The Bike Riders Crash, Everything Stops, Then Everything Continues

Yesterday in Freetown, I was crawling along in my car like a sensible person who actually wants to see tomorrow. The two-lane road was doing its usual thing, pretending to have rules while everybody ignored them. I was driving extra slowly because I know this city too well. At any moment, an okada (bike rider) can pop out like a jack-in-the-box, or one of those kekes (tricycles) can decide the middle of the junction is the perfect place for a U-turn. So I kept my eyes wide open, ready for anything.

Then came the real show. In front of me was the usual Freetown circus: a thick soup of people on foot trying to cross while cars, bikes, and kekes all fought for the same slice of tar. Everybody was making eye contact, as if they were playing a very serious, yet underpaid staring game. “You go.” “No, you go.” “Fine, I go first, but I am not responsible for what happens next.” Pure beautiful chaos, but somehow, by some miracle that no traffic engineer has ever been able to explain, it usually works out. Suddenly… BANG!

Bongolistically, Mallam O.