During our time in Bara district, we drove out into the countryside to visit a rural school and village. While the entire evening was incredibly insightful and will likely be one of my strongest memories of the trip, I have to admit that the drive out there and back was the most memorable part of the evening. At first sight, our driver looked fairly harmless, but little did we know that we were in for the ride of our lives. As soon as he was behind the wheel, he became a maniac who clearly believed that if he drove fast enough and honked his horn loudly enough, everyone else on the road would surely get out of the way. Throughout the course of the drive, he put this theory to test multiple times and, sure enough, proved it right – though I don’t think he accounted for the side effect, which was multiple heart attacks in all of his passengers. Our reactions alternated between speechless terror, hysterical laughter, and cursing in a variety of languages. It didn’t seem that he spoke English, but if he did, then he has the best poker face in the universe, because our reactions each time he swerved away from a goat or motorcycle at the very last second must have been hilarious. Tumbling out of the car at the hotel at the end of the night was pure relief, and I can’t think of many other moments when I’ve felt more alive.
Despite how amusing the drive was, in another way it was one of the most uncomfortable parts of this trip so far. Here we were, roaring along these tiny, bumpy roads that were obviously not intended primarily for the use of vehicles, throwing up clouds of dust into the faces of the villagers trying to cook dinner outside their homes along the side of the road. Our driver showed a remarkable lack of concern for them, coming dangerously close to hitting bicycle riders, animals, and once, even a child. Similarly, when we were ready to leave later in the evening, our driver backed the car up into the crowd of villagers who had gathered to see us, barely even looking and just expecting them to get out of his way. Throughout all this, I sat in the backseat and cringed, unable to meet the eyes of anyone outside the window, imagining how they must perceive us: these foreigners coming in with no concern for them or their well-being. Or was it just me, being overly sensitive, who perceived it this way? Did the villagers care or even really remark that we went by? At the end of the evening, while I sit here writing and reflecting, do they even remember the crazy cars that passed by today? We joked a lot about our experience that evening, mostly because there was nothing else we could do, but in the end, this is the part of that experience that has stuck with me. I don’t like the position we were put in this night, and though I know it may be nothing more than this individual case, I was disturbed by our driver’s attitude towards his poorer countrymen. This lack of empathy is symbolic of much larger problems, which are present far beyond the borders of this country.