Crash

Riding home from Lomas late last night (10:30 or so) I witnessed a car accident. Nelson and I were in a combis (remember those are the little vans that take people around the city) and as it was approaching a stop (where several other combis´ and buses fight for curb side position to grab more passengers), I heard a very loud sound of tires screeching on pavement. Next, there was a bright light that shone through the side windows into the combis followed immediately by the passing of a dark object (car), very close to the van. I tried to keep my eyes on the car as it flew past, however, so was everyone else and my view was sporatically blocked. It appeared as though the car first swerved left into the median (we were on a highway/freeway) and then spun out of control as it moved back across all four lanes, hitting another car in the process. At this point I became a little bit panicked because I realized the duration of the events unfolding and just wanted to know what was happening. There were more loud crashes and finally we were again hit by the bright lights of the car. This time they were at a distance and were skewed, revealing that the car had flipped and was now on its hood and facing us many feet away. Nelson pointed out to me that the other car that had been hit had slid or spun to the right side of the road but was facing forward and still on its wheels. The car that had caused the accident was not so fortunate. As we slowly approached the vehicle I began to see that the car had indeed flipped and was now lying tilted somewhat forward (hood end) and towards the driver´s side. I also noticed that I was unable to see into any of the car windows. I didn´t think that they were tinted because they had a very strange metallic dust appearance to them and I was very confused by that. They also were not broken. Though the street was lit it was still very dark out at this time of the night and I thought I saw (and Nelson confirmed) a woman peering into an open back door of the upsiedown vehicle. I don´t know if she had just come from out of the car through that door, or was merely a witness of the wreck trying to help out (or possibly from the other car that was hit). At this point our combis was humming with nervous murmurs and from the back came shouts of "Avanza" (advance, or let´s go/get out of here). We rolled forward, still quite slowly, and eventually regained speed (though we never did move quite as fast as we had been before the wreck). Not five minutes later there was a fire truck roaring at full speed in the opposite direction. Two additional remarks about what happened that night:
First of all, about ten or fifteen minutes before the accident I had just finished saying a small, silent prayer about how grateful I was for being safe thus far in my travels.
Second, the way that I remember the events that unfolded with the accident is like watching a movie. I used to think that people sounded stupid or overly dramatic when they would say things like this but now I really understand what they mean. Remembering what happended is like watching one of those movies that is filmed with a hand held camera, where all of the action feels more chaotic and the lense zooms in and out of focus and the picture bounces all around. Every loud crash is more intense and seems to rattle your vision a little bit too.

On a lighter note, I was asked to teach English classes again last night even though Thursdays are supposed to be for the discussion of current events. The class was much smaller, about ten or so, because apparently the teacher of one of the schools had given a bunch of the other kids detention or something equivalent to that (that´s how I understood it anyway). This class was much more successful than the first, partly because it was my second time, the class size was smaller, and I could tell that everyone in the room wanted to learn (even my host dad Nelson)! It was a great experience and I am very excited to be going back tomorrow morning to play some basketball/volleyball/soccer with the JESHENI kids. I´ll try to get some pictures for the blog while I´m there too.