The bush taxi seems to be a universal phenomenon, experienced by all Peace Corps Volunteers, but completely foreign to our home. Our wild and completely unscientific guess is that there are around 2000 taxis in Bamenda alone, with the air quality that goes along with no emissions standards. Public transportation is how we get around. Peace Corps used to give volunteers cars (or at least, allowed us to drive them), but determined that was too life threatening. Then, not long ago, they gave us motorcycles here in Cameroon, but then that, too, was deemed too risky. Now we get helmets, with strict instructions to wear them or be sent home (and most volunteers usually do – we are among those who always do, no matter what, we’ve learned well from our family members who ride – hey, watch for motorcycles on the road!), and quickly learn from other volunteers how to use the public transit system – and the word “system” is used rather loosely here.
Many of the main roads in major cities are paved, but by no means all. In the villages, the dirt roads often become impassable during the rainy season – that means no getting in and no getting out, even in an emergency. People are often forced to take motos (motorcycle taxis) down slick mud roads in the rain because taxi drivers won’t risk their cars getting stuck.
Traveling between places is even more exciting, year-round. This is not an exaggeration or a joke.
Imagine a car designed to hold five people (four comfortably) carrying nine, one of whom is a small toddler, bobbing along on its mother’s knees. Someone is sitting on the gearshift and emergency break. The driver leans out the window to make space for the front passengers, and drives from that position. Exhaust billows into the cab of the vehicle. The car barrels along, taking switchback turns on a mountain side between 60-70 miles (miles, not kilometers) an hour – you can see this if the speedometer is working at all, but the driver never glances at his dials. When approaching blind turns, the driver doesn’t slow, but honks. The car is old, thirty, maybe forty years old. It’s running, but there’s no telling how well it’s been maintained, and the drivers run their vehicles hard. If the breaks don’t engage, you will plummet off the side of the mountain. The emergency break is hidden under a pillow, under a large woman squeezed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, against the driver and two or three other people in the front of the car. No one is going to reach it in an emergency. When speeding head-on toward another vehicle, or a person crossing the road, he doesn’t slow or swerve, but honks, engaging in a game of chicken – and it’s your life he’s put down on the line. Frequent use is made of the “oh, shoot” handles (hey, this is a family blog), the back of the seat in front of our, or the arm of the person beside you. At the last second someone swerves, slows, speeds up, and the vehicle passes the threat by. The terror, wild speeds taken around curves, and constant billowing exhaust makes you nauseous, but clearly painted along the top of the windows are strict instructions; “No Smoking,” and “No Vomiting.”
You reach your destination exhausted, trembling and nauseated by the adrenaline and toxic fumes. You pray from the moment you get in the car until you get out of it again. Then you pray again, thanking God that you survived. Then you pray again, that you make it back home. The Cameroonians with you are entirely placid the entire trip. Maybe they don’t know what danger their lives are in, or have just been desensitized to it by traveling this way since they were the size of the little child bouncing along on someone’s lap, or maybe they do recognize the danger and fall into a state of intentional unawareness. There are no air bags. There are no seatbelts, except for the driver’s seat, and it’s anything but comforting when he occasionally reached back and straps it on. That’s just an average trip in the dry season.
Recently, the car finally slowed when coming into town. The driver stopped to let a woman out, and got out to help her get her bags from the back. Ordinarily the driver would now crawl along for a time, honking at bystanders until he found another passenger. This time, the break gave out. The car began to roll forward. The driver jumped back into the car and immediately sped off like we were being pursued. The hatch was still open, and we shouted to him, but he kept going. We reached behind us to hold onto our backpacks. Predictably a suitcase fell out onto the road. We shouted to the driver again. He kept going. In fact, no one responded at all for several minutes, and then, slowly, a woman in the front seat seemed to wake out of a stupor, looked back, then began shouting at the driver to stop. He continued on, stopped moments (moments!) later and let her out, and then drove away. She started walking back toward her bag. Then, inexplicably, the driver stopped, and then started barreling back up the road in reverse. We passed the woman who lost her bag. Just as we were coming up on the fallen suitcase, it was hit by a motorcycle and belongings scattered over the road. The woman screamed and began to sob. The driver stopped and got out, tossed a bottle of something that’s landed near the back tire into the car. The woman began to gather her things off the road with the help of bystanders and the driver. The first woman who was let out, back before the break gave way, pulled up on the back of a moto and claimed the rest of her bags, that the driver had taken off with. We pulled out packs up into our laps. The suitcase was returned to the back of the car. The hatch closed. The woman returned to her seat, but the driver yelled at her to sit in the back. This was her own fault, he said, because she touched the break. She screamed back that she didn’t touch anything. They yelled back and forth for the rest of the trip. We continued like that to our destination.
Embassy staff recently asked some volunteers how we get around. Public transport? Oh. They aren’t allowed to use public transport. It’s too dangerous.
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