TAP-TAP Confessions!

After the last blog entry, I felt something less emotional might be a good idea. In the beginning I touched slightly on how insane the driving here is, now I'm going to go into a little more detail. The stories in this entry are all things I have witnessed from the back of a Tap-Tap or things that I have seen a Tap-Tap do.

Welcome to a world where stop lights are optional, lanes are non-existant, and pedestrians on the sidewalks are "fair game". The next time someone complains about my driving I'm going to tell them to come here!

For clarification, a "Tap-Tap" is a small truck with wooden benches lining either side of the back and soem kind of tin covering the top and sides in some way. They are usually what I would call "lest leg" cars because they are on their "last leg". Most Tap-Taps are barely held together and by some miracle they still run (most of the time). Tap-Taps are like buses in that you can call and order one to take a group to a specific location or drive a group around for the day at a set price, or you can hail one off the street (like a taxi) and ride its set route. In order to stop the Tap-Tap you use a pen attached to a piece of string to tap on the back window of the truck so that the driver knows to stop, hence the name "Tap-Tap".

When you hail a Tap-Tap off the street it's all about survival skills. Who can you beat out to get thtere first and who can you physically beat out of the way to get on. Almost every time we go by Tap-Tap, the race to get on starts about half a block away and we have to try to get on while it's still moving. Once we are on, we watch as people fist fight, push, and shove to get on and find a seat.

Once you finally get on a Tap-Tap who and who and what are you sharing it with? The answer is as many people as can humanly fit and whatever those people are carrying (that includes livestock!) Most of the Tap-Taps even have a rusty untrustworthy ledge for people to stand on and hang off the back of the Tap-Tap. I refuse to be that person after watching a man holding onto a Tap-Tap fall off and roll onto the street because the metal piece suddenly fell off! Luckily the man was ok but I will never trust those flimsy pieces of metal again!

Another day I was sitting in the back of a Tap-Tap talking to Doucette about how crazy and random driving in Haiti is. She told me it was only random because I didn't understand it but that there was actually a system. Shortly after telling me this we witnessed 2 cars get into a car accident and block off the whole street while the drivers sat there arguing. I looked at Doucette and said "Guess I'm not the only one who doesn't understand the 'system'!"

My lack of understanding Haitian driving extends to sidewalks. I always thought that if you are walking on the sidewalk you are safe from cars for I learned that this is false while Marie, Wibbins, Oksana, Doucette, "G", and I had to dive off ot the sidewalk to avoid a truck who decided that passing in the left lane was not enough, so he drove onto the sidewalk next to the left lane to pass a Tap-Tap that was stuck! Sadly I have seen many cars (including Tap-Taps I was in) do this every day and pedestrians just have to jump out of the way where ever they can to avoid being hit.

Riding in the back of a Tap-Tap yesterday on my way to work, Doucette and I saw a Bies (pronounced bees)catch on fire. A bies is a slightly more expensive (but equally run down) kind of tap-tap that is more van-like and has the doors missing. Somehow the passanger side was on fire and it was in a gas station (not somewhere I would chose to go with a car on fire, but hey, I wasn't driving) while people were trying to throw water at it so that they could put out the flames. No one appeared to be hurt, but our Tap-Tap was not sticking around very long to find out details.

One of the most "interesting" experiences I have had while riding in a Tap-Tap happened on Doucette and my way to the clinic one day. Doucette and I were the only 2 in the Tap-Tap because our group rented it out for the morning so that we could get to work. We were going up a hill that was fairly steep when all of a sudden we started sliding down it backwards. The driver pressed the brake as hard as he could and we stopped sliding temporarily but everytime he tried to press the gas we continued to slide down the hill backwards. Doucette and I tried to get out of the car but the driver told us to stay in, he told us we would be ok. There was an Iraqi UN officer standing outside and he asked us if we were ok. We said yes but he waited and watched to make sure. That was when our driver lost all control and we went careening backwards down the street and off the road onto a pile of rubble from a supermarket that had collapsed during the earthquake.

That's when the driver told us he had "transmission problems" (meanwhile his break light and oil light were both on and he clearly had no control over his car) so that's when Doucette and I got out and ignored him while he was insisting we would be fine and we should stay in the car. We watched from our position perched atop a nearby pile of rubble as the driver again attempted wedge his way off the pile of rubble and onto the street. Then, as he tried again to make it up the hill, he went all of the way backward down the road almost taking out a pedestrian and a bunch of angry cars as he did. While he continued to struggle, Doucette and I decided it was quickly time to rethink our own location due to falling rubble from what was left of the supermarket. We made our way toward the Iraqi officer who gave us a nod and left after seeing that we were ok. We were just rounding the corner when the Tap-Tap driver finally made it up the hill and made his way over to us telling us to get back in his Tap-Tap. I don't know what he was smoking but neither Doucette nor I were willing to go with him after that. There were plenty more hills busier and steeper than that one on our way to the clinic and neither of us wanted to risk staying with him for those so we called and had somebody from the house pick us up. The best part was the driver, who didn't even come close to getting us halfway to the clinic, driving back to the house and asking to be paid for his "services" YEA RIGHT! (Le Fou = he's crazy!)

Needless to say, life is never dull in the back of a Tap-Tap in Haiti!

Kreyol Word: Manifestacion (pronounced "manifestasy own" pretty much just as its spelled) and means riot