On the same road about 15 miles apart I saw two distinct traffic-halting accidents that where exactly the same. The first time, decribed below, I happened to be on a bike and I pedaled past. The second time, the next day, I was in a bus, actually the only one in the bus, other than the driver and the ticket-guy, two laughy talky pals. We scooted up on the scene and my heart sunk. It was on and off rainy, I knew that the road was hard, and we were at least 60 miles from the nearest town. I couldn't hop off and bike out of this. I was stuck, with the rest of the hundreds of people on this little dinky road for 2-3 hours while waiting for the police and crane to arrive to move the huge completely busted semi off the narrow country road.
Like most commotion or accidents everyone got out of their respective vehicles and stood around the scene, doing nothing for nothing was to be done.
I took some pictures. I stretched out across the sooty back seat and tried to listen to the BBC Worldservice warble in and out of frequency on my short-wave radio. I fell asleep. I walked around a village on the side of the road and used their stone outhouse on a cliff. The village could have been 100 years ago. The "Villagers" were walking around with bindles of sticks and sickles, continuing their business in the fields. They seemed un-moved by the turmoil on their stretch of road. I bought gross fried cookies (its something they have in villages) from a man who set-up a little stand under an umbrella in the mud on the side of the road. I went back and leaned against my window in the empty bus and then I heard a song drift in from bus in front of me. I immediately loved it, like its the song I've been waiting to hear for the last year of my life in China. It suited every sense and feeling of the scene. I stepped out of my empty bus and crouched outside of theirs, full of people with their shoes off and legs hung up on the seats. I like to think that it matches the melancholy and exasperation in everyone's expression, while at the same time hinting at our acceptance that we just have to wait....Listen
