Ramblings on Driving & Culture

Traffic in Afghanistan may be the craziest I've ever experienced. There are many cars on the road, but that isn't what gets me. What gets me is that every time I get in a vehicle, I feel like we're playing chicken with everybody else on the road. This quote from our Country Director sums up how I feel when I'm driving in Mazar:

"Driving through Kabul in a snow storm is like playing Russian Roulette with 3 bullets in the chamber instead of 1."

There are no speed limits or stop signs. The street lights only work when there's actually city power, and even then, its only a suggestion. When you come to an intersection and the light is out, you have to ease your nose into oncoming traffic, flick your lights, and honk your horn until you cut someone off. Its a bit of a doozy because you have to cut them off, but leave them enough time to stop before they hit you. Then you fight your way through the middle of the road and squeeze into traffic going the direction you want to go.

In the city, there are typically lots of cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, and wheelbarrows on the road, which means there's a much greater chance of being in an accident, but at least everyone's going slow enough that it only results in fender benders. However, on my way to the factory, we are on a major highway heading out of town. There's less traffic, more big trucks, and everyone moves much, much faster. Sometimes we're passing one semi or dump-truck with another one coming head on, the pedal's to the floor (meaning you can't go any faster, and you can't slow down or the guy following you around the big truck will also wreck) and you swoop in front of the truck just in time. Its a rush; one I'm still not fond of. Oh, there aren't really any shoulders on the side of the highway either...

I think there's an intriguing cultural dynamic to all of this. In the West, especially America, we tend to be hyper-security oriented, and everything we do is a calculation of risk in some form or another. We don't let the kids play in the street because its risky- the child could be hit by a car. We (most of us anyway...) buckle our seat-belts because we know it is safer, and the statistics say so. (I must admit, I didn't start wearing my seat-belt here until after our wreck...). In the worldview of most Westerners, we believe our choices and actions are legitimate in and of themselves. It is a matter of our own responsibility to control life, good and evil, etc. I have been stressed many times at work, school, and in my travels because I have ultimately seen myself as the one controlling outcomes. Not necessarily a good thing.

For many Afghans, and I think many people throughout the Greater Middle East, our ambitions to control life seem futile. If you get into grad school, it was Allah's will. If we make it past the semi, it was Allah's will. If we didn't, the same remains true. You get the picture. Everything is rooted in the fact that Allah controls everything, especially outcomes. This particularly relates to death, life, good, and evil. The crazy driving and kids playing in the streets seems crazy to me, because in my worldview, my decisions and choices matter quite a lot, and perhaps more than they should. Here, people don't see themselves as the controllers of their own destiny, and see struggling with Allah for that position as a pointless endeavor.

So, there are definitely pros and cons to the way we view things, from whichever side of the world we come. It is one thing to take responsibility for what we do, but it is another thing to try to control outcomes. The world, and life, are far too large and complicated for us to control them, and we drive ourselves mad trying to do so. On the other hand, our decisions in life do make a difference and we must be responsible for them. By introducing seat-belt laws, the number of deaths from car accidents dropped-- its a fact. All that to say-- I'm learning to relinquish what I think I control in life, and hopefully, some of those I'm around are learning that they do have some responsibility in the decisions they make.