Some of you may have gathered this from my recent Facebook posts, but my last three days were not pleasant. I recently bought a car (2 weeks ago) from a guy in Freetown. I was recommended the car by a driver for Environmental Foundation for Africa. I told him I needed a vehicle to bring my American visitors around in, and he said he knew just the car. There was a car he had wanted to buy, but he just didn’t have enough money to purchase it. But it was a great strong car, even though it was a little older. My professor John and I went to look at it, and it looked pretty good. I said “Well, Mr. Fortune [the driver] do you really think this is a good car?” He said yes, and I said well, ok then, let’s do it.
The first trip out to Tiwai was not too bad. We parked the car at the village and did our stuff on the island. Then it was time for John to go back to America. So we all get into the car (Me, John, Kenewa and a guy named Baoweh). We start heading for Bo. The car is L-O-U-D. So loud it hurt my ears and made them pop. It’s the muffler. I also notice no speedometer working. Then John goes over a huge rock and we hear a clattering. So we stop – the strut is broken, the speedometer cable is dragging, and the muffler has a big fat hole in it. So we make it to Bo, painfully. We bring it to a garage (Baoweh’s uncle’s garage) and they spend about 6 hours fixing everything. We also find the brake pads are completely worn out and we have a faulty valve.
The mechanics fix everything and we ride on to Freetown, but it starts to get late and our headlights will not go off bright setting. So everytime we pass a car they put on their brights which blinds us. And every mile there is a broken down vehicle on the side of the road. With the bright lights blinding us, I was very worried we would run into a vehicle or person or dog or any number of other bad things. Also we had 3 choices to go into Freetown – horrible road #1 (peninsula road), horrible road #2 (over the mountains) and horrible road #3 (in town traffic that takes over 2 hours to get through). I felt none of these options was very good to do at night, so we called up Kenewa’s cousin, a high up government type dude, who lives in a town outside of Freetown, and we went to a guesthouse owned by him. The place was very…well I think John said something about it almost but not quite being nice.
We start out fairly early the next morning and about 45 minutes into driving towards Freetown, we start to smell something burning. And the tire started smoking. Thankfully we pull over in a town that has a mechanic. He says it is our tire bearing (it binded?!? No idea…). Anyway he takes everything off, puts some grease in and in a little over an hour we are off. We start out towards the mountain road. What we do not realize is that my car does not quite have the power for one of the hills, even in 4WD. So Kenewa and I get out and push while John puts on the power. At the top of the hill, the car has overheated. John says we should continue anyways because that will blow air through the engine, which will cool it off faster than if we stop. I thought it was kind of strange reasoning, but he knows more about cars than I do, so I listened. We pull up to Aberdeen and drop John off to go to the airport via the water taxi.
Kenewa and I continue on to Lakka via Lumley. We reach Lumley and the traffic is horrendous as usual. As I reach the roundabout to turn to the road to Lakka, I start to smell something bad and the traffic cop even waves at us that our car is smoking. We get out and look around for some more mechanics. We find some and they tell us our clutch is burnt out, the radiator is busted, etc etc. So thus begins a 9 hour wait to get everything fixed. Some things get fixed except for the muffler (had a hole in it again) and we start out to Lakka around 8pm. The traffic is still terrible. A large bus in front of me turned left so I go forward, not understanding that the podapoda is backing up. He backs up into me- I rev forward and he just catches my back taillight. I keep going because it is night, dark, lots of thieves around, and I am really just afraid to stop! So we drive on to the dirt road leading to Lakka. I try to go up the first hill and halfway up, my car gives out and I start going backwards. I put it in 4wd and managed to get up. The road is so dusty I can barely see a thing and have huge trucks hurtling around me and past me. We made it to the guesthouse by 9pm and Kenewa and I go to our rooms and completely crash. The next morning we go to the Lakka mechanics for them to weld the muffler. They charge a small fortune like everybody else and take their sweet time – even had to start over because they ‘made a mistake’. I asked them to please tell me if they could not get everything fixed in a short time, because then I would take public transport and leave the car there. They assured me everything would be great. They finished after about 5 hours and we got on the road.
Shortly after getting to the good road, the car began to shake and voila flat tire. We fixed that with no trouble, and then went for another hour and the car began to smoke. We were about 2 miles from the nearest town but there was a huge hill in between us. We pull off as far as we can off the road (which is not far because there is no shoulder and the side drops off drastically. This was around 3:30pm. A motorcycle passed us and stopped and asked if he could go fetch a mechanic for us. We said “YES please!!!” and he did so. The mechanic was mild mannered and assured me he would get us going in no time. He realized our cylinder gasket (?) was bad and he had to go back to Freetown to get a new one - 2 hours roundtrip. Then he needed to put oil in (all our other oil basically exploded out) and so had to go to the other town to get oil.
The lantern I had bought in Freetown truly saved our lives though. We had the battery detached so no lights at the back to let other vehicles know we were there. The place where we were stopped was at least flat, but it was also the place where most vehicles get the chance to pass each other. This spells disaster when they pass and 2 cars are side by side while they pass us. So I put the lantern behind the car so they could see our car and go around us a bit. Still they were going very fast and I really thought somebody would get hit. So every time a car passed, I would have to hold my breath.
By 1am we were all exhausted. The last 2 hours on the road was spent with me in the driver’s seat dozing off (and praying a car wouldn’t hit us) and starting the ignition to see if the car would kick over. Basically it was like “Zzzzzz…. [Hey start the car!!] OK! Gachunk gachunk gachunk…[Again!] Gachunk gachunk gachunk. [Stop!] Zzzzz…..” Then the mechanic gave up, we hired 8 strong young men, and thus began my little 2 mile journey to the town with men pushing me, music blasting, and me steering, trying to miss most of the potholes.
We get to the town and walk to the only guesthouse in town – apparently it is full. One police dude who was drinking beer at the guesthouse said there was another policeman who also had a guesthouse, and we went there, and it too was full. Argh. So the mechanic offered up a room at his place. He knocks on a door to his wife’s room and kicks her out. Basically imagine a room filled shoulder high with broken electronics, with a small space in between to walk to the grass-filled mat on the floor. Since there is only one bed, Kenewa and I share (I apologized in advance for snoring, but he was as exhausted as I and therefore didn’t notice anything). I kept all my clothes on, especially my socks because I could hear rats chewing happily on all the wiring. I have a phobia that one day rats will eat my feet while I am sleeping. Needless to say I did not rest very well and felt like crap the next morning.
We woke up and went back to the mechanics. They were testing everything to try to get it to work again. Spark plugs were all burnt out. They said I would need another cylinder gasket. And blah blah blah. I was fed up with people telling me to just be patient. How long do I have to be patient for? A week? A month? 3 days was enough for me! I might have cried and stomped my foot somewhere around this time. I bet Kenewa was sick of hearing me say “I just want to be with my hippos!!!”
I escorted the mechanics to the police station and said “Hey I am leaving my car with these guys until I come back next week.” The policeman was really nice and actually came out and looked at my car so he would know what I was leaving behind. We tried to give him a little something (money) and he refused to take it.
Kenewa and I then hightailed it to a podapoda park and we found a van. After putting our things inside, and seeing there were no other passengers, we went to get some chop. Then we saw a smaller car and asked how far that car was going. They said halfway to Bo, but we would be able to get a car where they stopped, and they would be leaving immediately and be faster. We moved our luggage over, which nearly caused a riot with the old van owner (he actually grabbed the keys from our new driver and sat on him).
But then we were on our way and it was glorious. We hopped to another car and kept on, and I called my friend who owns a bush taxi in Bo-Potoru and asked him to hold a podapoda for us. We got to Bo, raced to the park, threw our things in the car and we were again on our way to Potoru. We got the last car out for the day and I rode in the back for the first time since Peace Corps (usually I am important enough to get the front seat haha). I realized how much fun it was to ride in the back of a podapoda – in the front you don’t have anybody to talk to. In the back everybody talks and laughs and I had forgotten about that. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on, but it is nice watching people interact. So I passed the 3 hours quite enjoyably, though dusty and crowded.
Minah and Alusine (one of my newer field assistants) met us in Potoru and I was so happy to see them. And even better was when I arrived on the island to find the electricity and water working again. I took a shower (shampooed twice) and ate some tasty food and went to bed, happy as a clam!
The first trip out to Tiwai was not too bad. We parked the car at the village and did our stuff on the island. Then it was time for John to go back to America. So we all get into the car (Me, John, Kenewa and a guy named Baoweh). We start heading for Bo. The car is L-O-U-D. So loud it hurt my ears and made them pop. It’s the muffler. I also notice no speedometer working. Then John goes over a huge rock and we hear a clattering. So we stop – the strut is broken, the speedometer cable is dragging, and the muffler has a big fat hole in it. So we make it to Bo, painfully. We bring it to a garage (Baoweh’s uncle’s garage) and they spend about 6 hours fixing everything. We also find the brake pads are completely worn out and we have a faulty valve.
The mechanics fix everything and we ride on to Freetown, but it starts to get late and our headlights will not go off bright setting. So everytime we pass a car they put on their brights which blinds us. And every mile there is a broken down vehicle on the side of the road. With the bright lights blinding us, I was very worried we would run into a vehicle or person or dog or any number of other bad things. Also we had 3 choices to go into Freetown – horrible road #1 (peninsula road), horrible road #2 (over the mountains) and horrible road #3 (in town traffic that takes over 2 hours to get through). I felt none of these options was very good to do at night, so we called up Kenewa’s cousin, a high up government type dude, who lives in a town outside of Freetown, and we went to a guesthouse owned by him. The place was very…well I think John said something about it almost but not quite being nice.
We start out fairly early the next morning and about 45 minutes into driving towards Freetown, we start to smell something burning. And the tire started smoking. Thankfully we pull over in a town that has a mechanic. He says it is our tire bearing (it binded?!? No idea…). Anyway he takes everything off, puts some grease in and in a little over an hour we are off. We start out towards the mountain road. What we do not realize is that my car does not quite have the power for one of the hills, even in 4WD. So Kenewa and I get out and push while John puts on the power. At the top of the hill, the car has overheated. John says we should continue anyways because that will blow air through the engine, which will cool it off faster than if we stop. I thought it was kind of strange reasoning, but he knows more about cars than I do, so I listened. We pull up to Aberdeen and drop John off to go to the airport via the water taxi.
Kenewa and I continue on to Lakka via Lumley. We reach Lumley and the traffic is horrendous as usual. As I reach the roundabout to turn to the road to Lakka, I start to smell something bad and the traffic cop even waves at us that our car is smoking. We get out and look around for some more mechanics. We find some and they tell us our clutch is burnt out, the radiator is busted, etc etc. So thus begins a 9 hour wait to get everything fixed. Some things get fixed except for the muffler (had a hole in it again) and we start out to Lakka around 8pm. The traffic is still terrible. A large bus in front of me turned left so I go forward, not understanding that the podapoda is backing up. He backs up into me- I rev forward and he just catches my back taillight. I keep going because it is night, dark, lots of thieves around, and I am really just afraid to stop! So we drive on to the dirt road leading to Lakka. I try to go up the first hill and halfway up, my car gives out and I start going backwards. I put it in 4wd and managed to get up. The road is so dusty I can barely see a thing and have huge trucks hurtling around me and past me. We made it to the guesthouse by 9pm and Kenewa and I go to our rooms and completely crash. The next morning we go to the Lakka mechanics for them to weld the muffler. They charge a small fortune like everybody else and take their sweet time – even had to start over because they ‘made a mistake’. I asked them to please tell me if they could not get everything fixed in a short time, because then I would take public transport and leave the car there. They assured me everything would be great. They finished after about 5 hours and we got on the road.
Shortly after getting to the good road, the car began to shake and voila flat tire. We fixed that with no trouble, and then went for another hour and the car began to smoke. We were about 2 miles from the nearest town but there was a huge hill in between us. We pull off as far as we can off the road (which is not far because there is no shoulder and the side drops off drastically. This was around 3:30pm. A motorcycle passed us and stopped and asked if he could go fetch a mechanic for us. We said “YES please!!!” and he did so. The mechanic was mild mannered and assured me he would get us going in no time. He realized our cylinder gasket (?) was bad and he had to go back to Freetown to get a new one - 2 hours roundtrip. Then he needed to put oil in (all our other oil basically exploded out) and so had to go to the other town to get oil.
The lantern I had bought in Freetown truly saved our lives though. We had the battery detached so no lights at the back to let other vehicles know we were there. The place where we were stopped was at least flat, but it was also the place where most vehicles get the chance to pass each other. This spells disaster when they pass and 2 cars are side by side while they pass us. So I put the lantern behind the car so they could see our car and go around us a bit. Still they were going very fast and I really thought somebody would get hit. So every time a car passed, I would have to hold my breath.
By 1am we were all exhausted. The last 2 hours on the road was spent with me in the driver’s seat dozing off (and praying a car wouldn’t hit us) and starting the ignition to see if the car would kick over. Basically it was like “Zzzzzz…. [Hey start the car!!] OK! Gachunk gachunk gachunk…[Again!] Gachunk gachunk gachunk. [Stop!] Zzzzz…..” Then the mechanic gave up, we hired 8 strong young men, and thus began my little 2 mile journey to the town with men pushing me, music blasting, and me steering, trying to miss most of the potholes.
We get to the town and walk to the only guesthouse in town – apparently it is full. One police dude who was drinking beer at the guesthouse said there was another policeman who also had a guesthouse, and we went there, and it too was full. Argh. So the mechanic offered up a room at his place. He knocks on a door to his wife’s room and kicks her out. Basically imagine a room filled shoulder high with broken electronics, with a small space in between to walk to the grass-filled mat on the floor. Since there is only one bed, Kenewa and I share (I apologized in advance for snoring, but he was as exhausted as I and therefore didn’t notice anything). I kept all my clothes on, especially my socks because I could hear rats chewing happily on all the wiring. I have a phobia that one day rats will eat my feet while I am sleeping. Needless to say I did not rest very well and felt like crap the next morning.
We woke up and went back to the mechanics. They were testing everything to try to get it to work again. Spark plugs were all burnt out. They said I would need another cylinder gasket. And blah blah blah. I was fed up with people telling me to just be patient. How long do I have to be patient for? A week? A month? 3 days was enough for me! I might have cried and stomped my foot somewhere around this time. I bet Kenewa was sick of hearing me say “I just want to be with my hippos!!!”
I escorted the mechanics to the police station and said “Hey I am leaving my car with these guys until I come back next week.” The policeman was really nice and actually came out and looked at my car so he would know what I was leaving behind. We tried to give him a little something (money) and he refused to take it.
Kenewa and I then hightailed it to a podapoda park and we found a van. After putting our things inside, and seeing there were no other passengers, we went to get some chop. Then we saw a smaller car and asked how far that car was going. They said halfway to Bo, but we would be able to get a car where they stopped, and they would be leaving immediately and be faster. We moved our luggage over, which nearly caused a riot with the old van owner (he actually grabbed the keys from our new driver and sat on him).
But then we were on our way and it was glorious. We hopped to another car and kept on, and I called my friend who owns a bush taxi in Bo-Potoru and asked him to hold a podapoda for us. We got to Bo, raced to the park, threw our things in the car and we were again on our way to Potoru. We got the last car out for the day and I rode in the back for the first time since Peace Corps (usually I am important enough to get the front seat haha). I realized how much fun it was to ride in the back of a podapoda – in the front you don’t have anybody to talk to. In the back everybody talks and laughs and I had forgotten about that. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on, but it is nice watching people interact. So I passed the 3 hours quite enjoyably, though dusty and crowded.
Minah and Alusine (one of my newer field assistants) met us in Potoru and I was so happy to see them. And even better was when I arrived on the island to find the electricity and water working again. I took a shower (shampooed twice) and ate some tasty food and went to bed, happy as a clam!
2 comments:
Wow, I can't complain about my car now after reading this...That was SOME story! You poor dear...I hope the car FINALLY got fixed and stopped giving you problems...
The car never got fixed and the story actually got more painful. :) Maybe someday I'll write that entry. Let's just say for now that I sold it for peanuts the day before I left to come back to the USA.
Post a Comment