An Adventure to Remember!

On Friday, I had the opportunity to go on an adventure.  I took public transportation from Montrouis (where I live one hour north of PAP) to Carrefour (which is a "suburb" south of PAP) and that means that I had to take several taptaps.  Don't worry, I wasn't alone!  I had some of our clinic staff from Canaan the whole way!  Here is my unforgettable experience.

After being dropped off in Montrouis, we hopped into a taptap and waited for it to be filled up with people.  A taptap can be a variety of things.  It can be a pickup truck with benches built in and a top over the bed, a bus type thing, or a MACK truck with people standing or sitting in the back.  All of these versions of a taptap are really bright and colorful.  Some of them are more comfortable than others.  This first taptap was what I have named "Always Room for One More".  It didn't matter how many people were in/on this taptap truck, there was always room for one more.  We only drove about 30 minutes in this full taptap and hopped out to catch the next ride.

The next ride was a bus.  We hopped in and I proceeded to take my bag off, but hit a man in the face in the process.  This was a school bus and we sat three to a seat which was interesting.  There was standing room only and we were ready to roll.  At the front of the bus a lady stood up and started talking over everyone.  She held up goods to sell and promoted them.  She actually made a lot of sales on th 45 minute drive.  I called this bus "The Commercial".

We got out of the bus at the bus station and walked a little ways to find a taptap to take to another station.  We found a taptap that let us ride in the cab of the truck!  So nice!  We crept along through traffic and person after person kept coming up to the taptap asking for change.  The driver counted out the change carefully each time as he was rolling along (always keeping one eye on the road somehow).  The person getting the change walked along with the taptap--sometimes ran--to get their correct change.  This will always be remembered as "The Rolling Bank"

I took one more bus to get to Carrefour that day, but the whole adventure was a lot of fun!  I enjoyed the experience and look forward to more taptaps, buses, and adventures!