the tarmac

Picture if you will a narrow two-laned road called the tarmac. It has no shoulders to speak of. The pavement is barely wide enough for the vessels it was intended to carry from one place to another. Now, visualize this throughway as the primary vital artery connecting village to town, town to city, and city to country from end to end. What are adjoined to this thin strip of blacktop carpeting are a jumble of country roads, much like the old dirt mining roads in a place I used to know, which are meant to bind the poeple to the market and each other.
This menagerie of barely more than single lane passages is littered with rocks and ruts, fissures, washed out grooves, and sudden dips and drops which would test the measure of any seasoned motorist. Residents routinely navigate through these mazes with aplomb and dexterity. Furthermore, they are courteous and accomodating to pedestrians and other motorists. The motorists may be more polite out of necessity rather than anything else; however, it seems quite genuine. Nobody getting too overwrought with road rage here. Friends and colleagues travelling by foot are routinely gathered up and taken happily towards their destination sharing greetings and information about family and such along the way.
Now, add to this scene on the tarmac, motorists in heavy trucks, motorcycles, scooters, cars, and other vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Woven through the diesel exhaust are bicyclists often carrying a passenger awkwardly on the support or handlebars. Add in endless pockets, pairs, and groups of pedestrians walking not more than a few centimetres from traffic whizzing by. Many people here walk between their destinations including the majority of school children. One school bus in one month has been spotted. If you'd like to eliminate childhood obesity and a myriad of other diseases plaguing North American youth just put an abrupt end to school buses. Lengthen lunch periods and school days to accomodate walking and one would I dare say drastically reduce these ever increasing concerns. The domino effect of such a radical shift would be far reaching.
Back to the open road. Now add to the image, individuals walking or running comfortably behind a cart pulled by a cow hauling a load of bricks or perhaps the runner is pulling the cart himself with the help of two wodden handles.
Ahh yes, the road; narrow, crowded, conjested, yet leading to anywhere. It certainly awakens one's senses as I try to impose its rhythms here in Tanzania to my Canadian home whether its Timmins or somewhere else. The diversity on the highways would be unimaginable to somebody accustomed to the consistency of vehicles participating in motorized travel in Ontario. Commuters would be struck with acute fear and panic at having to navigate through and pass pedestrians while travelling even at modest speeds let along ninety kilometres per hour. Slowing for the never ending chain of speed bumps would be totally beyond the realm of belief. Imagine a set of speed bumps appearing out of nowhere at regular intervals on the 401 or the TransCanada Highway. It's all part of the routine here. It's refreshing in its chaos.
Now, try walking on the shoulder with the rest of the residents amidst this chaos.
Now, picture three vehicles side by side two of which are attempting to pass the first slower vehicle as they ascend a hill with oncoming traffic approaching...ahh, the open road.