Why is this matatu going backwards?

In one of those days where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, here are some of the challenges of working in Africa.

Before starting work, we walked over to the nearby mall to run errands and get some cash out. Unfortunately, Rob's bank seems to think he is a "fraudster" and for the third time in as many weeks declined his transaction. So while Rob starts about a twenty minute chat with his bank, we walk down to the main road to grab a matatu (basically public minivans that run regular routes - ours is the 23) into work. We tell the guy where we are going, he nods, we agree on a price (about 14 cents), hop on board and everything seems fine.

The guy drives off a bit slowly, but honestly with the way these guys generally drive, slowly is not something to complain about. And then we stop, which is fairly normal, matatus stop (or at least come to a slow roll) to pick up people all the time. And then we start driving backwards. Which is decidedly not normal. Even with the way these guys generally drive. We reverse for a good minute or so, end up behind where we started and load up with a few more people. Then the matatu starts off again, going in the right direction for almost a full three minutes before it randomly turns left, stops and tells us to get out. Wonderful. So now, five minutes later, we are back on the main road, about a 100 yards closer to work and trying to catch another matatu.

We make it into work and have a reasonably productive day, our meeting starts late (as tends to happen) and runs an hour or three long (as tends to happen) so lunch is something slightly less than delicious from the gas station across the street. We head back to the apartment to start our evening conference calls (morning in the US) using TurboCall which at 8 cents a minute is downright cheap.

Unfortunately, today the quality is downright cheap and keeps breaking up, usually right when someone is answering one of my questions or saying something that (I assume) is really important. So Rob heads back to the nearby mall to make his call from the internet cafe which seems like a good idea until Skype refuses to connect. I get a text, start up his call, and have been talking for about five minutes when Rob bursts into the room, huffing and puffing from a sprint back from the mall. Then for our third and final call, we decide to go with the plain old cell phone which works really well except that at 35 cents a minute, right when Rob says "and now I'm going to give it over to Steve", we hear three beeps telling us we've run out of money and the line goes dead.

But hey, a bad day in Africa is still better than a good day in the office.