Living Life: The lighter side of traveling

Traveling on Rwanda’s roads is not for the weak hearted. Not with the legendary sharp curves on high cliffs amidst hilly terrain. Driving is for the courageous. An illustration of this is driving while maintaining a right outside lane that breaks into a ridge a kilometer or so deep, on the first ascend from Gitikinyoni on your way to Shyorongi. If you are the kind who was brought up in a place where keeping left is always the right thing to do on the road, the idea of keeping right is at best, similar to keeping on the wrong side of the road. It does not help matters much when while cruising through these high cliff sharp corners, you suddenly bump into another vehicle whose fast approaching effect will definitely leave your heart to skip a beat before it occurs to you that after all the other driver is not trying to drive you off the road. Driving would not be safer without the traffic police. My initial encounter with a traffic policeman was an eye-opener. He stopped the car, stood in front and launched into a series of well coordinated movements like an experienced choir master in the throes of a pleasant song. He stood with his arms akimbo, and then pointed side ways, then upwards, then at the windshield, while the driver flicked this or that light on and off. He repeated the dance of hands and lights, at the back of the car before decently thanking the driver, satisfied, waving him on. The driver’s worst nightmares are the dreaded traffic fines. The drivers have an unwritten code through which they warn each other of ‘impending danger’ from the cops. I was pleasantly surprised last week to see two white men in a red Suzuki Vitara warning a driver of a taxi around Kacyiru, of an ‘impending’ traffic policemen ahead. Trust the law keepers, the chaps positioned themselves so that it would be practically impossible to escape from their watchful eyes. At the Police check point, the cops were breathing fire onto a motorist who appeared to have flouted the traffic code. The cop threatened to fine this particular motorist twice for speeding and overtaking at a sharp turn, as scared passengers watched. ‘How can you make two mistakes at ago?’ The policeman questioned. ‘Don’t you understand that you are putting people’s lives at risk?’ he asked bitterly. At that point, another passenger taxi came hurtling past and was promptly flagged down, temporarily taking away the attention of the angry policemen. Behold, the second culprit did not seem bothered. Instead of handing over his driving license, he waved a speeding ticket of fifty thousand Rwandan francs he had earned himself earlier, leaving the policemen helpless. They let him off the hook. As the cops turned back to unleash a new torrent of finger pointing at the first culprit, one humorous passenger decided he had had enough. ‘Look Afande, if he had known you were standing here, I am sure he would not have done anything wrong’. Passengers broke into suppressed giggles, as he continued. ‘Forgive him, Afande, the last few cars we met did not even warn him. People am I lying?’, a statement which provoked even more laughter. The driver still got his speeding ticket, but the dose of good humor ended the tense atmosphere. He got away with a stern rebuke and drove slowly towards the city. Contact: kelviod@yahoo.com