By Jana Robbins

The ride to PAP was pretty uneventful.  We got up at 2:30 in the morning as we were told that we would go at 3:00 a.m.  Unfortunately, tap-taps, unlike any transportation system in the U.S., do not leave until they are full.  (Flashbacks to that boat in Thailand, Misti?)  So we were finally chargé, or full and ready to go, at 6 am.  Guess we could have slept in a bit.  We were able to get a ride with the brother-in-law of a friend of ours.  He is a mechanic, a very important quality for a tap-tap driver.  One, it means that he likes his truck and it is well taken care of.  Two, it means if we have problems that he can fix it in the middle of nowhere.  When we finally left, the two of us had the cushy seat on the inside the cab, and there were only maybe ten people on the benches in the back of truck.  A light load.  The eighty-mile trip to PAP took just five hours (what is that, Seattle to Bellingham?) and we only had one flat tire, which Cholot changed in less than five minutes and without getting his dress outfit dirty.  I guess it is a good sign too if the tap-tap driver is dressed up and clean...could mean he is confident he won't have too many problems on the way.  Cholot was fun to ride with as well because he shared with us about the places we passed and about his life.

The ride back to Hinche is really what is worth writing home about.  The crazy thing is that it wasn't until about two hours into the trip that we realized this was something out of the ordinary from our lives in Seattle that we needed to record.  Just goes to show that we are getting used to the crazy lifestyle here...what has become routine to us.  It finally dawned on us that, "Hey, this is not normal!"

We decided to stay in Port au Prince later on Sunday so that we could stay for our friend's choir anniversary at his church.  This meant that we risked not getting a ride back since most tap-taps leave very early.  It was about 11:00 a.m. when we got to the "station", which is really just a Texaco gas pump.  A big guy, called a manager, herded us over to the group waiting for a ride to Hinche.  At noon, a junky Toyota pick-up pulls in and in less than thirty seconds the whole group has rushed to fill the back with themselves and merchandise they bought in the city.  Luckily, or so I thought, we had reserved one seat in the front, and the manager sat and saved a seat for us in the back.  Not knowing it then, but in looking back, the first lesson of the day is to never be in a hurry or a bind to get a tap-tap ride.  Have lots of time so that if you don't like the look of one, you can wait for the next.  I crawled in the front and Ben took the seat out back.  The seat in front could have been comfortable except the driver's cousin also sat in the front and he is what the Haitians call a gwo neg, or big guy.  And with typical Haitian male consideration, he felt the need to spread his legs apart, which meant I had a little space to put my legs, which were already twisted around the stick shift.  Unlike our first ride, we left with seventeen people and all their merchandise in the back and three in front.  It is important to note that the truck had merchandise also tied and hanging over the sides.  This is typical, but a funny part of the story later on.  The next bad sign was that the driver could not start the car with the key, he had to lift the hood and take a wire to connect the starter to the battery and that started the engine.  Then we were off.  The next worrisome sign was that as we were driving down the PAVED and FLAT roads leaving Port au Prince, the truck was shaking like it was going to fall apart any minute.  I kind of wondered how it was going to do on four plus hours of rough roads, but what the heck, he got to PAP that morning right?  It seemed a good sign to me that he was going slowly...most tap-tap drivers go as fast as they can.  But speed is not the only indicator of a quality driver, as he soon proved, while passing a dump truck on a one lane road and smashing all that merchandise into the side of the truck.  Guess he forgot it was there. 

Meanwhile, on the inside of the cab, the driver and his cousin start asking me to tell them jokes.  I tried to explain that the English jokes I know don't translate into Kreyol because they depend on the irony of the words.  So five minutes later they asked me again to tell them jokes.  I told them again, that I didn't know any that would translate, but I offered a riddle.  So I gave them the riddle, which they enjoyed very much even though they didn't figure it out.  And five minutes later they asked me to tell them more jokes.  This time, I said that it was their turn to teach me a Kreyol joke.  They laughed and asked if I had another riddle.  I still can't figure out why they wouldn't tell me a joke.  Then they spent a while trying to understand the ultimate Haitian question of why we don't have any children yet.  I tried to explain American culture and how a lot of people wait until after school, after they start jobs, etc. to start a family.  They laughed and I think they told me that Haitians are too horny to wait that long (don't quote me on that) and that girls start having babies at twelve to fourteen years old.  But I think that was the gist of what they were saying.  I didn't seize the opportunity to discuss family planning and birth control.  They thought it was pretty funny when I said twelve and fourteen was too young....kids having kids.  They soon grew bored of me since I wasn't providing enough jokes for them.  And I pretty much figured out how far our conversations were going to go at this point.

It wasn't long before our first problem.  Climbing up the first mountain pass an oncoming truck signaled for us to pull over.  We all climb out and it turns out that the wheel had separated from steering mechanism.  This has happened to us before in a truck in Port de Paix, but the important difference was that time we were only one hour instead of five hours from home.  So the driver took a rope and tied them together and we all climbed in and kept going, at an even slower pace.  Now, any sane person would be a little concerned about the wheel problem and not want to aggravate it more, but our driver decided that we have room for three more people and their stuff in the back so he picks them up.  Now there are 23 people being transported by a small pickup.  He tells me he normally takes 15.

The next six hours of driving was at a snail's pace and filled with many near misses and solid hits with the merchandise on the truck.  The driver clearly had forgotten about it.  From Benjamin's clear vantage point standing in the back of the truck, since there was no room to sit, he witnessed these events first hand.  I could only guess what was happening knowing the merchandise was there, and noticing how the driver never moved over when passing vehicles, people, trees or animals, and watching the people try to move out of the way as we approached.  The collision that most sticks out in Ben's mind involved rebar.  The rebar was sticking way out and beyond the back of a truck in front of us.  Our tap-tap was approaching the back of this other truck and our driver was not noticing the rebar.  Just as I was about to say something, he saw it and turned the truck out of the way to pass the other truck.  Apparently he did not move over enough because the rebar almost impaled the people sitting on Ben's side of the truck.  They had to dive into the people on the other side to avoid it.  One guy's hand didn't get out of the way and it took a big gauge out of it.  Of course the driver is oblivious that any of this happened.  He was probably fixated on getting me to tell a joke at the time.  But what I find even crazier is that the guy whose hand was injured didn't even say anything!  Just a typical ride, I guess.  Benjamin can't even count how many unsuspecting pedestrians got nailed by the plastic jugs hanging off the side.  Another good lesson:  when walking on a Haitian road, just get as far away as possible from any vehicle coming up or behind you.  And finally, our driver decided that the day couldn't be complete without a full on collision with another vehicle.  Now, I have to give our driver credit in that the collision was the other driver's fault since he was going too fast and basically drove into us.  But our driver hadn't really proven his master maneuvering or avoidance skills, and his slow reflexes meant he pretty much didn't know he was hit until about five seconds after impact.  It was just a side swipe so no big deal and after some yelling and making sure the car could roll on, we were off again. 

A potty break just means that people climb down the truck and pull up their skirts and squat, or open their flies and let it loose right next to the truck.  Don't worry about trying to find some cover or privacy.  I'm surprised the men don't just stand in the back of the truck while it is going and pee over the side.  Why even stop?  During one of these potty breaks, I decided it would be more comfortable physically and personally to sit in the back with 20 people than in the front.  The cousin didn't believe me that I wanted to switch with Ben...I think I hurt his feelings.  But the hurt didn't last long because soon after we took off again it was pretty obvious from the laughing that Ben was a better joke teller than I.  Sunset was coming, and the view was amazing from the back of the truck. I think I will always sit back there from now on.  But with dark coming we were still a couple hours from Hinche, and a three mile walk to Pandyasou. 

While dropping off some people in Thomonde, an hour or so from home, our driver notices that he has only two bolts on his back tire.  We spend an hour while he and this other guy try to figure it out.  At this point Benjamin and I are contemplating who we might know in Thomonde that we can stay with.  I think the funny part of all this is at no point in all of this day were we worried.  I think I'd be more stressed with a flat tire on I-5 [Seattle].  I guess we have gotten more used to Haiti than we previously thought. 

After we finally get going again, we haven't gotten far when another truck catches up with us.  Our driver talks to the other driver and tells us that we can get in their truck and they will not only take us to Hinche but all the way to Pandyasou for free.  We're like, great!  Who are these guys?  Turns out they are some division of the police.  Four big guys in army fatigues and big, huge guns.  I decide to climb in the back again and let Ben sit with them, which again totally confounded them.  Now the police obviously do not have to maintain their own trucks or worry about paying out of their own pocket to have them repaired because he must have driven fifty miles an hour down the road.  My brain bouncing around in my head, I was having flashbacks to the wooden rollercoasters at Cedar Point.  But I didn't mind because it meant we would finally get home soon.

Sure enough we finally pulled in to the Little Brothers road at almost nine at night.  The brothers were out working and as we climbed out of the truck, Brother Jonel asked, "What are you doing with the police?"  Okay...ummm.  I still don't know what that really means, but they are a part of the police force.  I was too tired to care, especially when I realized I'd been sitting in diesel fuel.