Tiny Tots in a Tin Can

I have experienced traffic in Nairobi, Istanbul, and Casablanca, but traffic here takes crazy up a level.  As with many places in the world, pedestrians have no right of way.  You cross at your own risk.  Your own risk includes crossing often several lanes of traffic that rarely have any lull due to a lack of  traffic lights and a surplus of traffic circles.  Stop signs are pretty much ignored.  Why stop when you can just keep your regular speed and honk your horn as loud as you can through the intersection so everyone knows you there?  The rules of the road are taken lightly and speed limits are non-existent.  This all makes for very nervous parents as we stand at the edge of the road praying we will get an opportunity to cross with three little tag alongs.  It is a delicate balance of inching as close to the road as possible for a quick cross at any slight opportunity and of keeping the kids as far away from the road as possible so they don't slip off the curb and become a grill ornament while you are watching for a break in traffic.  We do this multiple times a day.  It. Is. Exhausting.  Not to mention manoeuvring the busy streets in the dry, dusty heat with an almost two year old strapped to your back.  Sweaty mess.

We also take taxis daily.  We have been fortunate enough to avoid the horror taxis we have heard of from friends.  Some told of attempting to roll down the window in the sweltering heat only to have the handle fall off, others have raced through the streets at breakneck speed all the while staring at the moving pavement through the rust hole in the floor.  No, we have not been guests in those taxis.  Yet.

However, we have come to realize that taking three young kids in a taxi is really no less stressful than trying to walk with them.  While Dave often sits in the front trying to direct a driver in a place he is somewhat unfamiliar with in a language that is equally unfamiliar, I sit in the back with the little ladies.  Once we get through the whining, crying, yelling and screaming about who is sitting where (all while jostling positions in an already quickly moving vehicle)  Ava repeats pretty much everything Dave says like a parrot while Izzy is faking grabbing the door handle at every opportunity, unaware that opening the door would send her flying onto the streets gaining her yet another opportunity to become a grill ornament.  I lock the door, she unlocks it.  When she finally gives up on that game, she insists on standing so that she is better able to hold onto the handle on the top of the roof.  A handle that is put there to assist with the constant speed- start/screech- stop/ no seat belt trio.  Meanwhile Eden is supposed to be sitting on my lap.  Well, any of you that know Eden know that she is not sitting on my lap.  She has learned the open-the-door trick from Izzy only she is not faking.  All her one-and-a-half year old brain sees is BUTTONS!!!  She tries them all and then she tries to climb out the back window, her head banging against it with every aforementioned screech- stop.  She is unconcerned with the impending concussions and begins to point out every cat and dog on the street, pointing and laughing and shouting "YAY" like we were on the best amusement park ride ever.  Then she tries her hand at working her way into the front seat to wrestle with her dad or she calms down on my lap enough to kick the seat of the driver, who is usually not really paying attention to the road but doing any two or three of the following simultaneously:  talking on the phone, texting, smoking, yelling out the window, playing with the radio, trying to teach Dave some Arabic, or turning around and staring at the kids for long periods of time.  Meanwhile any passengers in the vehicles surrounding us are usually pointing at our kids and smiling like we were in a cage at a zoo.  The girls don't mind though, they are like little zoo animals bouncing around in their little tin can loving every minute of the wild ride.  When the ride is done, Dave and I stumble out rather dazed while the girls bound out gleefully shouting "shokran (thank you), masalema (goodbye)."  We pay our equivalent of 50 cents to $2 and continue on our way.  And to think, in Canada I was holding out moving Ava into a booster seat because she was only 36 lbs!