Don't Do Drugs

“Don’t do drugs.” A high-schooler behind me said it to her friend when the commotion started.  “Don’t do drugs.”  A mom said it to her young child as they climbed off the bus with the first exodus of people.  “Don’t do drugs.”  A man said it to whoever happened to be within ear shot as we all moved down the sidewalk to board the approaching bus.  “Don’t do drugs.”  I think I heard that phrase uttered more tonight than in the entire 1980s combined.

I was sitting on the bus minding my own business, reading about verb usage in United Nations Conferences of the Parties decisions as I am apt to do these days during my commute, when a voice yelled out, “Don’t touch me!”

Not the most unusual thing for a rather crowded bus at rush hour.  My passing thought was probably something along the lines of “it’s good she’s standing up for herself.”  But the yelling continued.  “Stop touching me!  Don’t touch me!”  Over and over.  By this point, everyone on the bus was looking, and it was clear no one was touching her.  The woman was sitting in the sideways seats at the front of the bus yelling into the bus in general.

But that changed.  She turned to the man on the seat adjacent to hers and started yelling directly at him.  "Don't touch me!"  He tried calmly saying he wasn’t touching her, a few times.  She kept yelling and started getting up in his face.  Then he got agitated.  “Stop touching me!”  “Stop spitting on me!”  “Don’t touch me!”  “I’m not touching you; don’t spit on me.”

And then the threats.  From her, all from her.  She’d spewed a few into the air before, before she turned on this man, but now they were clearly all directed at him.  They  both stood up.  I don’t know who stood up first, but she started swinging.  He put his hands up, trying to block her punches.  Some guys from the back of the bus yelled, “Don’t hit that woman."  "You can’t hit no woman.”  The man was trying to duck, but there was nowhere to go on the crowded bus.  The bus driver tried to get them both of the bus.  The man backed out, the lady still swinging at him, while he voiced the inequity of his having to leave the bus.

The woman sat down briefly.  Then she jumped up and raged down the aisle towards a young lady who was standing near the back door, looking at her phone, not paying no mind to any of the ruckus.  The lady saw the woman coming and froze in shock.  A man in a construction safety vest jumped up immediately in between the two, blocking the woman’s arms from coming down on the surprised lady.

The man in the safety vest backed the woman up a bit, but she started to send jabs into his gut and swing for his shoulders.  A third gentleman jumped up and tried to pin the woman’s flailing arms.  She fell to the bus floor, both guys going down with her.  They wrestled her off the bus as passengers off-loaded themselves by the back door.

Soon, half the bus was empty, the bus driver was outside with the woman, the two men who’d gotten her off the bus and the man she’d first attacked.  The other passengers mulled around on the sidewalk at the back of the bus, waiting for the next bus.

Those of us on the bus waited a bit.  The driver came back on, but he didn’t sit down.  He pulled a bright green safety vest out from behind his chair, put it on and calmly stepped back off the bus.  The woman was still yelling outside.  Someone hollered that another bus had arrived.  The rest of us streamed off the bus to trade our immobilized one for one that might actually get us to our destinations.

And then we saw why the driver hadn’t come back in, why he got his safety vest, why we weren’t going anywhere.  The woman had thrown herself under the front of the bus, directly in front of the right tire.  She was lying there, in the road, a limb flung on the muddy curb, yelling about how WMATA (the transit agency) better give her something.  The bus driver just stood nearby, nonchalant, waiting patiently.

The rest of us moseyed on down to the arriving bus.  “She spit on me and my daughter,” the man who was first attacked.  “I’m just trying to get to work,” the guy who helped get her off the bus.  “How she gonna hold everyone up like that?” a lady dragging a stroller up the steps of the bus.  “Don’t do drugs,” somebody, to someone, to everyone.

Just another commute home in DC.

The Commute pt. 2

I looked up from my book, through the glass pane.

There was a woman staring at me.

Not quite middle aged, but grown.

She looked sophisticated, yet with a roughness showing at the edges, as though someone had tried to fix a scratch in marble with 50-grit sandpaper.

She stared straight ahead.

“Where did she come from?” I wondered.

In my head, I’m still the gangly 13-year old with wild hair and a crooked half-smile.

The Commute

Five seconds.

Five hours?

Five years?

How long is this eternal moment?

How long until you become human?

How long until I become human to you?

We stare through the glass, like a child at the zoo.

But who is caged?

Who is free?

And who is the animal?

Five seconds.

I look for your eyes, but they are obscured by the reflection of my own.

We stare at each other;

In that instant;

In that moment;

In that never-ending five seconds.

We are ourselves and everyone

- standing across from us

- next to us

- all the faces in and through the glass.

Searching…

Searching for humanity.

For a soul.

For an indication that we are more than  forms moving through the world.

Peering.

Seeking.

Five Seconds.

Five pensive seconds.

Five reflective seconds.

Five evaporated seconds;

The doors open.

Whatever we were, we are not.

We are only obstacles in each other’s way, each trying to get from where we are to where we’re going.

Stop the World! Someone’s crossing the street

There’s this thing Californians do – well at least Bay Area Californians – that absolutely drives me nuts.  They love their pedestrians and are all about letting them cross the street safely.  I’m all about pedestrians safely crossing streets, too.  But, I’m also about sense and logic and efficiency.  Californians are not about any of those things.

Pedestrian’s standing at corner of intersection, waiting to cross street.  All good.  See the little diagram below.  Person is waiting to cross from the north east corner to the north west corner.  North-south traffic has the right away.  East-west traffic has stop signs (yes, I know they don’t have enough sides. Paint doesn’t have an octagon tool.)  Although honestly, the scenario I’m about to show you would also happen if it were a four-way stop.

Traffic comes along on the roads.  Say someone comes along going west.  They stop at the stop sign and wait a bit because there’s a car coming north on the cross street.

Now, 1 time out of ten, that green, north-bound car is going to keep going, and after it passes, the pedestrian and the blue, west-bound car will cross the main street.  The other 9 times, here’s what’s going to happen.  That green car’s driver is going to see that there’s a pedestrian waiting to cross the street.  So the green car is going to stop for the pedestrian.  Is the green car going to pull up to the intersection and stop, which allows the pedestrian and the blue car to cross?  No.  The green car is going to do this.

The green car is going to pull into the intersection and then stop.  And sit in the middle of the intersection until the pedestrian has fully crossed the street.  Meanwhile, more cars come along….

And the streets are needlessly jammed because there’s a car just sitting in the middle of the intersection.

As a pedestrian, this drives me nuts because it often appears the car isn’t going to stop until it’s right in front of the cross walk.  If it had started slowing down sooner, I could have been half-way across the street before it got to the crosswalk.  Plus, now if I cross, I hold up the whole intersection.

As a driver, this drives me crazy because you’re zipping along at 30 and the car in front of you fairly suddenly stops in an unexpected place and you can’t see why because they’re so close to the crosswalk they’re blocking the pedestrian from view.  I’ve heard stories about people getting rear-ended in exactly this way, yet stopping in the middle of intersections is still very common.

I asked a local police officer about this once, at their annual fundraising dinner.  His response was along the lines of, “well if I saw a pretty girl waiting to cross the street, I’d try to get as close as I could to get a good view, too.”   Not only was it inappropriate, it was also entirely unhelpful.

Guess the BART Stop

“They're called stereo-types for a reason,” I was scolded.  “Yeah, because they’re often true,” I muttered under my breath. “Because, they’re often not true,” she continued.  True or not, they make for some entertaining time-passing on public transit.

One of my favorite games on my way home from work is called “Guess the BART stop.”  People watching upped with a predictive element. Based pretty much solely on stereo-types, I guess at which BART station other passengers will off-board.  I’m correct more often than I’m wrong, but not nearly 100% accurate.

Red line coming out of San Francisco.

Some are pretty easy and obvious. Pink or green hair, odd piercings, extremely flamboyant clothing; most certainly getting off the train at Downtown Berkeley.

Some are a little tougher for pegging the exact stop, but easy enough to narrow-done fairly well.  Mid-40s in professional clothing; if they didn’t get off at MacArthur to get into their car or switch to the Pittsburg/Bay Point line going out to the big house, big yard suburbs, they’ll most likely exit the train at North Berkeley, where they’ll get into their car and drive to their home in the hills.  Really ghetto-dressed people, often playing badly distorted music at top volume from their cell phones, who don’t exit the train at one of the Oakland stops are likely to stay on until Richmond. Though occasionally, some of the younger ones go to Downtown Berkeley.

Late 20s, early 30s hipsters in their skinny jeans and plaid shirts; it depends. If it’s commute time and they’ve got their terribly ironic and practical messenger bag with the seatbelt buckle tossed around their back, they’ll likely get off at Ashby, maybe a few stragglers at Downtown Berkeley. But if it’s later in the evening or it’s a train going the other direction, they’ll most likely exit at one of the downtown Oakland stops.

Red Line pre-San Francisco

The BART-leg of my commute home actually begins in Millbrae. But, I have not learned enough about the neighborhoods’ on the Peninsula and heading into the City to be able to play the game down there. All the people at that point just look the same to me.

Orange Line to Freemont

I can also sort of play on my way into work, when I take the orange line to Union City. However, since I board BART so near the end of the line (and so early in the morning), there aren’t really a lot of people to watch and guess about.  The main thing is to guess which people will transfer at MacArthur to the San Francisco bound train. It’s pretty much everyone other than me who is dressed nicely.

As I spend more time on BART, I get better at the game. But then, just when I’m starting to get too proud of myself and think I have everything figured out, a noisy phone-blasting kid gets off at North Berkeley, or someone with pink hair rides all the way to my stop.  “They’re called stereo-types for a reason,” because they can help you make a quick judgment when you need to but not necessarily a correct judgment.

The Perfect Present

I think it is ok to use the proper word as Mommy would likely not find it vampire-worthy, in this instance: The Gates of Hell. To Dante, a reason to abandon all hope. To that poor armless, legless boy in the ICP song, something he never saw coming. To art fans, it is magnificence and beauty. And to me, to me it is a great story.

The Search

“I called Tokyo and Paris, neither of them have one.”

“Darn, and I called Philadelphia, and they didn’t have one either.”

“You, know it’s possible there just isn’t one made.”

My friend, Ant, was attempting to help me find the perfect birthday present for another friend, Mr. Maintenance Man.  I knew exactly what I wanted to get him, but it was starting to seem that the perfect present literally didn’t exist.  A poster.  It seemed simple enough.  A poster of his favorite piece of artwork, Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

The birthday boy and my goat, which I named after him (for reason).

Ant and I had started by searching online stores.  Though not as ubiquitous eight years ago as they are today, there was still a pretty decent selection of stores.  But try as we might, we couldn’t find anything.  So we started calling the Rodin museums around the world and inquiring about their gift shops.  Nothing.

The Plan

Then. An idea.  It was 2am, or some other ridiculous time of night when only drunks and college students are awake.  The Rodin museum in Philadelphia, the only one on this side of the planet, has a Gates of Hell, outside, in front of the building.  A road trip!  Yes, that’s it, a road trip!  I’ll just go there and take a picture myself and get it turned into a poster.

But work, shoot, I have work, and I can’t miss that.  A weekend!  I can go on a weekend.  Where is Philadelphia?  Ouch, that far?!  I can’t drive there and back, and get to the museum while it’s open in a weekend….  I know, an airplane!  I’ll fly there and back in a weekend.  How much are flights?  Oh, that sucks.  Hmmm……

And then, the most brilliant idea ever: Greyhound.

Oh, and I’ll need company.

It just so happened that my very good, and practically life-long, friend, The Great Ecclestone was on AIM.

Hey, wanna go to Philly?  On a Greyhound?  To take a picture of a statue?

What?  Ok.

Alright, so the conversation was a little longer and convincing him might have taken a bit more work, but soon we were set.

The Trip

Early on Saturday morning ,we stood at the Milwaukee bus station.  I had never been in a bus station before and had no idea what to expect.   People and luggage were everywhere.  Buses rolled in an out, trails of fumes behind them.  The Great Ecclestone and I looked at the stack of tickets in our hands.  One ticket for every bus we would board on our 24-hour trip eastward.  The strip of tickets reached almost to the floor.

The Great Ecclestone and our Greyhound tickets.

Many filthy bus terminals and bathrooms fit for a lead-in to CSI later, we arrived at our destination.   Backs sore, feet and legs cramping, groggy and damp with sweat, we disembarked from our last bus into the hot Philadelphia summer sun.  Sunday morning, welcome.

The Rodin museum was only about a mile or so from the bus station and would be opening in a short while.  Time for some breakfast, and a change of clothes.

My SLR camera and about a dozen rolls of film jostled in my bag as we approached the large iron gate at the foot of the museum’s walkway.  No tripod, not allowed in the museum.  And there it was, shining brightly in the sun, towering far above me, immense yet exquisite in detail.  The Gates of Hell.  I began to take my pictures.

All day I stayed at that museum.  All day, taking pictures of The Gates of Hell and of the art work inside.  The Great Ecclestone accompanied me through the small museum and then headed off to the large art museum down the street.  Perhaps he even ran up the steps like Rocky.  I don’t know, I had a job to do and shadows to beat as the sun came over the roof of the museum  and illuminated bits and pieces of the giant brass sculpture.

Rodin sculptures: The Shade.

When I had finally finished my pictures, and my film, I met up with The Great Ecclestone again and we went to see the Liberty Bell.  We had to.   I mean, you can’t go all the way to Philadelphia for the first time in your life and not see the Liberty Bell!  It’s a bell.  With a crack.

Dusk began to settle over the city.  We grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and headed back to the bus station for our long ride back.  Our day in Philly was over.

The Liberty Bell.

Getting Back

After the ordeal of getting out to Philadelphia, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what to expect on our twenty-four hour ride back.  Boy we were wrong.  24 hours later, when we were supposed to be back in Milwaukee, when I was supposed to be on my way to work, where were we?  Stuck in a bus station, in Gary, Indiana.

Never been to Gary, Indiana?  Good.  Keep it that way.  Let me give you some perspective, some places where it might be worse to be stuck.  ….  Places where it might be better to be stuck.  A bus station in Chicago, a bus station in Lusaka, a bus station in Oakland, a luggage locker in a bus station in Oakland.  You get the idea.

Five hours.  Five hours until the next bus.  Our bus to Gary had gotten stuck in construction traffic on the highway and we had missed our connecting bus from Gary to Chicago.  Five hours.  Needless to say, I had to call into work stranded-in-Gary.

We did eventually make it home.  And the present, the present turned out spectacular.  He loved it, and the Philadelphia Chinatown fortune cookie.

The photo that became the poster: Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

*Note: the white edge is from a crooked scan and was not on the poster.

A Justice, a Dean, an Adventure

“Are you still in Boston?”  It should have been an easy question to answer, a simple text message, but it had me all a flutter and unsure how to answer.  It was quarter after one, I’d been at the airport since 10am, hoping to get on standby for a flight earlier than my scheduled 5:40 departure.  No luck, 5:40 it was.

I looked at the text in my hand.  Could I do it?  Could I leave the airport, get to Harvard and take advantage of this amazing opportunity that had just been offered to me, and get back in time to make my flight?

A friend of mine, a new friend, I hope a continuing friend for the future, Mr. Nice Lawyer, had just offered me his extra ticket to go see Justice Souter speak at the afternoon ceremony part of Harvard’s graduation.  Wow!  Chances to hear a retired Supreme Court Justice don’t just pop up everyday.  Plus, as I’m sure you can guess by his name, Mr. Nice Lawyer is really nice and fun to hang out with.  The ceremony started at 2:30.

Google map, some math, a call to Mr. Nice Lawyer, a trip to the ticket counter to check what was no-longer my carry-on bag, and the next thing I new, I was back on the T and headed to Harvard, Daddy Bunny in tow.  Good thing I didn’t throw out my 7-day pass for the T, Boston’s public transit system, when I got to the airport.

Hah-vahd

The campus was a bustle of commotion.  Men in coat tails and top hats directing people.  Signs left-over from the morning graduation portion posted here and there.  A maze of people in jeans, in dresses, in long black robes, in bright red robes, caps and gowns and cameras and smiles everywhere.  A long line of alumni, old white-haired alumni in crimson baseball caps filed slowly to their special seats in the front.

Mr. Nice Lawyer and I cut down a side-aisle and through a row, making a bee-line for some great seats next to the recording platforms.  Both blessed with long legs, we gracefully stepped over a fee rows of chairs, avoiding the people all ready seated, and took our seats.

The day was gorgeous, bright and sunny.  We sat under the shade of two large, green trees that celebrated the day by dropping a confetti of little green seedpods onto our hair and down my shirt throughout the ceremony.

The Ceremony

Things kicked off with some sort of alumni meeting.  The president of the alumni was this spunky Cuban woman with a delightful accent.  She welcomed new graduates to alumni association, introduced the Dean of the University and awarded medals to distinguished alum. 

The marching band came down the center aisle, horn angles all askew, music attached to their instruments -  Hey, even Harvard students aren’t perfect – but they did sound good.  And the tuba player had a little rubber duckie glued inside the bell of his tuba, which highly amused both me and Mr. Nice Lawyer.

The Honorable Justice

After many long speeches and frequent, nervous checkings of my watch, Justice Souter finally rose to speak.  It was a very interesting speech, mostly a criticism of what he called “fair reading” of the Constitution.  I believe this is also called strict interpretation, or something like that.  And it happens to be the rallying cry of one, if not both, of my favorite Supreme Court Justices.

Justice Souter talked specifically of two famous cases.  One, the Pentagon Papers case in which the US government argued “no law” did not mean “no law”.  And the other, Brown v. Board of Education.  Souter’s argument was that if one were to follow the fair reading approach, these cases could not be correct the way they were decided.

He spoke eloquently, and made good use of pauses – the speech coach that came to CC a few weeks back would be proud.  He also spoke for awhile, which combined with the late start, made me nervous.  It was after 4, I was at least 45 minutes from the airport and my flight was boarding at 5:15.  As soon as the speech was over, while everyone else was standing for an ovation, I jetted out of there, running across Harvard Yard to the T stop.

The Stranger on the T

A nicely dressed gentleman joined me on the last leg of the T journey to the airport.  I had caught all the trains I needed immediately and was relaxing a bit, though still checking my watch now and then.

The gentleman started up a pleasant conversation, asking about the T, explaining that although he had lived in the Boston area most of his life, he had never taken the T to the airport.  I told him what I knew and explained I had minimal experience, mostly from that morning.

Being at the gate, leaving the airport, jumping on the T to Harvard and running back to the airport – the gentleman told me I was crazy.  He also told me he appreciated the effort.  He was the Assistant Dean of Harvard and had also been at ceremony.  But he had left before Justice Souter’s speech.  “David’s a great guy,” he said, explaining that he knew Justice Souter well and been able to spend some time with him earlier in the day, even though he couldn’t stay for the speech.

We had a nice chat on the bus ride, about Boston, Florida, Wisconsin and Cali.  And before I knew it, we were at my terminal.  Time to jump off and go back to running.  I did make my flight.  Thanks in part to the security man who took me to the front of the line and in part to the flight’s 30 minute delay.

What a great adventure!  Thank you, Mr. Nice Lawyer.

If a Girl Gets Dressed Up and There’s No One to See It, is She Still Cute?

I’d been waiting for today for a long time.  Today was the day I reached my burgundy sweater in my closet exploration.  The sweater itself really wasn’t that big of deal.  It was a Christmas present from my sister last year, and I’ve probably worn it nearly every other week since then.   [That’s me wearing the sweater on the first day of school last semester.  The white dress shirt is part of the sweater.]

What was so special about getting to wear the sweater this time was that I now have adorable shoes that match it perfectly!  I couldn’t wait to wear my sweater, grey skirt, grey striped tights (like the picture) and my beautiful garnet – that’s what the color’s called on the box – shoes.

I woke up this morning all excited, knowing exactly what I was going to wear and thrilled to finally get to wear my adorable shoes to work.  [It’s hard to tell in the pic, but those are 4.5” heels.]  I got dressed, brushed my hair for the first time in months – cornrows came out yesterday – put on my make-up and headed out the door.

It’s about a four block walk to the bus stop down at the busy corner.  We’re only three houses from the BART station, but the bus is cheaper because it offers a monthly pass and the bus station in the City is closer to work than the BART station.  The bus is also, usually, a much nicer ride because it’s less crowded and once it gets on the freeway, it doesn’t stop until we’re at the station in the City.  So, I take the bus.

The sun was shining so that even with the brisk chill in the wind the day still felt warm.  The bus stop has a wooden bench, sitting gloriously in a spot of bright sunshine.  I arrived about ten minutes before the bus’s scheduled arrival because the buses have been running goofy lately and seeming to pay no mind to the schedule.  I waited.

And I waited.

A gentleman joined me on the bench.

We waited.

And we waited.

We were waiting for the last bus of the day on this route; there was no next bus to wait for.  Fifteen minutes after the bus should have arrived, he headed up the street to the BART station.

I waited a little longer, for one more not-my-bus to pass.  Then I turned and headed in the same direction.  But I didn’t go to BART.  Instead I bought bubblegum.  No, I went home.

[A = home, B = bus stop, C = BART station]

A BART ride into the city costs nearly $5.  That’s $5 more than I would have paid to ride the bus, because I have a monthly pass for the bus.  Plus, I’d already wasted a lot of time walking back and forth and waiting at the bus stop.  Luckily, work has a very flexible work from home policy.  And, since most of the people I work with on a daily basis aren’t in the office either, it doesn’t matter much where I am. 

So, as I said, I went home and worked from there.  I got a lot done.  But nobody got to see my adorable shoes.  Nobody except Mr. Trizzle and the guy at the bus stop.  I doubt either of them even noticed.

The Shortest Distance From A to B is Not in a Cab

Awhile back I posted  about a crazy taxi driver that went way out of his way to get me from the Hilton to work.  Here's a map.  Sorry it's kinda crappy.  The map is a bit odd to begin with and then the photo is blurry.

The red circle is work: The Federal Secretariat.

The green square is the Hilton.

The light blue line is the path the cab driver could have taken.

The yellow line is the path he did take; I think, the small streets in Wuse II aren't well marked on this map.

And for those that are interested, the dark blue square outline is where I live.

Click It or Ticket

As I mentioned in the last post, we had a bit of an adventure on our way to Nasarawa State University.  As we entered the town of Keffi, we had to slow down and pass through a police barricade.  The professor from the University sitting in the front seat had not had her seat belt on for any of the almost hour-long ride.  As we approached the police barricade, she quickly clicked it.  Too late.

The police flagged the car to the side of the road.  The driver obeyed.  "Driver's license?"  Produced.  "Papers?"  Produced.  "Fire extinguisher and hazard triangles?"  "In the boot."  Checked.  Then the police officer began talking about how the lady hadn't had her seat belt on.  He took the driver down to the police truck off the road. 

Things seemed to be going ok.  I didn't see any problem with the police stopping the car because someone in it was breaking the law.  Dr. Y thought differently.  She started ranting about the police just wanting money and stopping people for no reason, and insisting that there was no way they could know the professor wasn't wearing her seat belt. 

Dr. Y got out of the car.  I was like, oh boy, here we go.  She went over to the officers and started yelling at them, arguing, arms flailing, whole nine yards.  I just kept thinking about the Chris Rock video about how not to get beat up by the police.  I even thought she might deserve it if they threw her in jail.  I couldn't understand how yelling and insulting the police was going to do any good.

While all this was going on, another set of people were in a heated argument with the police.  The police had removed the driver and passenger from their vehicle and were driving it to the side of the road.  The vehicle was a federally owned ambulance for a local hospital!

Eventually, everyone that belonged in our car came back and we headed off.  First stop, the Traffic and Road Safety Office.  The police had kept the driver's license and said they would give it back to him there.  The professor who hadn't been wearing her seat belt went into the building with a slip of paper she had been given down at the roadside.

While she was gone, the police drove up, in the ambulance!  They had taken it from the driver.  The driver was with them and went into the building with some of the officers.  While inside, one of the other officers took out a pen and began letting the air out of the drivers-side front tire!

As the air wooshed out of the ambulances tire, the professor returned.  We went to do our visit at the school, but our adventures with the police weren't over yet.  After visiting the school, we had to go to a specific bank in town so the professor could pay the N1,000 naira fine for not wearing her seatbelt.  Then we went back to the Traffic and Road Safety Office with the receipt from the bank.  There, the professor turned in the receipt and finally got the  driver's license back.  The ambulance was still sitting there, all its tires now deflated.

Thud

  You know that kind of sickening feeling you get when you feel something thud against the underside of your car?  You quickly check your mirrors, look around.  Perhaps you catch a glimpse of some antlers or fur on the side of the road, or maybe a whiff of skunk in the air.  You drive on, and the sickening feeling subsides.  When you get home, you might check the car for leaks or other damage; it's all soon forgotten.

That's what happened to Dr. Y yesterday, that sickening feeling.  But it didn't subside as she kept driving.  It got worse and worse.  So bad that she couldn't sleep.  So bad that she left all the lights on in the house and called a friend to come stay with her.  You see, when Dr. Y looked around, she didn't see antlers or fur.  She saw legs, wearing pants and shoes.

It was on the expressway in Abuja, just after dark.  Rushing cars ahead of Dr. Y were swerving, so she followed suit and swerved with them.  It wasn't until she was passing that she saw why they were swerving, those legs with the pants.  And then she felt that sickening thud.  She kept going.  She had to.

You see, as Dr. Y explained it, if you stop, the police hold you responsible.  They arrest you.  They take you to the police station and charge you with the accident.  So no one stops.  And no one did.  They just kept swerving.  For who knows how long.

 

[image from: http://www.hobbiesplus.com.au/signspotters/freeway_signs.htm]

Just Me

Today, I decided to walk home.  Well, I didn't really decide.  I just started walking.  I needed to walk.  I didn't feel like dealing with the taxi drivers, so I headed off in the opposite direction, towards the room.  And I just kept going. 

I'd thought about walking to work before, it doesn't seem far.  I figured it might take about an hour or so.  I was wrong.  It only took 40 minutes.  Work is even closer than I thought; probably just 2 miles.  Much shorter than the walk from my hut to transport in Zambia.  More cars though, less cows, so I guess it evens out.  And thankfully, no crazy turkeys like that one that chased me.  Still got the chickens.

It was a nice walk.  A pleasant day, not too hot, mid 80s maybe.  Early evening, so the sun was low in the sky.  It's dark by 6:30 here.  The breeze was cool and heavy with moisture.  Dust covered my shoes and darkened my legs.  It felt good to feel the sweat dripping down my face, reminded me of Zambia, reminded me I'm alive.  How do people sit in one place all day, every day?

I'm starting to wish I'd remembered to bring my inhaler.  The weather is changing.  The air is heavy but it doesn't rain.  The dust is coming off the ground.  It feels like we're breathing sandy mud.  I drink my water and try to take deep breaths.  And I'm thankful for the blue backpack Mr. Trizzle gave me before I left.  It's soft and cushy, well padded and designed to shift the weight of my heavy books.  It doesn't suffocate me like my old backpack, doesn't crush my lungs from behind, doesn't strangle me or make me hunch over to balance the weight.

The walk was so nice, I didn't even mind that there was no power when I got home.  My eyes adjusted to the dimly lit bathroom and the cold water cascading out of the shower head felt delightful.  I stood there long after the last soap suds had washed down the drain, my skin soaking up refreshing drops, others rolling gently off my shoulders.  I closed my eyes and felt so peaceful.  Nobody was snapping at me, no one was yelling or criticizing.  My legs ached in the pleasant way that lets you know you've used them.  It was wonderful.

Maybe I'll walk home again someday.  As soon as the blisters on my heels heal.

Mansa

In Lusaka after a trip to Mansa (met Lawrence's Mom and Grandma, etc.) - Luapula province is so GREEN and there's WATER!!!! It was really neat. And I found out I like cassava. On the way back yesterday, just between Mansa and Kapri-Mposhi, we passed 3 accidents. I was one of very few people that did not get up to look at them - but the 2 tipped over trucks and the 1st accident were on my side of the bus. The last one was a mini bus accident and Mindela told me about some guy who they were moving into a new mini bus whose head was crushed and bleeding. "Was he alive?" "I think maybe not" nice convo! And today's paper showed another accident from yesterday, just outside Lusaka. Caption read: firefighters removing the body of a baby... and it showed another body lying next to the wreckage.

All this just a week or so after I saw an upside-down mini bus in Lusaka. People were pounding on the windows trying to get out - one of the scariest things I've EVER seen. Someone managed to break one and they managed to pull the people out the back window. I tried to calm people down but no one seemed to speak English or Tonga and then this old lady came up to me holding her head with blood dripping down her arm - she moved her hand, her scalp was peeled back. I gave her my handkerchief and tried to tell her to just hold it down to try to stop the bleeding. And all I could think about was "no plastic, there's no plastic!" (cuz of all the blood everywhere). I called an ambulance and left, nothing more I could do.
...And now Mindela wonders why I don't want to get on mini buses even if they are 1/10th the cost of a taxi!


(We did a safety survey at IST and only 30% of the volunteers there feel safe on transport - #1 concern)

(Original Post)

Scared