How I Learned to Drive

Yes, I know I'm ripping off Paula Vogel, but only the more theatrically inclined of my readers will catch that... Also, I've really been thinking about that play a lot. I wish I had my script so I could read it, I think it would help. And while I don't have a pedophile uncle teaching me to drive, I do have a man in a resplendent green boubou and the teeming city of Dakar. 

Car accidents are the number one cause of death among American citizens in Senegal. In fact they're probably one of the main causes of death in Senegal, period, along with the obvious like malaria and malnourishment.  The roads are terrible, and people drive "n'importe comment."  In Dakar, only about 50 percent of roads are paved, and even these have horrible potholes, cows and goats at random intervals, and crazy taxi drivers. 

Most of the roads I take to get to work are paved, and these are major throughways of the city, taking you from one part to another.  These are, I guess, multilane roads, but its kindof hard to tell because there really aren't any markings telling you where the lanes are, either the road is in such bad shape that its invisible, or they were just never there to begin with.  I like to see them as having a lane and a half.  The right hand lane is there, but it's always got a bus stopping, a horsecart, or a taxi stopping to pick people up. Or someone broken down. So you always have to swerve into the other lane to get past these obstacles.  And horsecarts are EVERYWHERE. I have seen them on the main highways, everywhere.  And then of course, the car in front of you might just unexpectedly slow down, or swerve, and then you realize its because of the giant pothole ahead. Sometimes you see lines of cars doing something really weird, like driving off the road, going around a lamppost, and getting back on the road. Must make sense, because everyone's doing it. It sure does when you get closer and see the 2 foot ditch that inexplicably stretches across the road. 

So imagine my surprise when on my first ever driving lesson, my instructor steers me out into Dakar traffic and gives me control of the car.  Granted, he has pedals and keeps grabbing the wheel, so it's probably not that likely that I'd actually crash or anything. But its still a little terrifying, given my last driving experience was in a pickup truck on a farm in Vermont when I was 16 for about 5 minutes.  And there I go, just when I think I'm doing well, there's a horsecart that pulls out in front of me, that I need to pass but can't because of the taxis flying by on my left.  Only in Dakar. 

The other ridiculous thing is that I also have to study the theory, roadsigns, etc.  This isn't ridiculous in itself, only the fact that we need to learn the French road rules, which are only somewhat applicable here, but they're what the Senegalese laws are based on.  So we learn about this sign, that sign, the other sign, and it seems so pointless because we're basically learning this stuff to pass a test, and after that we'll probably never see the signs again (okay, so I might, but were I to only ever drive in Senegal, not so much!) And its a little hilarious. We take tests with pictures of France in the background, and its so typical France it makes me so homesick.  We learned that the triangle with the picture of the deer means "Caution! Wild Animals!" And had a laugh, given that in Dakar it's very likely you'll come across a herd of cows wading their way across the highway, or some wayward sheep or goats, but very unlikely that you'll find any deer anywhere in Senegal.  Camels, monkeys, maybe.  Apparently even raccoons, according to one girl in my class, but certainly never deer. 

We learned that if you break down, you should put on your distress lights and set up the obligatory reflective triangle at least 30 meters from your vehicle to alert oncoming traffic. On my way to work this morning I saw a truck on the side of the road with a boulder behind it.  Yep, that's the Dakar equivalent of a reflective triangle.  In Côte d'Ivoire, I seem to remember them using palm fronds.  If you came around a bend and there were palm leaves on the ground, it was usually a bad sign. 

On that note, I'll see what else I can learn today.