An instant of mortality

So on my last trip to Tana I was squeezed comfortably into a small spot behind the driver of our van. A man got on with two boys, both very small, sat one in his lap and the other was standing in front of him. This is very common in Madagascar because the people cant afford paying for bus fair for more than one member of the family. I watched the adorable little boy cling to the front seat as our taxi took off towards our destination and then watched as over the next thirty minutes he slowly began to fall asleep standing up. He then sat down on his brothers legs, on top of his dad so that they resembled a small sad sort of pyramid. That's when I finally stepped in; put down my Emily Dickinson and offering for the little boy to sit in my lap. The father was very grateful and immediately the boy sat down, and fell asleep within minutes. I loved feeling his little frame against my chest, and the warmth of his little body. We sat like that for the last hour of our trip, me sleeping sitting up with his head tucked under my chin, him nestled in my arms. I was in absolute love with him for the ride. As we passed the small communities along the way everyone kept commenting about the foreigner with her son. It was very funny.

Then as we entered Tana and we are travelling along a long bypass that enters a city, a car, travelling straight towards us, swerves and flies into a rice patty, turning over in the air as it goes. It happened within seconds, our whole van gasped in disbelief and a small serving of shock. We pulled over, as did the two cars behind us who saw the same thing. Within seconds the men were out and in the rice patty, trying to save the people who had just untimely entered someone else's yard. One man, the driver was pulled out first. He was so drunk when they set him down on the curb that he couldn't stand on his own feet but instead did a sort of fluid hula dance as he attempted to regain sobriety. A passing motorist accepted the man into his car and took him onward to the hospital. A second man, the front seat passenger was removed very shortly afterward, blood coursing down the side of his face although I doubt he noticed that as he too was also very inebriated. I looked at the little boy in my lap, furious with such a waste of life it may have been. Here was one who was starting his life, those were two who seemed intent on ending it. But more to the point. We were seconds from being a part of their drunken show as well. Such a waste.