To start the New Year, my team will be road trippin’ from
Senga Bay, Malawi to Cape Town, South Africa.
It’s going to be the journey of a lifetime.
An ode to Donkey- Our ride:
His name is Donkey. Quite a beauty, eh? Why Donkey you may ask? Jesus rode one on
His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. If a donkey was good enough for the King of
Kings, the Lord of Lords, The Lord God Almighty incarnated into a human being
for His immaculate entry, then a donkey is more than sufficient for our entry
into Cape Town.
My first experience driving Donkey was on Christmas Eve. I was summoned to
fetch some ingredients for Christmas Eve dinner (steak fajitas with sautéed
onions and peppers… ah yeah, that’s what I’m talking about). First, I walked to
the driver side to get in, which of course is the passenger side in Africa. Already
off to a good start. I received a rundown of how to start it. You have to prime
it, kind of like priming a lawn mower, then you turn the ignition, which is
detached and hanging below the steering column. It almost looks like you are
hot wiring the truck to start it, but the funny thing is that if Donkey doesn’t
start, you really do have to hot wire it. You have to pop the hood and arrange
some wires just right to get a spark to get the motor going.
I was told that if the hot wiring fails to start Donkey, you must detach the
fuel line and blow into it as hard as you can to dislodge some sludge blocking
the fuel. I chuckled and said, ‘Thanks
for showing me, but I’m sure that won’t ever be necessary.’
Come on everyone, help me finish this statement: If something can go wrong….
So there I am driving for the first time in 6 months down a sketchy African
road into town. My teeth are gritted, sweat on my brow and eyes darting every
direction. I am ungracefully grinding gears as I am learning to shift with my
left hand. On numerous occasions I have the backseat drivers screaming, “Wrong Way!” as I start to drive on the
right side, which ironically is the wrong side, then I would jerk the top heavy
beast into the left lane causing more jeers.
Finally we pull up to the grocery store. I wanted to just
release myself from the white knuckle tension in my body so I pulled the
E-brake and turned Donkey off. Bad call.
Fast Forward 30 minutes later:
There I am soaking wet, standing in the middle of a torrential downpour,
surrounded by a curious and imposing crowd of African onlookers, my face bright
red with a vein popping out of my forehead as I blow as hard as I possibly can
into the fuel line. Finally Donkey decides to turn over.
We stopped a couple more times for ingredients at various
markets and shops, and wouldn’t ya know it, I kept the truck running the whole
time. Finally, maybe an hour later we had all we needed to have our Christmas
Eve feast. Oh, but the trek wasn’t over yet.
African roads around here are SO much fun to drive on. There
are no shoulders or any lee-way on the sides of the road. So picture a narrow
two lane paved road that rests a few inches above the dirt. Now picture a
half-meter of pavement haphazardly missing on the outside edge of the road on
both sides. The narrow road gets even more narrow. Now picture hoards of stray
goats, people walking and bicyclists on the edge of the narrow road. The narrow
road gets even more narrow yet! Now picture crazy African drivers driving WAY
too fast on this narrow little road. Now picture Donkey sporadically pulling to
the left every now and again due to a bent driveshaft. Now picture me, wiping
diesel off of my lips onto my sleeve, soaking wet, and slightly irritated as
backseat drivers heed my every movement.
Ok, you are officially in the moment. Coming up on top of a
slight incline I see something on the side of the road, spilling into my lane.
I see a man standing above it with his hands propped up on his hips. ‘Hmm, wonder what this joker is doing?’, I
think to myself. I start to drift into the other lane to avoid what appears to
be a bag of rice in the middle of my lane. Sure enough a car is flying towards
me in the other lane. Uneasy moans are uttered as everyone embraces for the
worst.
I swerved out of the other lane just in time. The wheels on
the left side fell off the narrow road and then jumped back on causing a
rocking motion. I thought for a split second that we were going to roll. Yep,
that’s right, 1 month and 3 days after surviving a near fatal rollover accident
in Africa, here we are again.
We pulled through and survived. Donkey handled like a champ. I even learned a
valuable lesson about braking when there are foreign objects in the road.
Some may be alarmed that we are road tripping
over a third of the continent of Africa in Donkey. Don’t be alarmed, God is our
Protector. I’m just storytelling and my Mom has inadvertently taught me how to
over exaggerate. So let that be encouragement to my worried family.
Cape Town or Bust!
