Driven Crazy!!

Here in Ouaga almost every expat family has a « chauffeur » or a driver to get them where they want to go. It’s much less lame for the adults who otherwise would have to do about 5 or 6 trips in and out of the centre of town every day! (Drop off kids at school, pick up kids from school…) Plus it’s way less dangerous! Driving here is hard, especially if you’re not used to it! . Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if only two things weren’t true:
1.The police are hardly ever directing the traffic. And even when they are out, it’s useless because no one listens to them. Everybody just does their own thing. And when the street is full of bikes, cars, scooters, donkey carts, hand carts, pedestrians and even a few horses and camels, it doesn’t work out too well.
2. People drive completely CRAZY!!! You see at least one smashed motor bike or one wrecked car in the road a day. At least.
People drive so badly that you wonder if they even took the driving test (Let me tell you, I bet that most didn’t!)
Besides all the crazy driving, there are obstacles to dodge. Take today, for example. We saw: a group of little 9 year old girls coming home from school on foot and crossing the road right when the light for the car lane turned green! A gum-chewing kleenex vendor weaving his way through the motor bikes to get his latest client’s change from his pal on the other side of the street. Plus a taxi stopping right in the middle of the lane to pick up someone. Then we saw saw a donkey cart with no donkey blocking the road. Where was the donkey you ask? A little ways further…laying there DEAD in the middle of the street!
Later, nearer to our house we saw a wrecked car with a dead motorbike next to it. Well, considering the smashed up condition of it, it would have been dead if it was a living thing. The drivers were’t there. I bet they were in the hospital! I looked pretty bad. I hope they are all ok.
It's so dangerous to drive here. The worst thing might be the teenagers on motorbikes! They think this is a real game of MX VS ATV Unleashed!