Blockade

I was again reminded this morning why I should always be alert while behind the wheel. Barreling down the new asphalt, most of the way through my commute, spiraling through the only such curve on the project, fast approaching the bridge at Flint River, I came to see a line of stopped traffic not progressing as far as my corrected vision could discern. “Never take your hand off the shifter knob”, seemed a good topical mantra as I put the transmission through its paces.

Once done, I found myself at the ass end of that aforementioned line of cars, surveying the masses that had gathered just east of the bridge, wondering where the cops were, and asking myself, “who ran off the road this time?”

It is another weird thing about this place, the huge crowds that gather at every auto accident, fatal or no. I have seen crowds of less than a dozen in less traveled rural areas at the sight of a rollover, and I have seen crowds in the hundreds at fatalities along major sections of the road. Random citizens will stop to gasp. Taximen will stop to gawk. Minibuses will stop and disgorge their passengers to gape. School busses will stop, and all the little pickneys will pour out to gasp, gawk, and gape (trying to be so adult). And for them, this sure beats going to work or to school.

So what was it this time? I had for some time predicted that a speeding Lada would fail to slow as the spiral tightened to the left, and would be shaky as he was wrapped into the immediately reversing hard right, losing control and flying off of the embankment and into a very large guango tree which we tried to preserve in tact, but was instead well trimmed with the bucket of an excavator. The tree remained mostly adjacent to the shoulder, just past the clear zone.

As it turned out, the crowd, numbering over eight hundred on the ground by some media reports, was staging a demonstration to protest the condition of their local roads, located many kilometers inland from the North Coast Highway. In their defense, these local roads (their primary access to the highway) have been used by our various contractors for the last five years, poorly enduring thousands of cycles of trucks overloaded with crushed stone heading from quarry to project.

The cops were here as well, sort of directing traffic. Mostly, it seemed that they were there to keep things from getting ugly, just to keep the traffic sort of moving along. If the cops allow traffic to be slowed (as in – large snarling backup), the protestors might feel that they have succeeded. Of course, there is no money to fix their roads, especially in light of the islandwide damage caused to the road network by the incessant rains, which started the day after the last sere installment and have since to present to me a sunny day.

Driving through demonstrations over the condition of the road always makes me feel a bit uneasy. Not particularly unsafe, mind you, just uneasy. On those rare occasions where I am the specific (albeit temporary) target of mass protest, it is exceedingly difficult to explain how established engineering principles and the better established local bureaucracy do not always work towards the same end. Especially so when the target of the explanation is a score or two of people yelling at you. The dissatisfaction is evident in the protestors, and I am rarely in a position to solve their problems. This frustrates the engineer to no end, as unsolvable problems should not exist in a groovy world.

I am resigned then, that Jah-land is not on any groovy world as I envision it.

Question. Why put up with it?

The Company has offered me a position in the Twin Cities. If accepted, I would manage a staff of engineers and technicians in the development of State highway designs. Volume would be somewhere between a million or two in fees each year. They may add “Principle” to my business card. I would live in a cube farm next to the Interstate.

And it would snow.

Lots.

And when people blocked the roads, the Sheriff would waste no time in dragging them off to the big house. Truly, a refreshing change of pace.

The Company may also have a position for me in the Middle East. And by that, I do not mean Maryland. Some emir on the Persian Gulf bought a mess of F-somethings, and now he needs the requisite garage space. There is some fifteen million cubic meters of embankment (to start with) and an estimated construction cost of nearly four hundred million dollars for the whole shootin’ match (so to speak). I would have about the same technical duties as here, but on a much larger scale.

And when people blocked the roads, the leaders of the Jihad would waste no time in dragging them off to the amputation center. Truly, a refreshing change of pace.

When we left the Midwest, I opined that it would last any time from two years to forever. Looking back, the decision we made so very long ago was a simple comparison between what we knew intimately and what we had no clue towards. Then, there was no penalty in not deciding. The deadline would have passed, and we would have remained secure in our exurbane existence.

The gist is now as I forebode – is our overseas duration for two years or forever? Another three to five of this and I may not be any good as a design manager, having spent too much time afield. Another three to twenty five in a cube farm might leave me as a quivering lump under my modular furnishings. The decision is seminal, and fast, fast approaching.

Maybe a demonstration is in order. If only to briefly slow things down.