and tedious commutes will be a thing of the past! Until then, I am one of the millions of Kenyans that take public transport every day and that usually means boarding a "matatu".  A matatu is a van that carries between 10-15 passengers and picks up and drops off passengers at bus stops that are simply known as "stage" or by a landmark feature in the area (i.e Shell gas station!) .  The origins of the word matatu are attributed to the Swahili word for three: "tatu" and also the 30 cents fare that was paid when matatus first appeared in the 60s.

License to sound...

So yesterday Jonathan was picking me up in my mom's matatu (slang terms: mathree or jav if you are uptown) and he got pulled over in Kilimani. Evidently it wasn't the cops who wanted anything but rather the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. Jonathan asked the dude what the problem was and was informed that the radio in the matatu needed a license and unless he paid Ksh3150 he would not be able to drive the van. And get this, it is a yearly license so you have to pay this fee every year!!! The guy informed us that the information regarding this had already been gazetted and thus everyone was aware of these newly imposed charges. My mom's matatu is a private van for family use and the radio doesn't even work so when Jonathan asked whether he would still have to pay he was told yes. However, if you removed the radio from the van then you would not be subject to this crap. But, if you have a radio that doesn't work i.e produces NO sound, you still have to pay!

We decided to stop arguing and just paid the fee and got a sticker to add to the multitude of stickers already on the windshield. The guy who gave us the sticker and receipt couldn't even articulate why the "copyright" society was doing this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't copyright the legal right to own original works such as the written word, audio, video etc??? So I'm not sure why a "radio" should be under the jurisdiction of MCSK. The guy who took the license fee said that we were paying to hear the sound (this is a direct translation from Swahili). In my earnest effort to get the real reason, I decided to call one of the 6 numbers on the MCSK receipt and wouldn't you know it, none of them went through. One number was missing a digit and the other ones were a combination of "could not dial this number" or "mobile subscriber had turned off the phone" and one other that just displayed a message on my phone stating "Not allowed". Jeez!

Oh and by the way, just down the street was a guy selling a whole bunch of pirated CDs and DVDs - the MCSK couldn't be bothered in the least about this type of copyright!