Just came back from lunch.

My house is about 500 m from the office, which is rather convenient as it takes less than a minute to get to or from there. The traffic congestion in Addis is relatively less compared to Nairobi. Getting around is pretty easy at any time of the day. Driving however is sometimes maddening. The road design is hostile – there are no roundabouts, just U-turns that 50% of the drivers take without any signals. Men, women, boys, girls, goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys, pets and pests all dive into the road without looking out for traffic. Always. Hooting or instant brakes leaves everyone thinking, “who does this driver think he is?â€� The solution is to drive slowly and to constantly guess what the drivers ahead, behind, and beside you are thinking.

Accidents are a nightmare. Here, insurance is optional. It is common for the offending driver, to make an agreement with a victim on how he will be paying for damages in installments for years to come. If an uninsured vehicle injures a pedestrian, the driver will have to take care of the victim’s medical expenses. Problem is, the victim occasionally turns up at the driver’s house with some imaginary pain when he/she is broke. If you kill any animal, you pay for it. If you crash into any barrier, you pay for its replacement.

I have to admit though; it gives very good therapy to the road crazed Kenyan driver. You learn patience and courtesy.

The public service vehicles sector is very disciplined compared to Kenya’s. All taxis have a common blue color. In Nairobi we have rainbows on wheels. A mini-bus has to have a maximum of 3 passengers per row, as opposed to the minimum of 4 in Kenya. When a taxi picks up a passenger, he or she has to shake hands and hug and kiss ALL the people he or she knows in the taxi before sitting down. The duration of this ceremony is determined by how long the passengers know each other. No sane taxi driver will interrupt this ceremony by pulling out of the bus stop. The process is repeated when alighting.

One of the less talked about Kenyan tourist attractions are skid marks on bus stops made by passengers’ shoes as they jump from moving taxis.

Big hurry in Africa!