Looking back: Learning to drive Africa style

It was a little over three months after we arrived in Burkina last year before we received our car. During that time transportation was very limited. Isaak had a work truck available to him at times to commute back and forth to work, but as for me....it was my legs or nothing at all.

So, for three months I walked to get places. I'd walk to the market and the grocery store and birthday parties and restaurants. We'd walk in the heat and in the rain, through puddles and mud, and if where I needed to go was too far there were a couple friends who would graciously pick me up or drop me off from time to time. But for the most part I hung low during those three months. I accepted that I didn't need to be somewhere all the time. I had three years to explore and learn my way around and get out of the house and drive to get places. And though it was challenging at times not having any transportation and feeling so limited with not being able to get out there right away and make friends and get involved and make connections....I knew it was good to have that time of living at a slower pace. Of slowly adjusting into life here. Not feeling the pressure to go everywhere and see everything all at once.

But the day that Isaak was finally able to drive our car home....was a REALLY happy day.

Me=happy. See that ray of light shining down on me? That means Heaven was happy too. =)

I was SO ready to drive and not be home bound anymore that I was determined to push back any fear I had over driving here and just get out there and do it.

Which is good. Because after watching Isaak drive from the passenger seat of his work truck for three months and narrowly avoid obliterating everyone around him every time he drove....I was fully convinced that someone would inevitably meet their fate against my bumper.

But I am proud to report that after nine months of driving in Burkina I have not killed anyone yet! Whooooop whoooooop!! WHICH, if you'd asked me back in November when we got our car, I would have totally told you that I fully expected to have squashed someone by this point.
 
Because driving here is cRaZy!! And it's not even because there are tons of cars and traffic. Maneuvering through Washington D.C. and Miami traffic seems like a walk in the park after driving here. If it were just cars on the road like in most places of the world....it would be a breeze. But no, it's all the....

donkey carts,

livestock,

motos (I've seen a family of six riding on those)

bicycles

 pedestrians,

bush taxies and monster sized semi's piled two stories high with crap,
horses, camels, goats, dogs, and donkeys

driving school vehicles,

and these incredibly annoying three tired motorcycle carts.

What are you anyways? A motorcycle? A truck? A three wheeler? I. have. no. i-dea! These things are actually "illegal" to drive on the road here. Pssssh. Yeah Right. Apparently the 92,000 that are on the road didn't get the memo.

They have a lot of fake rules here.

Like, apparently you can get a ticket for driving and talking on your cell phone. And yet....here's a fella driving a motorcycle one handed, with no helmet, while talking on his phone. 

I once saw a girl texting while driving her moto. 

You also don't need a driver's lisence to drive motos here. And there are way more motos on the road here than cars. Which means not only does everyone on the road not have a driver's lisence and know how to drive properly...they also drive while texting and talking while not wearing any protective gear! 

Umm, can you say death trap? I can. And I've driven by the remains of my fair share of them.

Like I said....it is a flippin' mircale I have not flattened someone yet!

So, that is what you have to drive with. I honestly didn't know how I was going to do it.

Fortunately, after not having transportation for over three months, despite my fear of killing someone, I was incredibly determined to be independent and not have to rely on a driver or Isaak to shuttle me around.

I was going to get out there and drive.

Oh yeah, and also Isaak kinda made me. So, that left me little choice in the matter.

And the first time he made me drive was the evening that our car arrived. There was an event at ISO and Isaak made me get in the car with the entire family (whoa that man be crazy!) and drive during the night, at rush hour, down a street which is a sprawling mess of activity.

Because, not to mention the fact that you have to share the road with more than just cars now....you literally have to share the road with them! They don't exactly have donkey cart lanes here. Or bicycle paths. Or sidewalks for pedestrians. Everyone is all squished together in narrow lanes trying to fight their way forward and not get killed or fall into the sewage ditches in the process. And those are some deep nasty ditches y'all! Ain't no body want to fall in that gunk! While we were walking to a birthday party before our car arrived, the girls found a dead crocodile floating in one. Crocodiles are like roaches....they never die. So the fact that one was floating dead on the surface of a sewage ditch means that those sewage ditches be nasty enough to kill a roach! Or in this case a crocodile. You for real don't want to fall in those suckers.

And don't get me started on driving at night here. In addition to the street circus you have to navigate through....there are pretty much no street lights. And even if you are on a road with street lights, if there is a power cut, which happens frequently, then all the lights are off anyways, and you can't see a thing. Which also means there are no traffic lights. And honestly, the traffic lights rarely work here anyways, so you just have to go through the intersections and pray you don't mow someone down in the process.

So, driving at night is always extra special....not having street lamps, and, oh yeah, newsflash, the fact that black people are like, a whole lot darker at night! I know that probably sounds like a no brainer, that black people are harder to see at night...but until I drove in these conditions where there were only black people on the road around me....it was a whole 'nother reality! I mean, one minute you see them, and then poof, the night just swallows them up! I can't tell you how many times I will get ready to turn, inch the car forward and think I'm in the clear and then out of my side mirror I look and think to myself, "huh, that's weird, the air seems to be moving.....BAH! That's a person!"

Slam on my brakes to avoid narrowly crushing them.

Burkinabé don't wear reflector clothing if they're out at night. They don't wear helmets on their bike or motos with shiny tape. Their motos rarely have working headlights. With their dark skin, dark hair, and non-reflective wearing clothes in addition to having no lights on the street...they just blend into the night.

So again...major kudos to me for not running into anyone so far!

It all took a lot of getting used to.

I learned real quick you have to keep your eyes on the road at all times! You take 0. 5 seconds to even close your eyes and sneeze and that's all it takes for a moto to veer in front of your car and meet their end. Or, for you to drive into a sink hole. Or over a mound of rocks that they dumped into the sink hole to fill it.

It took a little while, but eventually I started to get more and more comfortable.

Now, I feel at home driving in a crowd of motos and bikes and vendors pushing their wooden carts down the streets, and women passing to and fro balancing massive bowls on their heads, and steering into oncoming traffic to get pass people in front of me transporting everything you can imagine!

I've seen the craziest stuff. I've seen guys on motos carrying entire bed frames, couches, glass doors, other motos! I've seen dudes on bikes encased with tires. I've seen moms on bikes with a baby strapped to her back balancing a bowl on her head with a huge basket balanced in front of her peddling through the intersection.

That is what you have to navigate through on the roads every time you drive here. 

And, as crazy as it all is...I actually love driving here. I love it. I love the crazy. I love the chaos of it all. Even in the beginning when it was new and I was nervous...I still loved it. It felt natural. Like I had been waiting my whole life to do this. To live here.

I'm really hoping that this next year I keep up my perfect record of not flattening anyone on the road! I'm off to a good start these last nine months!

Isaak on the other hand....has hit his fair share of people. This is where I'm going to resist the urge to say that I may be the better Africa driver. =)