Too Late For Cheeseburgers

After last Thursday's trip into Addis, I would expect that we have fulfilled our quota of misfortune for some time (if only it worked like that). The day started early, as I woke up at 4:48am, two minutes before my alarm. We needed to get an early start on our trip to Addis to hopefully make up for the extra 40-minute detour that would be required of us (the road we normally would take was closed due to a broken dam). By 5:10am, I was walking up the hill to where I had parked our truck. You see, shortly after driving out to Gesas in April, something (or likely someone) was playing in the truck, flipped a switch and subsequently drained our battery. We tried charging it multiple ways, but it seemed that the 4-year-old was begging to enter retirement. Even jumper cables were not doing the trick, so, with the help of a tow strap, we had our truck pulled to the top of a hill to allow us to do a roll start. And so, on this starless morning, I held a flashlight out the window, which did very little to help me see the tree I knew I was rolling straight toward. After gathering speed and probably well short of the tree, I released the clutch and praised God to hear the engine come to life. Arriving  at the house, I quickly loaded our stuff in the back, the kids in their seats and off we went, shooting up the same prayer we always pray on such occasions, "Lord help us arrive in Addis Ababa with safety and in time for cheeseburgers!" (the cheeseburger place closes at 6pm on weekdays)

 

We bumbled down the bumpy road for about 15 kilometers without difficulty, until we came to a herd of sleeping cattle. Don't ask me why people don't tie up their animals at night to keep them off the road. After all, livestock, and especially cows, are very expensive ($250-$500) and they make up the bulk of Gmz people's wealth, but then again, I suppose the owners have an insurance policy of sorts in the general practice that if any animal is injured by a vehicle, the driver is always responsible and will likely not only pay a handsome price for the injured/killed animal but also its hypothetical descendants. (You may remember the blog post entitled "Unborn Sheep For Sale" in July 2011.) Anyway, looking up ahead, I saw two more herds lazily ignoring my headlights and honking, so I sent out my brute force, that is, Andrea. She got out and used her intimidating presence, hootin' and holloring to shoo them out of our path. Finding the road open again, Andrea got back in the truck and we continued on. About 15 minutes later, she started searching around for something, "Uhhh…there's a good chance that when I got out to shoo the cows, that my phone fell out of the truck." The cheapest of cheap (about $12) a 5-year-old phone with its own sporadic problems wasn't worth losing 30 minutes to double back and look for under the multitude of cow hooves. We decided to deal with it when we arrived in Addis.

 

Before long, we arrived at Gilgel Beles and stopped to fill up on gas. Having driven an hour with a working alternator, I figured the battery would have gotten enough charge to restart the warm engine. Bad assumption. Upon trying to restart, that old battery couldn't even turn the engine over a second time, and so we sat. The gas station attendant tried to help push us, but the rocky road proved too much. After a few minutes another truck arrived and the travelers were summoned to add their muscle to the push. Eventually, getting it rolling down the tiny slope in the station "parking lot", I released the clutch and it fired to life again. Grr…another 10-15 minutes lost, but at least we were moving again.

 

Not more than 5 kilometers down the road, while passing a bus, our truck's familiar sound of clanking metal and jiggling plastic was suddenly interrupted with a new and very unwelcome sound "Pssss…pssss…pssss...pssss." The bus, now behind me laid on its horn, alerting me of what I already knew – we had popped a tire. Living in Ethiopia has made me quite an expert in changing tires and being unable to turn off the engine, the four of us jumped into action like a Nasty Car pit crew (well, I can't say that Grace helped much apart from providing cute entertainment for those who were passing by). With a spare in place, the popped tire stowed away, we were back on the road, another 10-15 minutes down the drain.

 

After the triple whammy of lost phone, push start at the gas station, and popped tire, I was ready to start making some good progress, which we did before for about 2 hours before we encountered yet another problem, this time of a much more serious nature. Driving along the bumpy road takes a lot of concentration. I wanted to take advantage of the smoother parts which enable us to build some speed and cover some ground. However, I must stay always alert for large dips, potholes and other hazards. Today I was trying to be especially careful because I had noticed at the tire change that our rear shock had broken its seal and was leaking its fluid. Yet, having lost time, I was also trying to balance caution with bursts of speed. Unfortunately, the two didn't mix well when one rough patch caught me completely off guard, sending the truck bouncing quite forcefully on its suspension. It wasn't the first time its ever happened to us, so we thought nothing of it, until we arrived at another flat section and I noticed the truck pulling sharply to the right. Fearing a second popped tire, I got out to inspect, but found nothing. Going a bit further, I couldn't ignore the pull any longer. Stopping again, I looked a bit closer and saw that the right front tire was not longer running perpendicular to the ground, but rather leaned into the frame. "Oooo, that can't be good!" I told Andrea, "You better cancel the cheeseburger plans for tonight."

 

Parking on a hill (so as to roll-start again if needed), I turned off the engine to take a better look and it didn't take long to see that the ball of the upper ball joint had popped out of its socket and lodged itself into the metal arm which swings out from the main body. Seeming somewhat stuck in there, I (and the Ethiopian semi-driver who had stopped to take a look) decided that it was probably drivable as long as the truck didn't bounce again. He, having come from the direction we were headed assured me that the road was a decent condition and so we began our slow crawl toward the city. Praise God the road was quite  a bit better from there on and I successfully fought back any temptation to pick up the pace (thick n' chunky salsa). Some 30 minutes and 10 kilometers later, we were limping into town and trying to ignore the many people flagging us down to tell us that our wheel was broken. Finding the only mechanic in town, we spent the next two hours hanging with the garage crew who took a great liking to Micah and Grace. The whole joint was removed, the ball popped back in place and a metal ring was welded over the socket to prevent any further attempts to escape, we took a test drive, paid the $13 bill and began to load ourselves back into the truck. In putting the jack away, I unwittingly reached behind the seat without first looking and then, feeling something moving on my hand, I pulled it out to see a furious little honeybee burrowing its behind into my palm. Yeow! Plucking its thorny stinger, I clenched my teeth as the venom began to kick in. Yea, it was painful, but nothing compared to the scorpion sting of 2013, and so, gingerly holding the wheel with my throbbing hand, I merged back onto the main road toward Addis. 

 

I glanced at my phone, it was just after noon, what should have taken three hours had stripped us of six and a half, leaving us only 7 hours of daylight for a stretch of road that, when all goes PERFECTLY well with no stops, takes, you guessed it, 7 hours (there is a company policy restricting us from driving outside of Addis Ababa after dark, a policy I take especially seriously after a recent accident involving a colleague rear ending a semi who had parked without lights partially on the shoulder, partially not.). After the lost phone, the push start delay at the gas station, the flat tire, the ball joint and the unlucky encounter with the wrong end of a bee, could I really hope for a flawless remainder of a trip in which we hadn't even reached the halfway point? One would think not, but I wasn't ready to admit defeat quite yet (mostly not wanting to have to find a hotel with a parking spot on a hill for roll starting in the morning). Praying for the perfect end to the anything but perfect beginning of this trip, God answered. The traffic was light, the road conditions were nice, the rain was short and light, the kids were surprisingly well-behaved, even the gas attendant perfectly nailed 500.00 birr on the pump as I asked. Just before 7pm, as the sun was making its final descent below the horizon, we were making our final ascent up Entoto, the mountain which frames the northern edge of Addis Ababa. A journey that began so poorly, had ended quite perfectly, with the exception of the cheeseburgers we had set our stomachs on. Arriving only long after the burger joint closed, we were instead treated to an amazing home-cooked fish and potato dinner, prepared for us by our Addis Ababa housemate and friend. Despite the obstacles, we all crashed in our own beds not long after dinner, resting with full assurance that we were indeed richly blessed, even without the cheeseburgers.