Wiktionary
n. (context Kenya English) A minivan often used as a share taxi.
Wikipedia
In Kenya and neighbouring nations, matatu (or matatus) are privately owned minibuses, although pick-up trucks and estate cars were in the past pressed into service as these East African share taxis.For Kenya and neighbouring nations, see Kenya's Taxi Vans Are Packed and Perilous nytimes.com, 24 April 1988
- For private ownership, see In Nairobi, Kenya puts brakes on its runaway success csmonitor.com, 28 June 1999
- For matatu as minibuses, see Kenya (page 383) Tom Parkinson, Max Phillips, Will Gourlay. Lonely Planet, 2006. 416 pages. 1740597435, 9781740597432. (Google Books)
- For past use of pick-up trucks, see Have You Ever Taken A Matatu? glpinc.org. and "Field notes: a matatu, a bike and a walk" Schatz, Enid. Contexts Vol. 2, No. 3 (SUMMER 2003), pp. 58-59
- For past use of estate cars, see Often decorated, many matatu feature portraits of the famous or slogans and sayings.For portraits, see Nairobi Today: the Paradox of a Fragmented City; Hidden $ Centz: Rolling the Wheels of Nairobi Matatu. Mbugua wa-Mungai. (page 376) edited by Helene Charton-Bigot, Deyssi Rodriguez-Torres. African Books Collective, 2010. 404 pages. 9987080936, 9789987080939. (Google Books)
- For slogans and sayings, see Roll over Snoop Dogg, Ocampo is new king of the matatu csmonitor.com, 29 January 2010 Likewise, the music they play is also aimed at quickly attracting riders.
These minibuses ply set routes, run from termini, and are used for both inter- and intra-city travel.For set routes, see Kenya (page 382) Tom Parkinson, Max Phillips, Will Gourlay. Lonely Planet, 2006. 352 pages. 1740597435, 9781740597432. (Google Books)
- For termini, see Nairobi Today: the Paradox of a Fragmented City; Hidden $ Centz: Rolling the Wheels of Nairobi Matatu. Mbugua wa-Mungai. (page 374) edited by Helene Charton-Bigot, Deyssi Rodriguez-Torres. African Books Collective, 2010. 404 pages. 9987080936, 9789987080939. (Google Books)
- For intra and inter-city travel, see Negotiating social space: East African microenterprises (page 69) Patrick O. Alila, Poul O. Pedersen. Africa World Press, 2001. 353 pages. 0865439648, 9780865439641. (Google Books) In addition to a driver, matatu may be staffed by a conductor.
As of 1999, they were the only form of public transport available in Nairobi, Kenya, although in 2006 and 2008 this was no longer the case.For 1999 matatu as sole form of public transport, see In Nairobi, Kenya puts brakes on its runaway success csmonitor.com, 28 June 1999
- For 2006 other forms of public transport available, see Kenya (page 382) Tom Parkinson, Max Phillips, Will Gourlay. Lonely Planet, 2006. 352 pages. 1740597435, 9781740597432. (Google Books)
- For 2008 other forms of public transport available, see Stuck in Traffic; Urban Transport in Africa (page 6) Ajay Kumar & Fanny Barrett. Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic in co-operation with the World Bank, January 2008. Draft Final Report. Kampala, Uganda, may only be serviced by minibuses as of 2008. As of 2014, there are more than 20,000 individual matatu in Kenya. In 1993, there may have been double that number.
The name may also be used in parts of Nigeria.
Matatu- Journal for African Culture and Society is an academic journal on African literatures and societies dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social sciences, and cultural anthropology.
Category:Dutch literary magazines Category:Publications established in 1987 Category:English-language journals
Usage examples of "matatu".
She had been predisposed to like all the black camp staff, but Matatu was already her favorite.
Or Matatu would lean over from the back to tap her shoulder and point out a rarer sight with his tiny pink-palmed hand.
They went swiftly, but it was almost an hour through the forest before Matatu picked up the huge dished spoor in the soft earth and the litter of stripped twigs and branches that the elephant had strewed behind him as he fed.
Then Sean and his gun bearers were talking excitedly and Matatu was chattering like an agitated guinea fowl.
The three of them, Job, Shadrach, and Matatu, squatted around him in a circle and Claudia and Riccardo were forgotten as they planned the hunt, working out their tactics, discussing in detail every aspect, every eventuality.
The blood on the grass gave Sean and Matatu the exact height of the wound, and the feces mixed with the blood told them the bowels had been penetrated.
He's waiting for us, Matatu, and when he comes, you run back behind me.
On the third he saw the Toyota puff out toward the airstrip with Job driving and Matatu standing in the back.
Everyone in the party quickened pace at the tracker's exclamation, but Matatu reached the main pathway ahead of them and darted down it, turning his head to use the light of dawn most effectively, dabbing lightly at the earth with the tip of the peeled wild willow wand he carried.
They squatted down, Job on one side of Sean, Matatu on the other-a council of war, from which only Shadrach was missing.
Riccardo let his hand fall to his side, and Sean went to where Job and Matatu were waiting.
The flankers had to keep Slightly ahead of the tracker, anticipating the line of the spoor, sweeping the terrain for ambush, covering and protecting Matatu yet keeping fifty paces out on each side, breaking their own trail and still maintaining contact with the opposite flanker, all this while on the run and mostly out of sight of each other, with Matatu setting a furious pace in the center.
At this magnification, he could recognize two of the men as Matatu had described them from their spoor.
Job sat beside him in the right-hand seat, while Matatu was in the seat behind Job.
Even after all these years, Matatu was terrified of flying and still occasionally suffered from airsickness.