A Ton of Bricks

This picture has nothing to do with the story, but it had bricks in it. :) Aulo took this of a Peruvian buildling the wall around a well.

 On our way to kids´ ministry on Saturday morning, Aulo all of a sudden craned his neck to look behind our motorcar, exclaiming and shouting about something. The motorcar driver also saw whatever Aulo was yelling about, and slowed his motorcar so he could watch. For some reason I couldn´t really tell what was going on, except that something was wrong on the other side of the road. There was so much commotion that none of it made sense. Motorcars and motorcycles were swerving frantically, trying to get off their side and do a u-turn onto ours. My adrenaline picked up a little, and I watched intently, trying to understand what was going on. I asked Aulo, but he and the motorcar driver were too busy watching the unfolding chaos and had lost all ability to answer my ongoing interrogation.

The one thing that stood out to me was a truck full of bricks. My first thought was, ¨If this accident has anything to do with that big guy, we´re in trouble.¨ I saw about four young guys who had jumped off their motorcycles frantically trying to rescue their overturned vehicles. While a couple of them dragged the bikes off to the side of the road, others loudly warned the upcoming traffic to stop or turn off the road. They were waving wildly and loudly, leading me to think maybe this was some sort of assault (*blond moment*). Aulo was whistling at the vehicles on the opposite side of the road, giving them a clue that proceeding forward was not smart.

Finally, I asked Aulo again, ¨What just happened? ¨ He explained that the truck of bricks (ONE thing I was right about,) had lost its brakes and was rolling backwards down the small hill towards the other traffic. Thankfully there was a place to turn right before the hill, and everyone was able to get out of the way or pull their motorcycles off to the sidewalk (as far as we could tell.) Aulo sympathized with the poor truck driver having to desperately maneuver backwards in order to save the lives of those behind him. What a morning! I pray no one was hurt by this crazy accident.