Transportation, and My First Near Disaster

7-19-07
Transportation, and My First Near Disaster

So to get around this place, there are basically two major forms of transportation. There’s the hiace (pronounced “yass”) and a hilux (pronounced “lukes”). The hiaces are smallish Toyota minivans, and they only operate between bigger cities, along which are connected by cobblestone roads. They drive around in circles in whatever city they’re in, and there is always an obnoxious guy whose job it is to recruit passengers by screaming the destination out the window. They’re sorta like a carnival barker, and they all have different styles…some whistle, some yell and some have funny little catch-phrases. They will keep circling and yelling until the van is full. If you have any baggage, you throw it on top of the van and hope it doesn’t fall off. There are seats for the driver and a passenger up front, then four rows of bench seats in the back. The seats furthest to the right on all the benches also folds up so that people can get in and out of the back rows when it’s crowded. Technically speaking, there should be room for about 13 people, plus the driver. The thing about Africa though, is the guys that drive these things make all of heir money from the fares, and will take as many people as possible…and they are absolutely willing to push the limits of human endurance in that respect. The same goes for the hilux drivers. The hilux, which travel from the smaller villages to the bigger towns along dirt paths, are basically stripped down Toyota Tacomas with two bench seats welded into the back, and a plastic tarp stretched across a metal framework to provide shelter from the sun. Keep in mind that the canopy doesn’t have any vents, so very little air gets back there, and it quickly gets txeu hot and stinky. These are smaller trucks, and in America, we’d probably feel comfortable with eight or nine (maximum) people in the back of one of these things. All the hiluxs have particular routes, like busses, and particular points where they stop and wait in the villages or cities, and this is the ONLY way you can tell where they are going. For example, the only two hilux that go to Cha di Tanque, both always park in from of the diskoteka in Assomada. If I get on a hilux anywhere else in Assomada, I’m going…somewhere else.

Anyways, these guys don’t even start the trucks up until there are at least a dozen people in the back. Then they wait for a few more, then they start going, then a few more people will always hop on, and they’ll always pick up anyone who happens to be walking along the road to the village. The number of people already in the back of the truck has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on whether or not they’ll stop…they just will. Always. Regardless. And since, in the entire country, this is the ONLY transportation from the towns to the smaller villages (nobody owns their own car), the people in the back of the hilux also have whatever goods they are buying or selling or trading. Consequently you’ll commonly see antifreeze containers full of water, livestock, fruits and veggies, piles of wood, hatchets, machetes, cloth, spices…and dead fish. Which brings me to My First Near Disaster.

Coming home yesterday from Santo Antao, I walk to the diskoteka as usual, spot the blue hilux from Cha di Tanque, and am dismayed to see that its already pretty packed, maybe about 14 people so far, with baskets of corn and grain, jugs of water, and some huge sacks of rice. I’m forced to forego my usual spot at the back of the truck (near the tailgate where there is at least some breeze) and instead, squeeze myself and my bag in between two kids on the passenger side. Then we wait. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, 9 more people manage to crawl into the back. Now we’re all in there TIGHT, hip to hip, shoulders turned to make little more room, and there is NO WAY anymore people are fitting onto this sumbitch, and the driver starts out down the road for the 20 minute ride to Cha di Tanque. Its txeu hot in the back, dust is flying everywhere and I’m miserable. Then we stop on the side of the path and pick up another guy. He looks in the back and has this face like “Damn that’s a lot of fucking people in there,” which is saying a lot for an African, and for a second I think he’ll just keep walking, but he gets in, and is forced to squat in the “aisle” between the benches, hunched over someone’s bag of rice, his knees in his chest. Now the bumper of this tiny truck is dragging on the ground, there are terrible noises coming from the engine (it’s straight up and down the mountain to get to Cha di Tanque), and there is absolutely no way in hell anything or anyone else is getting on this truck. 5 minutes later, we’re stopping again, and this time it’s real bad. It’s a fat lady in her 60’s and she’s got balanced on her head a huge blue tub in which float several enormous dead fish, which have been sliced right down the middle but nit yet cleaned. There are blood and guts and scales and flies floating in this damn tub and she doesn’t even blink. She practically throws the tub into the back of the truck, the fish snot slop sloshing a couple of folks near the coveted tailgate spot. She deftly throws a leg over over the tailgate and all of us in there are thinking “Where in the FUCK do you think you’re going to sit lady?” and oh Dear Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus she’s looking right at me. Sure enough, she hunches, squirms and grunts her way through the truck, and proceeds to pile drive her tremendous large ass right next to me, completely enveloping one of the two kids that had been there just a second before. Now this woman, and I’ve got no doubts about this at all, has never even heard of a shower, much less taken one in all her 60-some-odd years of living, and there is a stink coming out of her pores like you wouldn’t believe. Then she reaches up with the hand closest to me to grab the metal frame for balance and her pit stink hits me in the face like a fuckin train. Holy Jeezuz and God on the Cross. At this point my stomach is already turning a little, and I’m in a sweat and going a little bit crazed from the heat and stink and claustrophobia. Then the blue bucket of fish and filth is passed to her and I’m transported straight to Hell. Putrescence. I’m trying to tough it out and breathe through my mouth but its not working and I can taste the smell of this woman and her bucket and I’m not sure I’m going to make it. I’m about to yell “Para!” to stop the truck and get out and walk the rest of the way down the mountain, and that’s when it happened…My First Near Disaster.

Some other jackass in the truck yells “Para!” so he can get out and walk the rest of the way down the mountain, the driver hits the brakes, we’re all slammed forward and Lord God In Heaven my face is all of a sudden three inches deep in the armpit dreds of Big Mama, and some of her pit sweat somehow finds its way up into my nostril and I think a little bit in my mouth and now there’s fish and blood and gore in my lap and my eyes are stinging from something and the smell of it all is on my tongue and burned into memory for all eternity and now here I go throwing up all over twenty-six perfectly nice Cape Verdians, except that I’m able to catch it in my mouth and choke it back down and now I’m convulsing a little bit and shuddering from the putridness of it all. BUT, then the silver lining…now all around me are Cape Verdians with their handkerchiefs sopping up the chum from my lap and my bag and someone is fanning my face and dabbing my forehead. And all of my thoughts must be laid out plain on my face because all of those in the truck that aren’t already attending to me are overcome with riotous laughter, except for Big Mama, who’s yelling like a loon about all of the wasted fish rot, and at this point I realize I’m going to make it through this and I have a laugh as well.