Dangerous Innocent Pedestrians
The Oxford Dictionary defines pe·des·tri·an as a person walking along a road or in a developed area; Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a person who is walking, especially in an area where vehicles go.
Eh paano ang aso, pusa, manok, kambing, AND in this case, si Islaw Kalabaw and family, and friends?
6:30AM on a rainy Wednesday, and I was running late for an engagement in Guiuan Eastern Samar. My driver knew the situation, and was flying on the road (without me even requesting), but I liked it. Shh!
Somewhere along Brgy. Diit in Tacloban, the vehicle suddenly slowed down, intermittently stopping.
I curiously watched how he would 'manage' this very tricky "overtaking" situation. I was running (very) late for Guiuan, but this was such an interesting experience, I didn't care if we were behind schedule!
Driver was telling me things as we ran slow behind that platoon of carabaos. Things like: if you follow too closely, your engine noise could alarm / irritate the animals, they might turn back to fight the car!
If you blow your horn, that could startle them to scamper in many directions, and all hell would break lose, there's no telling what harm would happen to people, vehicles and things in the area - including the carabaos themselves! I had this crazy idea of wanting to see that, so I said "aber sige nga"! Buang!
But driver was 'saner' this morning, so he did not dare hehe! He told me instead that he has seen and actually personally experienced many such incidents here on Leyte island alone and some were fatal.
Thus, we were kinda stuck, running very slowly (and intermittently stopping) behind those beasts that seemed to be having a leisurely walk under an early-morning rain, on the national highway. Too slow!
As he waited for his "timing", driver kept telling me what can happen to the carabaos or us. He shared that as a driver, you can't also be very slow and stay far from the pack, as it will be harder to overtake since there are many vehicles on the opposite lane. Hmmn, too many things to consider. Complicated!
Yeah, these are the times you can say, I'd rather be an airline pilot!
Hey look at that last picture again. The youngest in the group (the one who walks in the middle of the road) was the most restless. It has a rope tied to its nose but the other end is tied to nothing. Danger!
Driver says, these animals are just like humans as pedestrians - the young ones are what you have to watch-out for. They are careless, restless and unpredictable, while 'adults' walk only on the roadsides.
Hah, we were able to eventually overtake them... but guess what happened?!
Ah you guessed it again hehehe... the entire drive to Guiuan, our topic/S were Carabaos on the road!
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