The Midas Touch

So Mellissa and I drove back to Matuhnka to pick up a tow bar. Mellissa and the two Dutchmen stayed behind while the training mechanic and I drove back to pick up Dan and the Hilux in an old, open-aired, Landrover jeep. I sat on the bench in the back holding the tow bar.

The tow bar is a hollow iron tube about eight feet in length that connects on one end to a hitch and has on the other end an eye through which you can string rope to connect to the car you want to tow.

I really enjoyed the ride down the hill. The sun had cast a spectacular scene across the valley we were driving through, the temperature was perfect, and I was taking it all in in the open air. It doesn't get much better than that.

This gives you a sense of the valley scene:


When we got down to the mechanic's yard, we started to connect the tow bar to the Hilux. The mechanic connected the bar to the hitch on the back of the jeep, and then used rope to tie the bar to the underside of the HIlux. He was a little too close to the Hilux, so he got in the jeep to move forward a bit.

The problem was, the jeep would not start.

Great. Well, at least we're in the right spot to break down.

The mechanic toyed around with the battery connection but to no avail. We disconnected the tow bar so we could push start the thing. We were on an incline so we tried rolling the car backwards to get it going in reverse.

A heave and a ho and a . . . that didn't work. We pushed it up the hill to try it again. No luck.

It had started raining and I started feeling a bit desperate. Would nothing work on this trip? We're on a dirt lot so if we don't get the Landrover up and running soon we're not going to be able to tow the Hilux out of the mud.

Okay, so we'll try push starting the jeep on more level ground; we'll push it side to side. A number of guys who were hanging around the side of the road came over to help.

We pushed it one way. Nothing. We pushed it back. Nothing. We tried the downhill trick again but this time facing forward. Nothing. We pushed the jeep back up the hill to try again. Finally, on the sixth attempt, we got the Landrover to start.

Okay, now let's see if we can tow the Hilux.

We reconnected the tow bar to the jeep and tied it to the Hilux. Dan got in the HIlux to steer and off we . . .

Nope. The rope broke.

Dan got out to tell the driver that this wasn't going to work. Apparently, they tried the same thing the night before when towing the Hilux back up to town and the rope broke every time. The mechanic said, don't worry, we'll double tie it this time.

So they double tied it and sure enough, we got the Hilux moving.

What a relief. I was really looking forward to getting back so that we all could hang out and enjoy a meal together for the first time since leaving Nyika a day and a half ago. We drove the Hilux to the gate of Matuhnka, turned right towards the gate, and, without warning, we were cut off by a an open bed truck passing us on the right. (Remember, we're driving on the left hand side of the road, so the right turn is like a left turn - it's as if you were making a left hand turn and someone from behind passed you on the left just as you were turning).

Thankfully the mechanic slammed on the brakes in time to avoid a collision. The Hilux couldn't do the same, however; its momentum carried it towards the jeep. The Hilux would have slammed into the jeep had the tow bar not jerked it back in place. While this was good for the cars, it was bad for the tow bar. It bent backwards, creating a major crease near the end of the bar. We were extremely lucky that the bar didn't rip apart during the rest of our ascent to the guest house.

I felt so bad. The NGO folks had done us an enormous favor by helping us sort out our car situation and allowing us to store the Hilux on their grounds. They lent us their tow bar to bring the Hilux back up the hill, and what did we do? We broke the damn thing.

Granted, it wasn't entirely our fault, but everything we touched seemed to turn to . . . well, something other than gold.


http://www.whatihaveread.net/i/0022.jpg

Tale of Two Cities

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was an afternoon to drink beers, play cards, and read magazines in the comfort of a shaded, guest home oasis, it was an afternoon to haggle with a jumble of amateur and professional mechanics in an exposed dirt yard over a disassembled mess of automobile that no one could manage to start."

I'm not sure who wrote that, but I've always liked it.

It was now about 3:00 p.m. and Dan still wasn't back. It was clear the car was irremediably broken and that we'd be spending another night in Rumphi. It was also clear that we needed to change course because we had to get back to Lilongwe to catch our flights the following morning.

So we struck up a conversation with one of the directors of the NGO to see if we could borrow her cell to call Dan. She told us that it wasn't safe to have our car worked on by mechanics in town because they don't have the diagnostic equipment to recognize the problem, they don't have the parts necessary to fix a problem if they do recognize it, and they aren't particularly well trained to fix the problem in the first place. She opined that we were likely to find our car in worse shape than when we left it. For that reason, she said, they don't trust their own vehicles with the mechanics down the hill. They have all of their vehicles serviced on the premises.

Part of the NGO's occupational training program included a mechanic's yard. As luck would have it, the Dutch mechanic they use to train their students was in town for the month. She suggested that maybe he could go down to town with us and assess the situation with our car.

About fifteen minutes later, the other director of the NGO, the Dutch mechanic, and a local student offered to drive us down to check out what was going on with the car. Mellissa and I jumped in the car with them while Jon and Katy stayed behind.



When we reached the mechanic's yard where our car was sitting in shambles, we spotted Dan with his face in his hands sitting by the side of the road. This had not been a good day for him.

We walked up to the car to witness quite a scene. It wasn't just the two mechanics we saw the night before working on the vehicle. There were probably eight to ten guys huddled around the car pointing and arguing and taking things apart. I believe that three were actually affiliated with that mechanics yard and the others, as far as I could tell, were passersby who had taken an interest in our vehicle and stuck around to offer their own opinion on the matter.

We all got out and walked up to the front of the car to talk to the mechanics. The front bumper was completely removed, the radiator was on the ground as were a few other engine components that I didn't recognize.

The guys from the NGO had a look at the engine and walked around the car to talk to everyone there. I walked around to the passenger's side of the car (left-hand side in this case) where a mechanic (I think) was sitting in the front seat taking apart some electrical device.

The Dutch mechanic turned to me and said, "look at what this guy is doing right here. What he's doing there has nothing to do with what's mechanically wrong with the engine. I don't know what he's doing. Maybe he's swapping out pieces from your car for resale. I don't know."

My stomach dropped. I started to view our situation in an entirely different light. We had trusted these mechanics to help us out. We believed that Moya would find us someone to be honest and fair with us. Now, I felt like we were being had for the clumsy, rich, and stupid Americans that we were in that moment.



So I walked up to Dan and told him that we needed to get the hell out of there. We had to call the owner of the car and tell him there was nothing we could do to get the thing running and that we were going to have to leave it in Rumphi for him to retrieve. The folks at the NGO were kind enough to let us leave the car at their facility, so we could tell the owner he had his choice of leaving the car with the mechanics or leaving it at the NGO. Dan agreed. The poor guy was so worn down he probably would have agreed to anything.

Dan called the owner and made the arrangements. Mellissa and I were to return to the NGO to pick up a towing bar to bring the Hilux up the hill. Dan would stay behind, settle up with the mechanics, and then walk over to the minibus depot to inquire with a minibus driver about the cost of renting out an entire minibus to take us all the way back to Lilongwe the next day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . .



JP: Katy and Jon are enjoying tea and afternoon snacks over a game of gin rummy.

Oh Dearest Rumphi, Please Forgive Us, We Had You All Wrong

Dearest Rumphi,

Please forgive us, we had you all wrong. Maybe we caught you on a bad day, but we were still too quick to make judgment. There is more to you than hospitals, no running water and food and full hotels. But after meeting Moya, we should've known you had much more too offer.
Thank you for not holding it against us. Please accept our sincerest apologies.

Cheese on Toast, Lemon Squeezy, Science, Katy and Jon

----------------

It's amazing how quickly things can change, especially while traveling. After one of the longest and most interesting days of our lives, we awake to find ourselves safe, clean (hot showers) and surprisingly well-rested (considering our sleeping arrangement).

Despite the difficulty with finding lodging, we end up at what has to be the best place to stay in Rumphi, Mutunkha Centre for Orphan Care, an orphanage and vocational school for boys that has a guest house; it's an NGO run by a very patient and understanding Dutch couple. Our Rumphi oasis.

Minus Dan, we begin the day with a tasty English breakfast and our first meal in 24 hours:

Now with the sun up, we discover that we're near the top of this hill overlooking a little valley that could be mistaken for California wine country, tranquil and beautiful, the only thing missing were vineyards. Not a bad way to start our day, good spirits once again, but there were still a number of unknowns for the rest of the day:

1. Where's Danny? How's he doing?
2. Will the Hilux get fixed?
   
3. Another night at Mutunhka?
4. Will we make it to Nhkata Bay?
   
5. Will we make it to Lilongwe?

But for now, we'll not think about it, we'll just enjoy our morning and be glad we're here
and not where we were last night ...