Bush Taxi

Hey everyone. I got to thinking the other day that I often talk about going here or there to do various things. Sounds simple right? Well if I was living in America it would be. I mean come one, if you are over the age of 16 and have a licsence all you have to do is hop into a car and you can go anywhere you want to and more importantanly, when you want to. Travel here for us, isn't so easy and it in itself is a huge part of the peace corps experience. Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed to drive cars or motorcyles but we are allowed to be passengers. Actually Beinin volunteers are the only ones allowed to ride on motorcyles. For me, my main way of transportant is bush taxis, this is due largely to the fact that I live in a small village and there is no need for actual taxi motorcylces in village.

Anyway, what I usually have to do is go and sit by the road until a taxi is driving past. This can be anwhere between 10 seconds to over and hour, you just never know. When you see a taxi comming flag them down by waving your arm and hope that they aren't full, if so they'll honk and keep going. If they have room for you then they'll pull over and ask you where you are going, once they understand price negotian then begins. Sometimes if you're lucky you'll get an honest driver who will tell you the right price, but more often than not you get someone who sees white skin and thinks dollar signs and will then try to charge you an unheard of amount. For example, I had been away from my village for almost two weeks due to confrences and what not. I'm on my way back and I'm actually on the final leg of the trip, the part that will actually bring me into my village and the driver starts out at a price 3x as high as it should be. It was insane, i had to totally fight with this guy and take my stuff from him and generally be nasty for him to do the right thing.

So you get the the right price, the driver takes your bags and puts them in the back. Now it's your turn to get in. In America there are laws about how many people a car can hold and what not. Well things like that are unheard of here. If you were in a car, say the size of my old Mazda, they would put in the front with the driver at least two people maybe three depending on how greedy the driver is. And in the back there would be at least 4 adults, several children maybe tossed in as well. Now keep in mind that it is like 100 degrees out side too. Fun times huh? LOL

But it gets even better because they often put animals into taxis as well or strap them on the roof of the car. I know several volunteers that have had goats pee on them when they were on the roof of the car, or who have had chickens shit on their bags in the back of the car. Gotta love Africa.

I thought I would include some pictures of one of the taxis i took not so long ago. Often cars have to be hot wired because keys have been lost. Usually most if not all the panelling is missing and there have been times when there are gaps in the floor so i can see the ground as we are moving. Kind like the Flinstone mobile isn't it?