Traveling Heavy

During our morning tea break at language school, our immediate boss walked up to us with a huge smile on his face. “I have a proposition for you,” he said with his German accent. “How would you like to go to Gilgel Beles?” Intrigued by the possibility of visiting this major city among the Gmz area, we talked about the details. Our organization’s literacy project needed to deliver the first and second grade Gmz and Shansha primers to the local education bureau within the next three days and a brand new Land Cruiser was already packed to the brim, ready to take off the next morning for whoever was willing to go (either us, or our boss). Knowing that our boss already spends way too much time on the road away from his family and knowing that the literacy project would pay for the mileage of the trip, we accepted the offer and soon set out on our very first long-range driving adventure in Ethiopia.

Thanks be to God that the trip went without a hiccup. The part of the 11 hour trip that caused us the most anxiety was driving this heavily weighed down Land Cruiser down the Nile River Gorge (which resembles a small Grand Canyon). This part of the road is most dangerous, especially for those who use their brakes too much on the downhill portion (if the brakes burn up, it’s either a rock wall or a cliff!). But, God was gracious in helping us to make it through this part, as well as the whole trip without any close calls. Surprisingly, by leaving early we made the whole 11 hour trip in time to deliver the books on the same day that we left Addis (6am-4:45pm). That evening was then spent eating a traditional dinner with the education bureau head honcho.

As I’ve written about in a previous blog, driving in Ethiopia is nothing to shake a stick at. Bad roads have their own problems, but, in our opinion, good roads are much more dangerous. Good roads mean faster speeds and faster speeds means less reaction time allowed and more stopping distance needed. Knowing that accidents here can be either financially costly or fatal for ourselves or others, I was very attentive to everything going on around me. One of the biggest dangers is the oncoming traffic since the road is basically a two lane highway. A head-on collision with another vehicle (especially the large cargo trucks) would be most devastating, so I always kept one eye on this. My other eye was very attentive to the condition of the road in front of us. Just because the road is nice for a few kilometers doesn’t mean that a HUGE pothole might not be lurking 50 meters ahead. If we hit a major pothole at 100 kilometers an hour (about 60 mph), it could not only do major damage to the vehicle, but it could cause us to lose control and send us who knows where. Especially right after the erosion caused by rainy season (as it is now), it is important to keep a careful eye on the road conditions when driving.

Having already used my two eyeballs for these important hazards, I had to rely on my peripheral vision for the third major hazard – pedestrians and livestock. Ethiopian roads are rightfully used by all. We tried to take some video of countryside driving as people are walking/driving livestock into town for market day. If the video works, you’ll see how nice that road is, but you’ll also see the hazards of people, livestock, and oncoming traffic. One thing this video does not show is when a herd of sheep or a HUGE ox decides that the grass on the other side of the road is greener than what they have. More than a dozen times our travel was brought to a standstill by such animals trying to decide which side to graze on. With a heavily loaded Land Cruiser, we tried to play it safe, but we thank God for an incident less journey.