I have a driver-Zahid. I have my own car, a Toyota. The school supplies it for $550 a year and they pay for the gas, repairs etc. We can drive if we want to and I do drive to school in the morning and to a few other easy places. Driving in Bangladesh is like nothing I have ever seen or imagined. What's amazing is that it goes forward and I have yet to see a collision though. I am sure I will see many, but maybe not.
Rickshaws! Thousands of rickshaws characterize Dhaka. The landscape is flat as a pancake. It's what makes them possible. They are beautifully painted and propelled by one man pedaling. It's a bicycle with three wheels- the two in the back support a little carriage like a surrey with the fringe on top. A couple of people-sometimes more- can fit back there and the Rickshaw Walla pedals them to their destination. A trip up to a few miles costs about thirty cents. These guys make only a couple of dollars a day. One wonders about the net gain-calories expended versus what they make. They look very healthy really. One can only imagine what they must think when they see someone jogging- probably that the jogger is actually going somewhere.
Rickshaws don't just carry people. They have flatbed rickshaws-big pieces of bamboo strapped together to make a platform. On this they carry absolutely anything- like a living-room set of furniture, for example. I saw this being delivered to our building-one guy pedaling. No problem, (Oshubidya nay!) Here you can see anything. The people have great ingenuity and endurance.
Baby taxis are motor scooters with a place to sit behind like rickshaws but they are more enclosed. A motor scooter set up as a bus and carrying ten people?! They' re the big polluters and a great proportion of them are due off the street in the next few months to be replaced by the same but powered by natural gas, something in great supply in Bangladesh but up to now unexploited.
So these are a few of your companions on the road along with numerous pedestrians, bikes, motorcycles, cars and some animals including cows, goats, dogs and an occasional monkey crossing the street. Here you drive on the left like in the UK and the cars are set up backwards like that. My man Zahid is 22 and drives with total confidence and fearlessness. He is the absolute master of the near miss. All the cars and other vehicles are constantly zig zagging to the other side of the road to go around the rickshaws, so there is a constant interweaving of the traffic. Because of this you are often looking straight at an imminent head-on collision. To keep this from happening you usually have to almost hit either a rickshaw or a pedestrian, neither of whom has any rights whatsoever. Looking at how Zahid drives I gather that a pedestrian is the lowest scum on earth. He doesn't treat the other cars, rickshaws any better. They are all just in his way, and I am telling you what, they better get the hell out of his way. I grew up driving in NYC. He makes us look like wimps. He'll pull right in front of any and all and expect them to stop and give way, and they do. And nobody gets upset! No fist shaking, cursing, threats and road rage. It all works out. Last week when he was taking me to the seminary to go to mass it looked like he was going to slam broadside into a rickshaw with a well-dressed man in tow. I waited for the crunch of metal and bones. Zahid stopped inches in time. The man in the rickshaw just put his hands together in a sign of peace or namaste. No yelling, just grace-maybe a light plea for mercy-, acceptance, and gratitude.
Zahid drives like this knowing that if he has an accident the head transportation director at the school will probably ask that he be fired, which is very very very…Ohhhhhh BAD. Lots of people out of work here. Know what he says to me? "You happy. I happy." You have problem. I have problem" You work. I work" Not just Zahid but the other driver's too- if you go some place and spend four hours there when you come out there he is ready to take you wherever else you want to go. And never the long face, like 'oh no, I have to work'. They are just so happy to be working and they do it with energy and grace and humor.
Stay Well,
May God Protect You- Koda Haphej
Ricker