Brush With Death #357

Since joining the Peace Corps, I’ve probably had more close encounters with death than I would have if I had stayed at home. This is my latest experience. I was traveling, which is always risky—the cars are older than I am, no less than seven people are crammed into a car meant for a maximum of five, drivers pass one another in daring stunts at high speed, and the roads are in poor condition, to say the least. I thought I had managed pretty well for myself. The car I took was a small sedan, there was no “petite chauffeur” (the person who normally sits under the driver in driver’s seat), and I couldn’t see the ground through the bottom of the car. We were cruising along, making good time, without driving too crazily. I was happy. The driver wanted to buy potatoes on the side of the road, so he pulled over and got out. Some of the other passengers also got out to look at the food options.  Unfortunately, the driver forgot to put on the emergency brake when he left the car. Also unfortunately, we were parked on a giant hill. As he began loading the bags of potatoes into the trunk, the car began to rock. He slammed another huge bag into the back, and we began rolling. The woman sitting next to me opened the door and was literally about to jump out of the moving vehicle. I wasn’t sure I exactly wanted to do that. I was still debating which option to take as I started to move up to try to pull the brake. Luckily, before it came to that, the crowd of people watching were able to jump behind the car and grab it and bring it to a halt. The driver jumped in and activated the brake himself at that point, laughing hysterically as he did it. The other passengers entered, all cracking up at how funny it was the car almost plummeted downhill with two of us inside it. One of the passengers then went on to tell us that this was the exact scenario in which his cousin had died. I’m just glad I survived the ordeal and escaped death yet another time in this country.