Hanging out in traffic

There is an ambiguous, yet definite correlation between the way dogs and people gravitate towards laying in the middle of the road here in Timor.

Let me set the stage.  It's a bright, starry Tuesday night around 11 pm.  You are driving home from a farewell party somewhere on the beach.  The sky is painted with an impressive display of blazing white stars.  The air is so clear you can see the variations in color on the speck that someone once identified as Mars, and you can even see a twinkle in the otherwise dull, faint light from the 3 stars comprising Orion's belt.  It's hot and everyone knows heat makes one lethargic and slow moving- sometimes even bored.  What better way to celebrate such a wondrous night sky than to bring your entire family into traffic and lay down and look up, right? That's what I'm talking about.

It is quite common to see families and large groups of people seek the solace of a wide strip of pavement in the middle of the road to check out this wonderment.  This star viewing platform isn't necessarily on a side street either.  In fact, more often than not it is on the nicer newly paved road (since there is only one, we all know I am talking about the Beach Road) which inevitably has more traffic.  I can't blame them- I wouldn't want to lay across a pothole either. Entire families of more than a dozen people, ranging from a pregnant mother with a suckling babe accompanied by her 8 other children, husband, some extended family and friends and perhaps an estranged "pet" in tow, lay down in the middle of the street to get a good look.  

As interesting as that practice is, what I find even more amusing is that it's not just the Timorese who lay in the middle of the street.  Of course dogs anywhere might be in the road, especially those without homes, but here they seem to gravitate to the exact middle of the road finding the perfect spot on a strip of highly trafficked pavement.  And they do. not. move.  Hot spots: Comoro Road, the streets near Pantai Kelapa, across the street from Little Pattaya next to the trash pile where the pig just had her piglets where the deer is always tied up, just to name a few.  These are usual high traffic spots for dogs.  Street gangs of these half-cared for, half-abused, underfed, pitiful creatures lay idly in the exact middle of the damn road- not to the side but in the perfect center, without so much as a second (or first) thought.  Are they not conditioned by the multiple cars all day long, that this might not be the best place to nap? Dangerous, even?  

Each has their own way of acknowledging the passing driver.  At the sight of an oncoming vehicle the families will remain in the road and give a smile and a friendly wave as it is understood that the driver won't be running anyone over.  This is why it is important to drive a Mini Pajero.  When faced with an oncoming car, a dog will also remain sprawled across the road giving the driver a look that taunts "you think you are actually going to hit me?" to which the driver swerves around the dog only to drive straight into an uncovered pothole 2 feet deep cursing the underwhelmed animal who is still resting it's head peacefully on its neck abscess unmoved, glaring back at the driver smirking "yeah I didn't think so."  Again, important to drive a Mini Pajero.  In both cases, neither the dog nor the family moves.

Given that this happens at least a few times a week, I have to wonder- who is actually mimicking the behavior of the other?  How did this start?  Is it purely coincidental that neither the people nor the dogs feel obligated, or frightened, or even out of courtesy, the need to move out of the middle of the road when faced with an oncoming car?  Or, over the evolution of this odd practice did one observe the other and decide yes- laying in the center of the street is in fact a good idea- I'm going to start doing that.

I will never know, but I will continue to be amused by this phenomenon.  And let's face it- astronomy is important.  It's quite a display and I am in love with what I see every time I look up too.  The transit of Venus is coming up June 6th- who knows what kind of turnout we could have.