By Nkhensani Mthombeni
- Taxi drivers at Nkowankowa Taxi Rank near Tzaneen dressed as women on Friday, wearing traditional attire, weaves and lipstick, for the third year running.
- Organiser Hlampfura Malamula said the day is about honouring women and campaigning against gender-based violence.
Taxi drivers at Nkowankowa Taxi Rank outside Tzaneen swapped their usual overalls for skirts, dresses and lipstick on Friday morning, dressing as women to mark the end of Women’s Month.
Most of the drivers, who belong to the Nkowankowa Taxi Association, wore traditional attire, including xibelana skirts, the traditional Tsonga dance skirt, and Sepedi dresses, with some finishing the look with weaves and lipstick.
This is the third year the drivers have taken part, after first accepting a challenge on radio to dress up in 2024.
Organiser Hlampfura Malamula, also a driver at the rank, said the day is about honouring the women in their lives, including their own passengers, and speaking out against gender-based violence.
“Women run the world, they run homes, the workplace, businesses and build homes, they are basically everything,” he said.
Malamula also urged fellow men to stop gender-based violence, and encouraged them to spoil the women in their lives throughout the month.
The morning began with the drivers posing for photos with commuters, who were delighted to see their regular drivers transformed for the day.
Driver Nimrod Nkuna said the experience gave him a new appreciation for what women go through.
“The xibelana skirt is heavy, I don’t know how women survive the whole day at an event wearing it and still manage to dance,” he said.
Pictured above: Nkowankowa Taxi Rank drivers dressed as women for Women’s Month.
Image source: Nkhensani Mthombeni
