Blind to Danger (random pics at the end)

The other day we were out and about when the van in front of ours came to a screeching halt.  Which meant we came to a screeching halt - coming quite close to a collision.  What emerged into our field of view were three blind men holding hands and using their canes to find their way across the road.  In Ethiopia, if a car injures a pedestrian, then, regardless of circumstance, the driver gets an automatic 15 years in prison.  As there are no sidewalks, the roads are a blend of people, buses, goats, vans, carts, donkeys, cars, and tractor trailers.  Though there are constant near misses, thankfully, we have not seen anyone hurt.

Here people live right up to the edge of mortal danger: Trucks blast past school children who scatter in an attempt to cross a busy road; there are heights without railings, high voltage lines that you can literally bump into.  Generally people seem indifferent to these things until someone gets too close, then they have instant life saving reactions. Foreigners, however, seem to get an extra wide buffer zone.  Either they care more for us, or know that we come from a world that has kept us unaware of how quickly one’s life can end.

Speaking of the blind, we ran into Caesar (the teacher from the school who is blind) doing his errands in the “Piazza” (a busy shopping district). We couldn’t help but be amazed at his courage of going out in such a chaotic city unaccompanied.  But everyone who saw that he was blind made way, advised him of holes, or took his arm when the passage was too complicated to narrate.  Caesar did not appear to think that anyone would ever harm him.  For financial transactions, strangers would take his wallet and get out the right amount of money and then tell him what was left.  His excursions in town seem to us like one, long “trust fall” into the arms of his people.  We were both on the same bus headed back to our neighborhood; though he was getting off a stop before us he took the time to lecture the driver on exactly where to drop the foreingies (us) – Caesar could see we needed help.

Deadly Grasshopper

Lily and Sophie on Tour

Julie Chilling @ Recess

Going Native