Transportation
The transportation system in Liberia has a unique paradigm. If
you want to get somewhere you stand on the side of the road and hold your hand
out. Taxis that are accepting passengers will also honk inquisitively at people
walking down the road to inform you they are currently looking for passengers.
In Liberia taxi means a car, usually yellow, that stops and picks up passengers
and generally as many as possible. There are also designated spots on the road,
usually at a major intersection, where taxis will stop and you can also walk to
one of these and wait for a car to stop. These areas can be chaotic because if
a lot of people are waiting for a ride they will literally swarm the car like a
school of sharks on insert something clever here. It’s transportation
Darwinism at its finest, only the fittest get a ride.
Most vehicles double as a small, mobile church because when you
ride in one it’s usually an exercise in finding religion. Mentally, I’m
screaming a prayer to sweet baby Jesus as we speed down the street narrowly
missing pedestrians and other vehicles. But you do have to admire that the
drivers here seem to share some sort of neural network in which they know
exactly what everyone else is going to do and consistently miss each other by
inches because of it. To get out of my work compound and get to my home
compound you have to turn left out onto the street. The left hand path has
always been scary but Liberia takes it to the nth degree. First, people coming
from the left will never stop on their own for you. You have to edge the car
out ever so slowly until you’re entirely blocking both lanes of traffic. Then
you have to hope that someone in the far lane will let you in. If Liberians are
anything, they are possessive over their roads. At times, it seems like they
would rather hit the person in front of them by following them too closely than
let a car turn left in front of them. It’s harrowing to say the least to see a
Mack truck barreling down the road at you while the car in the far lane is
doing its best conjoined twin impression with the bumper of the vehicle in
front of them.
They also use motorcycles as taxis here, which is not
something I saw in Guyana. I don’t think I’d use one unless it really was a
last resort. Some of my readers are aware that I am a bit of a motorcycle
enthusiast, I rode one around for the year between graduating Oregon State and
joining the Peace Corps. What really strikes me as interesting, and I noticed
this in Guyana as well, is the skill of the riders here. Back home, on flat
roads with predictable traffic, I had a 500cc (that’s the engine size) bike
that I loved. Riding with a passenger was terrible though. It removed all
maneuverability and fun from the bike. Essentially, a bigger engine size
obviously means the bike is more powerful which means it should be able to
carry more weight more easily. Now if my 500cc bike has issues with carrying
two people I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the taxi guys here who I’ve
seen take two or three people at a time on their little 125cc or 250cc bikes.
That has to be absolutely no fun at all.
Regular Life Stuff
In the last week I’ve been feverishly working on this DBT
training, it starts next Monday. I just killed a bunch of trees to print
everything for it so my little Oregon heart is hurting. Everything else seems
to be going well. I learned where to buy groceries and how to put credit on my
phone so everything is coming up roses. This is the end of the third week in my
eight week journey so I’m glad I actually get to do some real work starting
next week.
Drop me a line at timdaniel25@gmail.com
if you need something to do. I enjoy hearing from people I don’t hear from
usually.
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