*Rules of the Road*

Sophomore year: Erika, are you going to get your license? Erika, you’re going to drive home. Now, Erika, this car won’t go anywhere until you take the wheel. Now! It’s less than a mile. Drive home…Woah! Erika, slow down, slow down! No, to the left! Inside the lines. Turn faster. The brake is on the…!*
And thus went my driving lessons in Sitka, the whole three times I tried. Obviously, they were painful experiences. Even so, unskilled as I was, I understood the basics: stay inside the speed limits, watch for pedestrians, light your turn signal a telephone pole away from your turning point.
I’m beginning to redefine my definition of ´´basics,’’ mostly because none of these apply in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. In fact, the only rules I’ve noticed have been less than unorthodox in my culture shocked brain. It’s a very different, very exciting culture and I´m trying to learn as much and as quickly as possible. To do just that, I’ve compiled a list of the South American rules of the road.

1. Lock doors at intersections. Whether this is to discourage robbers, or beggars, I do not know. Maybe it’s only to deny the boys washing windows at stoplights a comfortable seat.
2. If traffic slows unnecessarily, every car has a built in communicator to ask the other cars, ´´What the heck is going on? ´´ This device is called a horn, and is used more liberally the closer to the center of town (and the heart of traffic) you get.
3. Your truck isn’t full until there are three people in the cab and five in the bed, sitting on stacks of wood. I’ve seen people sitting on the rims of the backs while driving. If I tried it, I think I would be scared to death. I’d also probably fall to my death.
4. Absolutely no driving until you’re eighteen years of age! This is an actual law, but like the Pirates´ Code, is more of a guideline. My friend’s fifteen year old brother is a regular driver. He also regularly carries cash to tip the cops who don’t catch him.
5. Like the age limit, the street lines are also a guideline, especially if you’re a motorcyclist. Intersections hold the most obvious examples of this. What would normally be a three way road becomes four when a motorcycle weaves through the stopped cars and waits with the first of the line to go when the light changes.

There are other rules that I’ve yet to put into words, but they are very much out there. In fact, I doubt most of them have been written. Who would write them when this country is constantly in a state of flux? Contrast between worlds is everywhere. Beauty queens walk the same streets as the women begging on the streets. ‘’Señorita, Señor, por favor…´´ Sometimes the cultures mix just a little when la Señorita drops a few Bolivianos into the other’s upturned hand. Horse drawn carts compete with the cars and buses for road space. Jiffy Peanut Butter is in the same store as las empanadas and los guineas. I, an Alaskan Mormon girl, am going to a Bolivian Catholic school and learning to say the Rosary.
Bolivia is changing, a lot. In fact, today half of school was cancelled because of fighting. Despite these changes, I think the Rules of the Road are here to stay. It’s more exciting that way.


*The author has taken some liberties with quotations of her mother. Mom, please don’t take offense.