Playing Frogger

A jay-walker for years (who isn’t?), I have always thought, “If you’re gonna go, please don’t let it be because a crappy car hits me….at least let it be something high end!” Well here it Xela it is possible that this nasty little nightmare, may actually happen one day – but hopefully not to me! If you’ve ever tried to cross through a round-about in Rome, you’re getting close to the fear that we gringo pedestrians have everyday here in Xela. It’s not that there aren’t rules of the road, it just that no one cares about following them! Laying on your horn (or more often, beeping to the rhythm of your favorite tune) is commonplace. Forget about traffic lanes, even if there were lines on the road, no one would use them. While there are traffic lights, they’re few and far between. And turn signals….who needs ‘em? It’s simple – whoever is bigger and ballsy-er – wins.

Ironically enough it appears that the city of Xela is putting forth an effort to get traffic under control – at least on Calle Rodolfo Robles. Since we live right on this street, and walk it to school everyday, we have had the opportunity to witness the construction of a traffic circle. While it doesn’t have any signs to aid in efficiency of use, it has helped slow down the traffic and make left hand turns possible. Most drivers, especially chicken bus drivers, don’t seem to be very happy about it though. Now they aren’t honking their horns to warn someone to get out of the way, they are honking because they have to use their brakes!

An “enginerd” at heart, Ben has been fascinated by the construction of this thing, commently daily on their progress or lack there of (one morning we noticed it had gotten destroyed overnight).