Women Power

It’s 5:30 p.m. and rush hour. With people on their way home from work and many others making their daily trip to the market to purchase fresh meat and vegetables for the evening meal, the road by the market is very congested. I’m on my motorbike on my way to the tailor shop, just down the road from the market, to have a traditional Lao skirt “sinh” made.

Generally I try and avoid this area during the evening rush hour, but today I’m caught in the midst of it. I want to make a left hand turn onto the market road. What will my strategy be, as it’s not as simple as waiting at the stop sign until the road is clear?

The young fearless men on motorcycles quickly turn left and merge with traffic, sometimes pausing to look for oncoming traffic and sometimes not. Today I decide to follow another woman on her moto. Gradually we creep along the left side of the road between parked vehicles and oncoming traffic, hoping for a break in oncoming traffic so that we can cross to the right side of the road. As I turn to see if it might be clear to cross, I notice that there are now 4 or 5 more women following us. And then, suddenly I find myself pulled into the flow and together we move forward into the traffic, forcing the traffic to stop for us. We then continue to make our way to our various market destinations. The solidarity of women on motos prevails!!