9/18/06 "Mad Driver Sought by Police..."

Not here in Nepal!

Everything started off smoothly. Our taxi driver called us at 3am to confirm our need for a taxi and he was here by 3:30am. For being up so early, he seemed to be in a cheerful mood. On our way to the bus park, we saw a number of people walking to catch their bus. I hoped they weren’t trying to get on the 4am bus because they would never make it on time.

The bus ride from Pokhara to Kâkarbhitta normally takes about 14-15 hours, so we had prepared ourselves for a long ride. We packed some boiled eggs, bread, and cake that our didi had prepared for us. The last time Paul ate something on the road, he ended up with the runs, so we decided that it was in our best interest if we just stuck to our sacked meal. The bus attendant gave us the best seats at the front so Paul had lots of leg room for his “long” legs. Also, we had not slept much the night before, so we figured we could snooze on the bus, and help shorten our trip a bit. However, we quickly learned that our bus driver also planned to shorten the long drive. What should have been a 14-15 hour bus journey, he managed to shorten it to 12 hours, including the lunch and potty breaks!

I didn’t know that a bus, the size of a Greyhound, can maneuver in and out between cars, cows, fruit stands, and people so quickly. I must have thought a dozen times or more, “He’s going to kill someone or something!” And, there were a few close calls, WAY too close for my comfort! I must have had multiple heart attacks where I thought we were going to die from head on collisions. The whole 12 hours, our driver honked every 2 seconds, letting everyone know that he’s coming, so get out of the way! We dodged on coming trucks, motorcycles, cows, goats, and people, but mostly other people dodged us! What was most incredible for me was that even when he saw an on coming traffic, he barely slowed down. Instead, he would lean on the air horn and the mélange of oncoming traffic, animals, pedestrians, bicycles, and carts would part like the Red Sea. Well, not quite like the Red Sea – it parted before the Israelites started across. We would start into the crowd if the driver thought that people had enough time to get out of the way! He would predict the trajectory of ambling cows and buffalos, sometimes heading right for them, guessing that they would be four feet farther on by the time the bus arrived where the cow had been. If he was a little wrong, he dodged and swerved. I am still amazed that the driver managed to get to our destination without hitting, killing, or being hit by anyone. Many prayers were prayed in desperation, but Paul’s leg is still recovering from by fingernails digging into his thigh. I had different scenarios running through my mind; the worst one being our bus being burned by angry bystanders who witnessed the mad driver hitting a child.

To our amazement, we arrived with no glitch, not even a scratch, or a speeding ticket! I think maybe I would prefer to ride the night bus next time….at least, I’ll be asleep and it’d be too dark to know what’s outside! Hmmm…on a second thought, maybe I’ll just fly! :)

9/7/06 Bus Strike “Ke garne?”

There seems to be some form of strike or protest every few days here. Sometimes, we’re not even clear about why the strike is happening—not everything makes sense for us. We’re finding that even for the folks here, they don’t quite understand the reasons behind the strikes, except that it is one way in which people’s voices are heard. We know something is about to happen or has happened when we see police and army officers roaming the streets. One morning, we noticed burned tires in the middle of the market area, and realized that there was a big protest in the market the evening before.

Today, we learned that the transportation network in Pokhara came to a halt because there was an injury accident, and in anger, the bystanders burned the truck. Originally, we heard that it was because the people thought the truck driver was trying to kill the person who was hit. It was quite puzzling to us until we talked with folks more. We learned that here, when a person is accidentally hit, the driver must pay for all the fees for hospitalization, loss of work, etc. But, if a person dies at the scene, the driver only has to pay a fee for the death. Hence, what we gathered is that it is more beneficial for the driver to “finish the job” if he accidentally hits someone. This helped us to understand a little bit more why the crowd thought the truck driver would want to kill a pedestrian. In any case, buses and taxis stopped running today in protest. The roads were blocked so private cars couldn’t run either. Our didi has to walk an hour to get to her house. Everyone has to walk to work for the next two days while they try to settle this matter. As our teacher said yesterday, it seems that for one person’s mistake, the citizens of a city are inconvenienced and affected…. People are definitely frustrated with the system, but often the conversation ends with the words, “Ke garne?,” which means, “What can one do?” No one knows, but life goes on anyway.