Free as a Bird... with a Broken Wing.

Until very recently, I've had the worst time creating a mental map of Cotonou. This is particularly painful when you consider that city maps are hard to come by - so hard to come by we haven't managed to get one yet- and that there aren't any street names posted on the roads. As a result, I might have been to a particular shop or restaurant 3 or 4 times and still be unable to find it again. There was no point in trying to give me directions because I couldn't get to the landmarks you were naming. And when it came to remembering those names later, I was hopeless as I couldn't even repeat the French when I was hearing it at the time. Until I've navigated a city on my own - by foot, bicycle, car, etc. - I never get the hang of it.

Totally relying on other expats to either drive me around or give directions to the company driver, I wasn't feeling very independent or free. But the prospect of hopping into the company car and driving off into a city of outrageous traffic when I hadn't been driving regularly for over two years was too daunting. And the fact that I hadn't driven stick shift in nearly four years didn't help either, especially after watching T struggle with the car's bad clutch to get it out of our tiny garage full of strange angles. I feel the need to add here that T is a very, very good driver.

But you reach a point where enough is enough and you realise that today's as good a day to dent your boyfriend's company car as ever there will be. I had T get me out of the garage and from there I took it on my own. (I also feel the need to point out that even though T had never seen me drive, he let me, in a twisted knot of nerves, take off on my own with his company-issued car. You be the judge.)

There are some things you never forget. Apparently, driving is one of them. Behind the wheel again, I felt at home in Cotonou like I never expected. Since that night I've been zipping around the city - including in and out of our garage - on my own quite a bit. The other afternoon I went for a drive around some of the busiest parts of the city and encountered some of the worst traffic I have seen here yet. Traffic jams and road construction forced me to take alternative routes, but my mental map of the city must be finally taking shape because I never felt lost or concerned that I wouldn't make it back.

And in Cotonou traffic, you don't have time to be too worried about where you're going. The roads are full of obstacles to avoid: giant potholes and puddles, trash, beggars, people selling odds and ends, old tires, and stray cement blocks. Thousands of mopeds crowd the streets, dashing in and out and around you all the time, often with whole families - including infant babies - piled onto one bike. And of course no one wears a helmet. Zems, or moped taxis, are the craziest. The only thing worse than driving a car surrounded by zems, is being on the back of one.

But all in all, driving in Benin becomes much easier once you completely accept that the only rule of the road here is that there are no rules. If someone were to ask me on which side of the road the Beninese drive I would have to reply, "Well, it depends on the situation." Technically, people are supposed to drive to the right, but this doesn't appear to be as mandatory as it is most elsewhere. Traffic lights are few and far between, and more than half of the existing ones aren't functioning. So intersections operate on the only rule I've been able to identify: the rule of bigger. As in, "I'm bigger than you, so it's in your interest to avoid crashing into me." It seems to work most of the time, though it makes me wish we had a bigger car.

We've currently got a well-worn Peugeot 406 sedan that, in my non-expert opinion, probably needs a new clutch. At the very least I'm quite positive that it needs a new battery. Yesterday morning, I awoke to find that the car wouldn't start. Luckily, or maybe not, the driver was here anyway to clean the car. So he used another company car to jump start it and then he sent me on my way to the horse stables after a short protest from myself. As I hadn't left the lights on or anything like that the night before, and over the past few days I had noticed that the car was suspiciously lacking power in first gear (pedal to the metal and still hardly any movement), I was certain that a new battery was in order. But, as I was already late and I knew there'd be jumper cables in the back, I drove off without much fuss. Good thing I had those cables, because less than two hours later, on my way back from the stables, it wouldn't start again. It took two jump-starts and a friend in pick-up truck following me to get home, but I made it. Needless to say my plans to go to the neighbouring city of Porto-Novo with a friend that afternoon were cancelled.

And just like that, my new-found freedom was gone and I'm back to riding zems for awhile. Boy, do wish I had a helmet.