Roads

If any of you have been to Africa or know someone who has been one of the first things they mention is the roads. Traveling by vehicle in Africa can be quite the adventure. There are two types of roads in Africa, paved and dirt, neither of which are very nice to drive on. Paved roads are roads that were paved many years ago and since have deteriorated. There are no lanes, no markings on the road, and more potholes than pavement that are frequently big enough to swallow a bus. Drivers have become very good at avoiding the large holes but this means driving on all parts of the road swerving every which way to avoid potholes, cows, people, bikes, and on coming traffic. This is done at amazing speeds that we wouldn't drive at on our 6 lane high ways. The dirt roads don't have as large of potholes as the paved roads but the dust is so thick that you freqently can't see the car a few feet ahead of you (think of driving in a large snow storm) or the road is a mud hole and you can get stuck or swerve all over the road (think of a snowy highway). This fun is even more exciting when done in a matatu (a mix between a bus and a taxi). To give you an idea of of this experience I will describe a short trip Bebeth and I took to visit another Peace Corps volunteer. We were in Mombassa and needed to get a Matatu to the "dolphin" stop, which is partly between Mombassa and Matwapa. We walk out onto the street and there are tons of matatus whizzing by. Each matatu has a driver (who only drives) and a tout. The tout responsibility is to get passengers and collect money. The tout hangs out the door of the 10 passenger van (a revamped mini van) yelling, some times grabbing you and your bag, trying to get you to take their matatu. The key is to get in one going the way you want to go. The touts are always calling out their final destination but this can be hard to decipher. Bebeth found one that was headed our way and hopped on which is no easy task. As soon as you have on foot on the van it takes off so you are left clinging and scrambling to wedge your way to a seat in a crowded van. Once the van determines it is full enough it takes off at amazing speeds missing on coming traffic by a centimeter, hoking every few seconds to warn people that we are coming, and through out this the tout continues yelling out the window. Every few minutes the matutu flies to the side of the road letting someone roll out while picking up another passenger. The tout lets the driver know to stop or go by banging on the roof. How the tout stays in the van I do not know because the van is always leaving before the tout even has a foot on the van. At some point during the ride the tout asks you for money. Since we are foreigners this can frequently mean an argument since they want to charge us more. This time we lucked out and they did not give us a hard time. Our luck didn't last because the tout did not tell the driver to stop and we missed our stop and made it to the next town. The matatu turns around and heads back so we were able to stay on and ride back. This took longer than expected because when the matatu pulled over to pick someone up it got stuck in a large pothole. This meant everyone had to get out and rock it back and forth trying to get it unstuck. 5 minutes later we were off again bumping, swerving, and flying down the dusty "paved" road. We made it this time to our stop in one piece. A 7 minute ride can turn into an 30 minute adventure on any road in Africa.