Life on the Road

This post actually starts on a personal note for Steve. For many years, Steve’s Uncle Ron, husband of his mother’s sister Ruth, has had a special place in Steve’s heart for his incredible capacity for spatial creativity. Nobody got more containers in a fridge or random items in a car than Ron. To the later, he once put a 12-foot ladder in a Geo Prizim, and with enough leftover space for the groceries to feed a family of six. Ron was the king of moving copious amounts of stuff using as little vehicular power as possible.

Note that last sentence. “Ron WAS the king.” After three months in West Africa, we have seen some of the most terrifyingly impressive displays of human ingenuity/ recklessness on the nation's highways and byways.

See this as a pretty standard example
:

This was our car heading to Tchaourou for the big move – petty by local standards:


Somedays you see station wagons with the trunk and rear seat filled to capacity with oranges (ah the humor that must be opening that rear hatch). Other times it’s 12x100lb sacks of grain on the top of a sedan, a sedan with no fewer than 14 people in the cab.

We, of course, take every precaution to be safe as prescribed by the Peace Corps and the embassy security officials. But Ron -- if you’re reading this -- the challenge is calling, how far will you go?