Initiation by Fire

While I had read in my travel books that rides in Taxi were going to be a bit of a thrill, I had no idea. These taxis make our travel in China look so easy. First you have to understand that road situation. most are not paved, cars and trucks and daladalas (local buses) travel as fast as they possibly can. There is not a shoulder and many people commute by foot on the side of the road and also sell goods there. The cars pass each other no matter if there is cars, blind curves, people, goats or cows on the road. It is extremely dangerous and scary. In one of my guidebooks it says that a highway out of Moshi to Arush, a local town, is perhaps the most dangerous road in Africa.

On friday night a group of us went for, what else, Chinese food. Four of us got into a taxi and in the first thirty seconds of being in the car hit TWO people, and I mean PEOPLE not cars. One was a pedestrian and the other was a man on his bike who went flying, the bike completely damaged. The driver did not look behind him, even though some of the locals chased after the car to get the driver to claim responsibility. Those of us in the car were completely silent for the rest of the ten minute drive. I had to rely on my faith in God and my faith that I was meant to see another day to get me through that drive, no exaggeration.

Last night we went out for, what else, Pizza at an Indian food restaurant. Afterwords, we picked up a taxi and took it back to the home base. From there, we took the same taxi out to a bar twenty minutes from home. When we got to the bar, the driver told us that he was not actually a taxi driver but that we had mistaken him for one and had asked him for a lift. The man was so nice that he couldn't say no and also wouldn't let us pay him for his time. He was just going into town to use the internet. We are really lucky that this man was a good guy and needless to say we have learned our lesson about taxis and will only be taking the clearly marked registered taxis from now on.