Anyone who has ever ridden on the local African bus system can agree that it can be one of the most frustrating, long, hopefully cheap and probably smelly travel experiences that one can be in on the Race. However on this last travel day, that was only the beginning…
April 3rd, 5 a.m. My team and I had our big bags piled on the top of our taxi and we packed in all 8 of us, 2 full size guitar cases, the taxi “conductor”, and the driver into the small van-like taxi. (my team was super gracious and let me sit all 6’ 5” of me up front) We made the gorgeous, sunrise drive to Monkey Bay where we had to catch the only bus to *Lilongwe at 6 am.
(*Pronounced Li-long-way)
The bus showed up on Malawian time (15 minutes late at least) and we saw nearly every seat taken as it pulled up. By the grace of God we had enough seats in the back to sit in, however the distance between seats is about half the length of my femur. After we got settled in as best we could I pulled out my phone to see how long the GPS app (MAPS.ME- the BEST tool on the Race!) said the trip should take, 5 hours and 30 minutes.
Now in Africa the fares on the local buses are cheap since they do not go straight to the destination. They stop in many villages, people waving on the side of the road, and the other bus stations. You would think this means you could use the toilet with all those stops, nope. Not only does the stop not last that long, but you would have to crawl over the 25 people STANDING in the aisle, as they ride the bus for a few miles to the next village.
Now it may surprise you by the way I described it, but it is actually pretty bearable most of the time and a cool way to experience the local culture. I can definitely say the biggest blessing is that I have not had to stand for the whole journey! However, on this travel day my body decided to get very sick.
I started to get a fever, headache and really painful UTI symptoms (I’ll spare yah the details) at one of the few stops were you can use the toilet. (Just so you know, I have already been seen and treated by a doctor. All is well now, praise the Lord!) This definitely makes rides like this a whole new sort of difficult.
So instead of arriving at 11:30 we rolled up 2 hours later.
We were picked up by our host in an old Toyota pickup with his friend in an old Landcruiser, grabbed some lunch and set out on the next leg of the journey. The trip to our host’s city, Mzuzu, was supposed to be about 8 hours on the map, his friend even said its closer to 4 hours! At 2pm we left Lilongwe and we made great time until about halfway…
The sun had just finished setting and we were pulling out of a market when our pickup in front of us was stopped in the road. Our friend driving checked out the problem and said,
”His clutch is broke, now we have to tow them.”
I couldn’t quite wrap my tired and sick brain around what this all entailed until they were already underway again. They used the only rope they had to pull the truck along behind us until, the rope snapped. They retied the rope and drove on and it snapped again. After a good while of the rope not breaking I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up, we were stopped again. Except this time the rope was fine, the engine was just now overheating. Our host added the last of his water to cool it off just enough to go again. 20 minutes later it was back above the red. I offered up my 1 liter of water and it helped a tiny bit, but it was nowhere near enough to get us all the way back. We were driving through really long, steep hills and the engine had no break.
We stopped for 15 minutes and the thermometer didn’t hardly budge from above the red. We were in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even villages in this area of wilderness our host called, “Elephants Rock.” They tried to see if they could call friends for help and, you guessed it…no signal.
We had no water, no signal, and no more ideas. We needed a miracle. I had already been praying for the exact things I need at the time and I asked the Lord for enough water to cool off the engine completely. Leslie, my teammate prayed for rain. I even jokingly asked our host, whose name is Moses, if he had his staff on him by any chance.
We drove only a little farther and right next to us was a massive puddle of water! We thanked the Lord and we grabbed the water jugs and while we were filling them, it started raining! Shortly after we completely cooled down the engine and were on our way. At 70 kph it would take an hour, we were averaging about 25 kpm… you do the math.
I fell in and out of a dazed state since my fever returned as the time slowly went by. Then on April 4th at 1:30am we arrived at our new home for the month, Mzuzu Pentacostal Church. It was a glorious site to behold!!
My whole team took the whole journey so well, the humor was light and the God was good in a situation that would give really good reasons to gripe about everything. The real heroes were our host and his friend who drove all night long to get us there while we dozed off.
While this was personally the most difficult travel day I have yet to experience, but I have come out with a great story of how God provides!
When everything seems to go wrong, ask God for what you need and hold on for the adventure ahead!
Yours in Christ,
Andy
