change of plans
No spaces opened up for me at the Proyecto Linguistico next week, but by a stroke of very good luck there is a space for me at their famous Escuela de la Montaña. It's a very rural school situated at a cooperative coffee plantation in the mountains. It only accepts 8 students at a time and normally has a long waiting list. The internet cafes will be closed here this weekend and there is no phone or internet service at the mountain school, so I will be out of touch for more than a week. Sorry if I don't make a couple phone calls I was going to make before leaving - the change of plans happened today so I'm scrambling to wrap things up here. It was really sad telling the kids that I've been tutoring for the last 4 weeks that I'm leaving sooner than planned. Sigh.
It will be nice though to get away from the traffic in Xela which has been irritating me more over the last couple days. Pedestrians never have the right of way, and there's one intersection between this school and my house where you can wait for minutes for a break in traffic to run across the street. It's a "Y" intersection so you can't tell which way each car is going to go, so it's only really safe to cross when there are no cars at all nearby. Cars move fast down narrow streets and drivers normally lay on the horn without slowing a bit if you cross aggressively in front of them. Yesterday while starting a walk with about 10 other students and a guide up a local mountain, I used a critical mass tactic, and to the annoyance of the car occupants, corked the intersection while we crossed. It felt good to switch control of the street, if only for a moment.
Que les vaya bien,
levi
posted by vonLevi | 6:08 p.m.
4 Comments:
You would be impressed with the bike paths in Melbourne Levi. They are about a car lane wide and have a picture of a (well almost) life- size bicycle painted on them. Not bad for a city of 4 million people! Looking forward to hearing about your adventures at Escuela de la Montana big bro.. the hotsprings sound just lovely.
Hey Levi,
The traffic reminds me of what Asmara, Eritrea (http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/africa/bwmaps/erbw.htm) is like. The cars have the right-of-way. However, one positive, is that because then the bicyclist (there were a lot there) and pedestrians were more unpredicatable, the cars (although seems fast) actually drove slower and very rarely got into an accident (e.g. honking pro-actively, always watching out for potential dangers, etc.). Is it the same there?
Hola Levi. Your audience is growing! And we're hooked. The more we read the more we want to know. Lots of food for thought. Sounds like you're taking in all the new experiences to the max. Can't wait til the next instalment. Gracias.
Joanne
eh selam,
the cars in xela generally drive slower than an arterial road in toronto, but on average still faster than a residential street in toronto, and with a significant proportion going way too fast. I observed and wondered for a while whether perhaps it was actually safer with the lack of any street signs or paint, with narrow cobblestoned streets. But no, in the end I think it's really dangerous, largely because of the aggressive attitude of so many drivers here. This attitude is probably not unrelated to high level of machismo and the apparent complete lack of law enforcement of traffic laws, if there are any.
Thanks Joanne!!
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