The lovely Danfo Bus Girl.;article by Niyi onifade

“Something
interesting
happened
on
my
way
to
Oshodi
this morning. At the motor park, this rough mean-
looking conductor was screaming for passengers,
his vernacular oscillating between Yoruba and
Pidgin English. “Oshodi! Oshodi!” he shouted
angrily as I, along with some other passengers,
struggled for seats. There was this beautiful
young lady who couldn’t throw caution and
decorum to the wind but waited patiently until
the bus was almost filled. Then she pleaded to sit
by the conductor until somebody came down,
when she would have a proper seat.
“The bus conductor didn’t even look at her pretty
face; he hissed and shouted at the driver to
move, while asking the girl why she didn’t rush
like the other passengers. The girl started
pleading in Yoruba interspersed with English
before saying, “I know you are a good man, never
mind the fact that you have been shouting”, (that
elicited laughter). “Let me sit by your side,
please”, she added.
“Finally, with much frowning of face the
conductor relented and she sat beside him. It was
a tight squeeze but she didn’t complain. Instead,
she started praising the conductor who in turn
started teasing her, speaking (and sometimes
spitting by mistake) into her face but the girl
never looked away as she kept smiling. He asked
her where she worked and she replied that she
was a student at the University of Lagos
(UNILAG) studying accounting. The conductor
teased her in Yoruba about why her boyfriend
didn’t drop her at her destination but the young
lady laughed it off and continued to gist with the
guy in Yoruba.
“When she reached her destination, the conductor
alighted from the bus for her to come down. She
did and paid her transport fare. Then the
conductor told her to give him a peck on the
cheek for being so ‘gentlemanly’, although he was
really not serious about it. Then it happened! The
lady jumped forward and gave him a peck on the
cheek! She then waved bye and ran down to her
street.
“The driver and other people began to hail the
conductor who started joking, saying he knew he
was irresistible etc and others were taunting him.
But not long after, the conductor put his head
down and became uncharacteristically quiet. The
driver soon asked the guy why he wasn’t calling
out bus-stops anymore, wondering whether the
pretty girl had cast a spell on him. At that point,
the conductor said something in Yoruba that I
didn’t quite understand and then his voice
became emotional and believe it or not, he
started to cry. Others were now consoling him in
Yoruba.
“When I asked what the problem was, the lady
beside me explained that the conductor said he
just realised he would never be able to get a girl
like that in his life because he is an uneducated
bus conductor and she was going to be a
graduate. He was weeping because he knew no
girl of her class might ever do to him what that
girl just did, to touch a dirty person like himself;
that the girl is nice and well brought-up and that
if he had money he would have chased after her.
So the passengers were consoling him in Yoruba
that he would go higher in life and be able to
marry a girl like that and that he should not cry
because it was not the end of the road for him.
“That really touched me. For a moment in that
conductor’s life, his facade of a street thug fell
away and he was a vulnerable emotional aspiring
young man, just like everybody else.”  .Ent