It was the weekend of Ward’s party out at St Phillips school, where he was a science and math teacher. There would be a lot of volunteers there, and I was looking forward to sitting around drinking beer and eating, and talking about teaching. I was in town, working on the Volunteer newsletter, the Incwadzi Yetfu, and planning to walk over to the market for food to take to the party, and then head out.
I caught the bus to the crossroads where you turned off to go to St Phillips, just two dirt roads crossing each other, nothing else there, except a tree. I threw my pack down under the tree, and sat by it, and pulled out the ever present paperback from the back pocket of my pants. I was going to have to hitch to the school, or wait 3 hours there until the bus came by for the school.
Hitching, in Swaziland, was often more sitting than actually going anywhere. There were not that many vehicles on the roads, especially at midday when the sun was hottest, so you had to sit and wait for one to pass. I was currently reading a Spenser novel that I had found in the Peace Corps office, and opened it to read until I heard a car coming. Sometimes I would wait an hour or more before a car or truck came by. A book makes the time pass faster.
I had been teaching Sam’s Survival Session at each new training that Peace Corps had for new volunteers, and usually opened the session by standing in front of the trainees, and whipping out my ubiquitous paperback, and holding it up, I would say, “Sam’s survival tip #1… Books. Don’t leave home without them.” Like the Carl Malden commercial for insurance on TV. Last semester break I had hitched to Lesotho with two other volunteers, and the driver of one ride had commented, “You can always tell a Peace Corps volunteer when you pass one, because they always have a paperback in their pocket.”
Several cars came by over the next hour, but none turned towards St Phillips, and one stopped to discharge two other volunteers heading for the party. So we all sat there in the hot shade reading our paperbacks.
A while later, a pickup truck approached the crossroads coming from the direction of St Phillips, and coasted to a stop, and the driver motioned me over. He said that he was a neighbor by the school, and was going to get some gas, and would be back in 20 minutes, and if we were still there, he would take us to the school. I gave him 20 emalangeni to help him with the gas, and went back to my book. Another car came by, and the other two volunteers got in and went off toward the school.
Eventually, the man in the pickup came back by, on his way to the school, and pulled over. There were 3 women crammed into the cab with him, and 4 kids in the back of the truck. I threw my pack aboard, and climbed in with the kids. We took off down the road. Every once in a while, one of the kids would rap on the top of the cab, and the driver would swerve off the road, running over rocks and small trees, and eventually coast to a stop, and the kid would jump out. After the third time, I bent down to the driver’s window, and asked the man why he was running over the rocks and trees. He laughed. “Hahaha! No Brakes!” he cried, and roared off. Oh, great.
We went on like this for a while, and then we topped a hill, and I could see a long downhill stretch ahead of us, going straight towards a narrow cement bridge across a small river, and up a small rise, and the school was on the right. As we headed downhill we kept picking up speed, and soon we were whipping along quite fast, bounding from pothole to pothole. I started getting nervous. The bridge looked tiny and narrow. We were really flying. And no brakes. I started calculating at what point I would have to jump off if he wasn’t aligned with the bridge, so that I would hit the water instead of crash. Just as I was thinking now or never, and was tensing to jump, CALUMP! we hit the bridge right in the middle, flew across it in an instant, and up the hill, still doing maybe 60 miles per hour, and he swerved, laughing, into the parking lot of the bottle shop (a liquor store, where better than across from a high school?) and he cranked the wheel and we raced around in a circle bleeding off speed, 4 or 5 times around, with me clinging on to resist the centrifugal force trying to fling me out, and coasted to a stop. I got off with my knees shaking, and hoisted my pack, said thanks, and walked across the road to the school. All the fun and excitement of a roller coaster, and only 20 emalangeni.
Books Matter 
Brakes Matter