I drive a van for the ministry when teams are here and occasionally for ministry errands. There are 2 vans - a Toyota Hiace and a Kia. The Kia incidentally has a wickedly annoying alarm system installed. I've had a mishap with both of the vans.
Mishap #1: Backing the Kia out of the Beerseba School, you must back it onto the street. On one of my attempts, the van was too close on the left to swing the van out. Anticipating this, I backed out halfway so that I could pull ahead further to the right to allow the van some room. When I went to pull ahead in first gear, I didn't do it fast enough (there was a vehicle ahead of me that I didn't want to crash into by gunning it) and the van rolled back crunching the driver mirror and front left fender. BONUS: Les, Rita, fellow teachers, and a team from Canada were all present to witness the spectacle.
Mishap #2: Driving home from the guest house in the Toyota through the northwest corner of the market in Tactic. It's a tight spot to begin with, but this time there were vehicles parked on the right-hand side of the street. I pulled the 15-passenger van up to the intersection and paused to check for pedestrians, cyclists, pick-up trucks and dogs, then swung the van to the left only to hear a big crunch. There are metal posts along the left-hand side of the street (for some unknown reason) and the ladder that sits on the left-hand side of the van caught one of these posts and ripped off.
This has amazed me for awhile. Instead of building a bridge across the river in Sayaxche, the town has decided that it is more profitable to keep the ferry running. The ferry holds about 10 vehicles at a time and crosses the small river in about 5 minutes, charging each vehicle between Q10 and Q25 ($1.50 and $3.75). The ferry is a barge propelled with two outboard motors.
Despite the mishaps, I've grown comfortable driving the vans. Driving my car, in contrast, makes me feel like I'm driving a Porsche boxster rather than a Kia Rio. I took this shot while driving of Mike taking a shot of the straight road that heads into the mountains.
1 comment:
I'm getting the feeling that driving with you may be hazardous to your passengers life. Neat idea about the ferry instead of a bridge. They would definitely make more money with the ferry.
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