Driving

We went to the school on Thursday to show one of visitors around and for me to drop off some paperwork to the teachers. As soon as I got out of the car I could hear an ominous – and loud – hissing noise. I called Ab over and he said the tire – our last tire – had been slashed by a rock (not an uncommon situation on the road on the school).

We’ve needed new tires for a while, but for various reasons too complicated to go into now, the last few services have been cancelled. So we are now recycling the last set of tires and constantly trying to repair dodgy ones. It’s not an ideal situation – in fact it’s very far from ideal.

So, we were stuck at the school (an hour’s drive from the office) with three options: we use a slashed tire to get home, we fit a really, really old and battered one … or we do an 8 hour walk home up winding mountain roads in the blistering sun.

I wasn’t worried – we would work it out, we always do – but understandably Ab was not happy and stomped around a bit, before deciding that the slashed tire was actually the safest one to use. So he mended it using the chewing gum we’d bought on the way to the school and a piece of stick. I was very impressed – and it got us back to Lalibela in one piece!

But the tires really, really were on their last legs, so we gave the Directors in the UK a call and organised to go to the nearest place you can buy a set of tires – a good 8 hour drive away.

So, with 4 patched up tires on the car, and 6 slightly dodgier ones slung in the trailer of the car, we started on the long drive.

Driving in Ethiopia is always a real experience – and it’s one I love. My boss always looks at me in horror when I say I’d rather drive the two days to Addis instead of flying, but it’s true! Admittedly, it’s a lot quicker and more comfortable to fly from place to place; Ethiopia’s roads are often so unsurfaced and bumpy that you require a tight seat belt to stop yourself flying out of your seat, and a good sports bra to stop painful damage being inflicted on your body.

However, the beauty you see when you drive is often something you miss if you fly from one tourist spot to another – incredible sunrises and sunsets, huge mountains that suddenly drop into low rivers, tiny villages perched on the edge of cliffs, and astonishing views across miles and miles of countryside.

And then the details: the rusted shell of a tank left over from the fighting during the end Derg; the old stone bridge with the tiny carved roses; the women washing clothes at the end of the river, draping them over the rocks to dry, the villages with the lush green sugar cane fields, a stark contrast from the dust and parched trees of Lalibela. You don’t see that if you fly.

Driving also means stopping in villages where you are possibly the most exciting thing they have seen all week, and people seem to come from miles around to hide behind a gate post and peer shyly at the outsiders, or – if you are an adult – sit at the next table and stare blatantly while you finish your cigarette. (Staring is not considered rude in Ethiopia)

This is especially true if you have to stop and change a tire on a road going through a tiny village, as we did. About 4 hours into our journey, yet another old tire gave up with a final gasp and Ab had to start searching through the rest of the tires to find a replacement. Within seconds, barefoot children had run down the steep mud embankment from their house to the road, and were crowding round the car as Ab slid underneath it and began to jack it up. A few minutes later, men appeared from their respective houses or work, and stood leaning on wooden sticks, watching closely.

I generated a lot of excitement – as I usually do – simply by being white, but also by helping Ab unload the tires from the back of the car. I’ve noticed that Ethiopians tend to get a bit panicky when they see faranji women doing physical work (a tip: got something like a bookcase which needs to be moved around 100 metres, and although you’ve been asking for months, nobody’s done it? Start moving it yourself – within minutes, men will arrive from everywhere to take it from you and finish the job). However, these children just gaped open mouthed at me. Presumably, the only vehicles with faranjis they’ve seen are tour cars, and it’s unlikely the tour guides or drivers would allow their customers to help them, even if they wanted to.

I’d like to say that I then went ahead and helped Ab change the tire, but I have less idea about how to change a tire than I do about the intricacies of quantum physics. So I stood with the children and L, our visitor, and admired everyone’s hair and jewellery, while we practised our tiny amounts of each other’s language. Ab, meanwhile, was sweating and grunting as he – successfully – changed the tire.

The men wanted a lift to the next town, but Ab said he couldn’t risk having any more weight on the car, and we left again with just the three of us. Of course, this didn’t protect us from another flat, and about an hour later, another tire dissolved into a heap. By this point Ab was beyond grumpy, and for L and I the novelty of standing around while another village chatted to us or asked for lifts was wearing off a little. Luckily, we were only a little way from a reasonably sized town with a tire repair station, and so we limped our way there and handed over our poor, broken tires for plasters and bandages and whatever else they thought appropriate.

In a rare optimistic mood, I was sure they would be able to work miracles, and so L and I retired to a little café to wait …and wait, and wait, and wait ….

To be continued …