Drivin'

I picked up my first two hitchhikers today along the dirt road. The first was an accident - the man - obviously a worker on the wooden house being built at the side of the road, with his toolbelt and deep tan - was standing in the middle of the road flapping his arms; I slowed down to avoid hitting him and paused just long enough for him to leap into the back of my bakkie. He hesitated slightly when he realised I was a foreigner, but he must have decided I looked trustworthy for he smiled and, waving a hand, said "Go! Go!" in English. So I went. Very conscious of having a passenger clinging to the edge of my open bakkie, I slowed down quite a lot, but he still bounced merrily away over the rocks and ditches, periodically waving to someone else on the roadside. After a few kilometres, he banged on my roof, jumped off and waved goodbye.

My second hitchhiker flagged me down in the usual way, and, seeing his bowed walk and heavy load, I stopped for him. He was a tiny ancient man, at least a foot shorter than me. He put his three sharpened sticks in the back and then climbed (and that word is used in its literal sense) into the high front seat with his other baggage: an umbrella with more holes than fabric, and an old Adidas satchel, only barely held together by a few pieces of twine. He smiled at me, a big enough smile to show a single brown tooth, then he sort of crouched in the seat, close to the door, taking up as little space as humanly possible. The only other interaction we had was ten kilometres later, when he pointed at a wooden shack and said "Saya rumah" - "My house." His sticks had fallen down in the back and he couldn't reach them. I had to get them out for him. Mumbling apologetically, he hobbled home.