I got in the vehicle with the new driver for the trip to the Sanniquellie County Health Partner's meeting. The vehicle was an old one. It registered 164,000 miles on the odometer, but looked like the speedometer cable had been disconnected a good portion of it's existence. I thought it a little odd that the vehicle keep rolling a little down the hill whenever the driver concentrated on something else. We picked up our Community Relations officer and two nurses who wanted to go to Ganta for the day and took off. I tried to buckle up my seat belt but found that the belt had been cut off at the floor board. The vehicle rattled and creaked and I noticed that the driver had to pump the brakes 2 or 3 times every time wanted to slow down. That made me worry more and I realized the the vehicle was also too old to have airbags. Well, I thought, this will be an adventure.
I kept flashing back to a talk I had heard a number of years ago that addressed motor vehicle accidents in sub-Saharan Africa. If you analyzed MVAs like a disease, it would be the third greatest killer in Africa, behind malaria and diarrhea. I also remembered an article that noted that the single greatest killer of missionaries in the developing world was the motor vehicle accident. Well this will be interesting.
There are a number of reasons why MVAs are such a problem over here. One is the poor condition of the roads with the ruts, potholes, absence of shoulders and mud with occasional exposed areas of eroded pavement. The stretch we were to cover was noted to be one of the worst in Liberia. A second reason was the usual poor condition of the vehicles. Our vehicle was no where near the worst on the road but it was much worse that we normally have. A third reason were the crazy drivers. Yep we got that one today in spades. To be fair, drivers have a lot to put up with. They have to negotiate the road, the people who use the roads to walk and other crazy drivers. They have to comply with the informal 'rules' of the road. Basically, they follow the old navy rule of right of way by gross tonnage. If you are driving a car and you approach a motorcycle, the motorcycle has to get out of the way. If you approach a truck, you have to get out of the way. If you approach another car, you need to figure out who is chicken. As a driver, you have to factor in non vehicular traffic on the road. Adult pedestrians are pretty good about getting out of the way, older kids are too. For that reason, the driver doesn't take any extra precautions knowing that the pedestrians will move. They are a little more cautious around little kids, but not if there is someone older with them. The driver will almost universally slow down for the sheep, pigs and goats that commonly occupy the road. Chickens don't get as much respect. I don't know what all this says about their priorities.
Back to our trip, our driver likes to drive very fast. He will slow down for a few miles when you tell him to slow down, but then the speed creeps back up. My arms ached from holding on to the interior handles and the poor folk in the back of the vehicle come out once we arrive in Ganta looking pretty green. We spend the night in Ganta and took off the next day for the early morning meeting in Sanniquellie. We survived that and then headed back to Tappita, again setting what for me is a speed record. Two hours over a distance that usually takes three to 3 & 1/2 hours.
I did have the head of our transportation section get our vehicle into maintenance. I mentioned the driver to him as well, but nothing much will happen. He isn't that much worse than the others. Next time, though, I will make sure that I ride in a vehicle with seat belts.
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