A Quest for Community
Monday, October 27, 2003
When I lived at Damanhur, I
never thought I'd see drivers as crazy as the macho Italian males
careening around the mountain curves while using both hands to
gesticulate their stories. But as I leaned out the window of our bus
honking its way through the sweltering Indian night, I could hardly
believe what I was seeing. We were driving on the left side of the
undivided road, and I was sitting at the window on the right side of
the bus. As I watched with amazement, I could see huge trucks bearing
down on us, taking up the entire road and honking wildly. And our bus
driver was doing the same. It was like a continuous game of chicken,
head-on collisions seemed impossible to avoid, but at the very last
second one or the other of the onrushing vehicles would grudgingly move
aside, and we would zoom past each other with only a few inches to
spare. I quickly realized that I had to anticipate this moment and pull
my head of arm inside the bus to not have it lopped off. It was
impossible to compute how they could possible manage this crazy dance,
it seemed like some kind of supernormal coordination was going on. It was simultaneously weird, wild, really scary, and exhilarating.
