Bonswa from Haiti: Tap-taps

One of the first things that amazed Justin was that there were people sitting up on top of the roofs of the trucks and tap-taps. Of course, he wanted to sit up on top too. (ummm… No.)

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The colourful tap-taps (passenger vehicles, buses, trucks) brighten up the roads, which is in a constant haze of dust and smoke.  People just hop on and hang on and hop off again.  And for those on the roof, they tap on the roof to signal the driver that they need to get off.  Hence, the name ‘tap-taps’.  Justin takes great delight in recounting this, and has not tired of telling everybody that.

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The artfully-drawn images are mostly religious with accompanying Bible verses… or maybe I just noticed those more than the other images.

A few sports figures or celebrities feature on them as well …

And if you’re stuck in traffic, then you can always reach out your window and grab the hairbun of a woman waiting to cross the road …

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LoL … must be a regular occurrence … nobody seemed to mind!

4 Comments

  1. What can I say this the Haiti I love and remember. The funny part is that I have never heard of anybody actually getting injured. I miss getting on those fun rides one thing I really like about Haiti is that you don’t get bored easily because there is always something going on. And yes chances are he probably knows the other wise that would be weird.

    1. I was asking my husband the same thing – for all the traffic chaos, I did not see anybody getting almost hit or injured, and he also does not know or heard of any traffic incidents like that. I suppose it’s a part of life and everybody knows to look out for people out on the roads.

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