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From: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
In honor of not being here in quite some time. Below is a rant I wrote for Facebook but never got around to posting.
I miss this place
Come to Haiti….Seriously, just pay a one-day visit to Haiti and then complain to me about traffic jams.
I am not saying this because I don’t sympathize with folks still sitting in their cars in the United States. Those poor souls idling to get to work while the sun is still rising. The ones that actually catch the moment when the song loop of their local radio station finishes Track #12 and begins anew on Track #1 yet again. I am with you…I have been there. However, none of that bullsh*t...not the rubbernecking over some old lady’s Mini on fire on the side of the highway...nor the metro bus that nearly t-boned you by running a red light... not even the brainless dingbat holding her cell on speakerphone like a dinner plate up to her chin as a “hands-free” and pushing along 7 shopping carts with the brush cage on her Yukon can prepare you for the Wild West experience of driving or even walking here.
I am also not saying this because I don’t sympathize with Haitians just trying to go about their business. Much of what happens here is a direct result of the conditions you confront on the road, no matter who you are or what you are doing. These conditions breed bad habits like those you might find in the U.S., but then purifies them like uncut cocaine in the crucible of an almost TOTALLY consequence-free environment.
Imagine if every road you used to get to your job looked like it sustained severe and repeated shelling from an unidentified enemy you never heard of and have never seen before. Every focking trip to the supermarket involves the equivalent of 237 riverbed crossings, complete with focking boulders, gravel, and holes big enough to swallow most school-aged children. Flat tires are not occasional nuisances; they are a focking way of life here.
Did I mention there are no rules? Oh sure, there are like, TWO traffic signals I have seen in this country in the twelve months I’ve lived here, but nobody uses them. They might as well blink to focking music like a lonely, uber-retarded Christmas display. RUB SOME FUNK ON IT!
Police directing traffic is a new, relatively untested commodity here. There is absolutely no discernible logic to who they tell to go, and who they tell to stop. It’s probably why almost nobody actually does what Johnny Law tells him/her to do unless they are carrying a very large shotgun. I don’t envy their position and realize they have no real handbook on how to do this job, in this place, efficiently. But if you are waiving in all directions for people to advance into an intersection, you’re basically just doing a one-man Madonna's Vogue impression and asking folks to get into car accidents.
This assumes of course that there are “lanes” in Haiti. I assure you there are not. If there is a wait at an intersection, standard operating protocol is to casually turn on your hazards, drop into second gear, and race up the wrong side of the street until you get stuck in the intersection in front of oncoming traffic (those selfish lane-abiding focktards!). You next proceed to cuss out the people actually WAITING FOR THEIR FOCKING TURN TO GO for not letting you in... thus stopping traffic in all directions... thus making the once routine traffic slow-down into an omega clusterfock. This moment will be about the time that people step out of their cars to direct other people to move vehicles out of their way. They do this by indicating that folks should try to drive through an open space that is 2/3rds the width of their vehicle. This happens all the time to me.
Hey Captain Depth Perception! Is my focking car made out of marshmallows?! If I could focking fit through there, at ALL, do you think I’d be sitting here, gagging for a bathroom? Do us all a favor and get your Dudley-Focking-Do-Nothing a$$ back into your old, busted Suzuki Samurai and shut the fock up! YOU ARE NOT AND HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SOLUTION!
....Don't even get me started on how 45% of all vehicles here, for whatever focking reason, refuse to opperate when exposed to ambient moisture.
Cuddles,
Dr. Ledward M Focker III
I miss this place
Come to Haiti….Seriously, just pay a one-day visit to Haiti and then complain to me about traffic jams.
I am not saying this because I don’t sympathize with folks still sitting in their cars in the United States. Those poor souls idling to get to work while the sun is still rising. The ones that actually catch the moment when the song loop of their local radio station finishes Track #12 and begins anew on Track #1 yet again. I am with you…I have been there. However, none of that bullsh*t...not the rubbernecking over some old lady’s Mini on fire on the side of the highway...nor the metro bus that nearly t-boned you by running a red light... not even the brainless dingbat holding her cell on speakerphone like a dinner plate up to her chin as a “hands-free” and pushing along 7 shopping carts with the brush cage on her Yukon can prepare you for the Wild West experience of driving or even walking here.
I am also not saying this because I don’t sympathize with Haitians just trying to go about their business. Much of what happens here is a direct result of the conditions you confront on the road, no matter who you are or what you are doing. These conditions breed bad habits like those you might find in the U.S., but then purifies them like uncut cocaine in the crucible of an almost TOTALLY consequence-free environment.
Imagine if every road you used to get to your job looked like it sustained severe and repeated shelling from an unidentified enemy you never heard of and have never seen before. Every focking trip to the supermarket involves the equivalent of 237 riverbed crossings, complete with focking boulders, gravel, and holes big enough to swallow most school-aged children. Flat tires are not occasional nuisances; they are a focking way of life here.
Did I mention there are no rules? Oh sure, there are like, TWO traffic signals I have seen in this country in the twelve months I’ve lived here, but nobody uses them. They might as well blink to focking music like a lonely, uber-retarded Christmas display. RUB SOME FUNK ON IT!
Police directing traffic is a new, relatively untested commodity here. There is absolutely no discernible logic to who they tell to go, and who they tell to stop. It’s probably why almost nobody actually does what Johnny Law tells him/her to do unless they are carrying a very large shotgun. I don’t envy their position and realize they have no real handbook on how to do this job, in this place, efficiently. But if you are waiving in all directions for people to advance into an intersection, you’re basically just doing a one-man Madonna's Vogue impression and asking folks to get into car accidents.
This assumes of course that there are “lanes” in Haiti. I assure you there are not. If there is a wait at an intersection, standard operating protocol is to casually turn on your hazards, drop into second gear, and race up the wrong side of the street until you get stuck in the intersection in front of oncoming traffic (those selfish lane-abiding focktards!). You next proceed to cuss out the people actually WAITING FOR THEIR FOCKING TURN TO GO for not letting you in... thus stopping traffic in all directions... thus making the once routine traffic slow-down into an omega clusterfock. This moment will be about the time that people step out of their cars to direct other people to move vehicles out of their way. They do this by indicating that folks should try to drive through an open space that is 2/3rds the width of their vehicle. This happens all the time to me.
Hey Captain Depth Perception! Is my focking car made out of marshmallows?! If I could focking fit through there, at ALL, do you think I’d be sitting here, gagging for a bathroom? Do us all a favor and get your Dudley-Focking-Do-Nothing a$$ back into your old, busted Suzuki Samurai and shut the fock up! YOU ARE NOT AND HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SOLUTION!
....Don't even get me started on how 45% of all vehicles here, for whatever focking reason, refuse to opperate when exposed to ambient moisture.
Cuddles,
Dr. Ledward M Focker III
