For the last several months I’ve been without a car of my own. Gratefully I have hardly been a day without a borrowed car from very generous friends. The Isuzu Bighorn that I have been driving has been a huge blessing. It drives well, gets Nede to and from school and even made the trip to Beira to retrieve Jessica without overheating. The biggest concern has been my fear of losing a passenger due to heat stroke or an anxiety attack. The dark gray vehicle has no air conditioning and only the backseat drivers window goes down, sometimes. So far no one, in their heat exhaustion, has punched out a window, not yet. Wouldn’t be so bad it they did! ;)
Yesterday I had to bring the Bighorn back to my friends to have an oil leak repaired and the radiator looked at. I had been gearing myself up for a few days of public transport adventures thinking I would be without wheels of my own. But no. My dear friends have given me what they have. This Land Rover…
Here are some of the instructions
I received, and my thoughts, in my orientation to the car:
“It has half tractor, half combine engine.”
My thought: (Is that a joke? How can that even be? And from 1969? Wow! Must be a joke.)
“Dara, maybe you should practice driving around the yard a bit first!”
(How hard can it be?)
“You can use almost any key in the ignition.”
(What?)
“The doors in the back sometimes fly open when you're driving.”
(Sounds great with Nede in the car.)
“Just use this rope to tie the doors shut from the inside.”
(Practical.)
“You just pull this plug out to stop the car.”
(What? What happens to the key?)
“The dimmer switch for the headlights is here, the switch used to be on the floor but I just hooked it up here now.”
(Okay, try to remember that that random switch has a purpose.)
“The wipers are here where it says rear. The rear ones don’t work so this is really for the front.”
(Rear means front. Got it.)
“The doors don’t lock and all the windows aren’t here so make sure you have someone stay in the car if you do any shopping in town.”
(Well, at least there will be a breeze in this car. Like it or not.)
“Ya, the seat belt should work.”
(Good, that feels better.)
“And to start it Dara, you just turn this crank in the front.”
(They have got to be joking now!)
My thoughts now after driving this for 2 days:
A bit scared, let’s just get home.
It does sound like a tractor so maybe that wasn’t a joke.
Why are my friends that I usually buy phone credit from giggling and pointing at me?
Why did that white man, who I’ve never seen before, in the Shoprite parking lot just wave at me?
We really have to yell to hear each other talking.
The rain is dripping on my foot.
I hope we make it up this hill.
It would be perfect if we were going lion hunting.
It’s actually kind of fun.
I think I’ll try to wear pink, big earrings and lots of lip gloss every time I drive it.
(See Jessica's blog for an account of her day:
http://dojusticelovemercy.blogspot.com/)
