June 21, 2005

Road Rehabilitation, Congolese style

Would you believe it? Last weekend, we went looking for a Greek restaurant through the back roads of my neighborhood, only to come upon what Sarah from Breaking Hearts in the Heart of Africa describes as "moon terrain". This road, right in the middle of the capital I might add, seems like from another world.

You're driving on a decent paved road when all of a sudden, the road starts to jut and corrugate from holes and exposed rocks. Once you've passed the big puddle in the corner (NEVER drive in a puddle--you never know if there's a large open well lurking under it), the track becomes powdery, dirty white, with miniature hills and canons. Then, TaDa! You're at the restaurant.

My morning community involves using a road that is also pock-marked with deep holes. I generally drive slowly around them or almost stop the car if I must drive over them. About a week ago, the holes were mysteriously filled with jutting rocks and stones. Now instead of being to drive verrrrry slowly over them, you had to avoid the piles of stones completely.

The filling of hole seemed retarded to me. Until I noticed, little by little, that the cars driving over the rocks were breaking them into smaller pieces until all the holes were finally filled with sandlike material. Now I can drive over them at 20 miles per hour! This considerably improves my morning commute from 10 mins in the morning to 8.5 mins.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still can't believe you're driving in the Congo... As if the country didn't have enough problems already :)
-Ammo

Anonymous said...

I think you mean morning commute, not community! :)

Beaver said...

Amusing... I just came back from driving David to work and notice (joy oh joy) that a lane on MY highway was closed... because they're busy putting rocks in holes ! (With the defrost, Montreal roads look very congolese or senegalese for about a month and half...) Thank god for asphalt though :)

007 in Africa said...

Ammo, haha (*insert monotone voice here*)

Magali, hu...No I did mean my morning community. You know the people walking to their work, women carrying baskets of things on their heads, the egg sellers, the kids in uniform going to school. OK, I did kind of mean morning commute. Oops!

Beaver, haha! Montrealers are so weird.