The Taxi Series, London: Kwame and Yugoslavia transit

In between a chat, I took this terrible blurry image.

Somehow, I always end up in these deep conversations with taxi drivers, even when all I want is to quietly watch the world roll by. It’s not that I’m exceptionally charming, no, no sir! Maybe there’s just something in the air.

London.

It starts as a simple plan: leave my hotel along Borough Road, and catch a taxi to the St Pancras station. Taxis, because, well, I’m hopeless with buses and the Underground train.

It is chilly, with some rains, the kind of damp cold that clings to your bones, and I am eager to find warmth anywhere, be it in the back seat of a cab or on a crowded train platform. I could really go back to the hotel lobby for two minutes of that warmth, or so i tell myself.

Then my Uber arrives.

I  am expecting the usual, maybe a minute or two of polite small talk about the weather. Then I climb into Kwame’s taxi. He looks to be in his mid-sixties, if I had to guess, with salt-and-pepper hair.

“Had a good evening, my brother?” he asks in a soft accent as we pull onto the main road. I can’t quite pin down whether it was Nigerian or Ghanaian, but I am sure he was my West African brother. “Not bad,” I reply, shaking off the cold. Somehow, though, before I can even return, he beat me to it. “You just left that Iranian hotel?” he asks, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “Interesting place, isn’t it?”.

I mean, the hotel was fine,  so there was nothing more to talk about, but I did like the old guy working the lobby! Anyway, I half-expected the conversation to end there. Sort off. Instead, Kwame opens up as though we were old friends, picking up right where we left off. Which was funny.

He told me he was originally from Accra, Ghana, a young man in the early 1980s, with more dreams than opportunities. Kwame had just met Ama, a woman whose laughter, he said, “could brighten any room.” But times were tough in Ghana, and the future felt uncertain. Ghana’s economy in the 80s offered little hope for two people dreaming of a stable future. I grew up reading in our history books about the ‘Gold Coast,’ but that name had been shortlived, mostly because you, know, colonialism, the old, same old story.

“That day I left Ama,” Kwame said, keeping his eyes on the road, “felt like leaving half of myself behind.” It’s interesting because he gives a small laugh after this. I figured that he had pictured a young pretty Ama in his mind. The headlights of passing cars gave me a quick glimpse,  illuminating the sincerity in his face, as we drove down Russel Square.

I listened, glancing out at London’s night scene: there’s something magical about the city’s streets at dusk, you know, how the rain-slicked pavement reflects the city lights, and every corner seems to house its own little secret! Some of which, ironically, had shaped Kwame’s homeland centuries ago.

Kwame recounted how he journeyed across the Sahara through dusty towns of the Sahel where he didn’t speak the language, surviving on grit and the kindness of strangers. His destination, Italy! Eventually, he made his way to Yugoslavia.

Going through Yugoslavia was his only way at the time. Back then, it was still a single country, he reminds me, though tensions were simmering. A tapestry of different cultures soon to unravel. “It was tough for people there,” he explained. “Jobs were scarce, tensions were rising. But many of them had a big heart. They helped travellers like me get by when we were desperate.”

He tells me how he and other migrants would hide in truck compartments or walk long stretches of road at night, praying not to get caught. “You do what you have to,” he shrugged. “Because staying still means giving up, and I couldn’t do that if I ever wanted to see my people again.”

I love the way we Africans say “my people.” It feels so warm and strong.

Eventually, Kwame reached Italy. But as he told it, arriving there was only the beginning. At the time, Italian citizenship rules were complicated: you had to prove you’d arrived before 1986 to qualify. Kwame, who landed a bit later, had to be “creative,” as he put it.“I won’t give you the details,” he added with a hint of a smile, “but let’s just say I had to bend the timeline a bit.”

In time, though, he did return to Ghana, married Ama, and brought her to Italy. Their children were born there, playing football in Roman backstreets, and learning to love pizza as much as jollof rice.

By the mid-1990s, Yugoslavia had fractured in brutal conflicts. Watching a country he once passed through split apart left Kwame with a sobering realization: nothing is guaranteed, no place or situation is permanent. The future could change in a heartbeat.

 Seeking a more stable future for his family, he turned his gaze to London. “London had this energy,” Kwame said, pausing at a red light, before our last stretch to St Pancras. “A mix of people from everywhere, each with their own story. I knew we could fit in.”And fit in they did. Kwame found work as a driver, first for a logistics company, and then eventually as a taxi driver in the city.

Kwame’s voice softened as he told me about his children: his daughter was now a practising doctor in the city, and his son was pursuing an art course that took him to gallery openings around London.

 Before stepping out, I asked the question I imagine he’d heard countless times: “Do you ever want to go back?”He paused. “Ghana will always be home. But sometimes, home is the life you create with the people you love. Right now, that’s here. Still,” his eyes glinted, “it’s nice to dream about both places.”

I step out into the cold station air, it’s still drizzling. I could use a cup of coffee. I watch as Kwame’s taxi blends into the chaos of traffic and headlights. I thought about how people like Kwame risk everything, crossing borders bridging cultures, just to carve out a future.