The Days After Chris Part I

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"Doucement! Doucement! Il y a un trou!"

"Gently! Gently! There's a hole!"

Such was my trip to and from Gikongoro. Washboard dirt roads with potholes, ditches, rivulets and log bridges, all of which I had to go over at no more than 10-15 km/h. Thus did my first village trip without Chris begin. It makes me wish that he was still here because he always insisted on driving. Trust me, I didn't argue against this insistence very much. More like, not at all.
But I should start at the beginning. The Days After Chris began at noon on Tuesday July 17th, when I took Chris to the airport to catch his flight home. The rest of the day, nay, the week passed rather uneventfully, mostly taken up by making budgets of the money we have left, making plans for the rest of the summer (though most of this was already done with Chris...or more accurately, by Chris), and arranging transportation for all the people who would be going to Gikongoro, since the truck only takes three people and our team consists of five people. Dang that stupid Hiace.
For those of you who don't know, a Hiace is a big van that, when equipped with all its seats, can carry up to 18 people, no problem. The Anderson Hiace is not thus equipped, and carries only 8-9, but has a large cargo space in the back. Very useful on long trips with many people and a lot of supplies and materials. But it is only useful if it is running. The Hiace is most certainly NOT running. Here is the scoop.
The Hiace has a diesel engine. Diesel engines burn oil, especially when they are not being used properly. Last summer the Hiace was used on a very long trip and someone forgot to check the engine oil. This meant that it was run without any oil for an estimated four hours. For those of you who don't know much about engines, running them without oil for even ten minutes can cause serious damage. Running without oil for four hours is disastrous. I don't know how they managed to not notice that the engine was running without oil because, as you will see later, engines running dry make a heck of a lot of noise. The mechanics at the garage managed to patch up the engine though, and it was used a few more times before being parked by the Anderson house until the next summer.
Queue the arrival of Chris. Since I had no idea where the keys for the Hiace were, which is not surprising since Chris had them with him, I had been using the pickup truck all summer. But once Chris got here the Hiace was brought out of retirement and used for all of our trips with him. However, as with last summer, the person who was supposed to be checking the oil (who I can honestly say was not me) failed to fulfill his duties to their full extent and the engine ran out of oil. The first thing that Chris and I noticed (since we were sitting in the front and the engine is directly under the front seats) was a faint rattling noise. At first we thought that a piece of the underside of the van had been broken/knocked loose while we were driving on the horrid dirt roads, but after thinking about it for a few moments we realized that we were wrong, as we had been off the dirt roads for roughly six hours. Chris decided that we would continue back to Kigali (we were only half an hour away by this time) and the Hiace would go to the garage the next morning to be checked out. The rattling noise got worse rather quickly though and then I noticed that the Oil light on the dash-board was flickering on and off. NOT a good sign. So we pull over to the side of the road, open up the "hood", which is really the passenger seat, which hinges up to reveal an incredibly hot engine. I was vaguely surprised that my butt hadn't caught fire sitting right over that thing.
I whipped out the dip-stick and checked the oil level. Bone dry. Yay! Now we can't go anywhere without causing more damage. Faustin jumped in a taxi with an empty oil jug and a little while later returned with five liters of oil (expensive!!!) to refill the engine. We went to the garage straight away where the mechanic quickly told us that no, there wasn't an oil leak, diesel engines just tend to burn a lot of oil. As in refill it every 300-400 km kind of burning oil.
So after much assertions from the person who is supposed to check the oil that they would do so more often and that the Hiace would never run out again, we headed home for the night, only to be up and gone again very early the next morning for Kamashi. But as I described in my previous entry, on the way home from Kamashi the Hiace broke down again. The oil was checked and found to be at a satisfactory level. It turns out that the motor (newly installed last year) has been ruined by the two times it was driven without oil, and will cost more to fix than it would cost to get another new engine. Both options, however, are very expensive and so is towing it back to the house, so the Hiace rests to this day at the garage.
So now we are using the truck. Annoying as it is to have to arrange for two people to go by bus and get picked up later where they get in the back of the truck without trouble from the police, the truck can go places the Hiace couldn't dream of making it to. The road to Gikongoro is, normally, perfectly manageable for the Hiace, but this time a portion of the road had collapsed or something, so we had to take a detour. The detour began with climbing a 25o incline. Twenty-five degrees doesn't sound that bad, but think about it. It is that bad, and when the road has endless potholes and rain-water rivulets, it would be entirely impossible for the Hiace. I have NO idea how the taxis make it (the taxis are all Hiaces). So up the detour we go, and the cries of "doucement, doucement" begin.
It was not until we got off the detour and returned to the main road, however, that the real problems began. Scratch that. Real problem. Singular.
While driving down a flat, clear-of-holes stretch (i.e., I was going fast...40km/h!) Faustin and I hear a clicking noise coming from the back of the truck. We stop, get out, check out the tires and the shocks and everything that we can think of, but no problem is found...hmmmm. Off we go again, this time with me taking it easier on the gas so that the normal rattles and noises of the truck are diminished, allowing us to hear the new noise more easily. And hear it we do. This time we get a more precise fix on the source of the sound; passenger side (left), at the back. So we jack up the truck, pop off the rear passenger side wheel and have a closer look, trying to find the source of the noise.
Hmmm...do you think this little wire poking out of the brake casing could be it??
So having located the source of the noise, and having decided that it isn't really serious and can wait a while to get fixed, we continue on. Upon arriving in the next village we stop and search out a mechanic. The guy comes, takes off the wheel, looks at the wire, stands up and walks away. He comes back five minutes later with two friends, a chisel and a hammer. Ummm, exactly what are you going to do with the chisel, please?
What he does is use the hammer and chisel (separately, thankfully) to remove the brake casing and look inside. The wire is actually the end of a spring that holds something together. The mechanic discusses with his friends (and with Faustin, since he doesn't speak French and I don't speak Mechanic) and they take the spring out. The end that was still in the casing is worn down to a sliver. Apparently it wasn't the spring sticking out take made the noise, but the part of the spring still inside.
More discussion, some poking an fiddling and a few more chunks of metal are removed. You're going to put those back, right? Nope, the come out and stay out. The casing is put back over the brakes and the wheel is put back on. I ask Faustin what's going on and he tells me that the spring (and the other removed pieces) are for the emergency brake in that wheel. OK, no problem. The E-brakes still work in the other three wheels, which is more than enough to hold the truck still when it is parked. As long as the normal brakes function I am happy. Off we go!
By the time we reach the place where we are supposed to pick up Fidel we are so late that he has left and walked all the way to Gikongoro (another 5km at least, uphill, and Fidel is no young guy). Oops.
When we arrive at Gikongoro we find Fidel, Gad and a large number of local Baha'is waiting for us at the Baha'i Center. We greet everyone and begin to unpack the truck. Only problem is that during the trip one of the jerry-cans of water that we packed (since water is hard to get up in the mountainous regions, i.e. most of the country) has lost its lid and emptied most of its 25 liter load onto our stuff. Thank ye, God, that I put my stuff in the cab and not in the back!
The food, the mattresses, the books and the blankets are all wet, to varying degrees. So the next half hour is spent pulling the stuff out, sorting really-wet from only-somewhat-wet, and putting the really wet stuff out to dry.
The rest of the afternoon is spent eating lunch (rice and beans prepared by the local people), talking to the local Baha'is and discussing what they have been doing and should be doing. In the late afternoon we go and visit some people's houses and by the time we return it is dark. We eat dinner (rice, beans and potatoes. Yay for starch!), chat a little bit and then bunk down for the night. Poor Faustin had to sleep in the truck to prevent robbery and vandalism (which isn't as common here as in Kigali), and it got really cold (5 degrees Centigrade) that night. Being Canadian I wasn't bothered to much by the nighttime cold, but Fidel, Gad and Faustin took it really hard. Faustin said that it was like sleeping in a fridge. No worries, Faust, it'll make a man of you real quick!
The next morning, being Sunday, we participated in the local children's classes. The main thing that they do is memorize prayers, since Chris gives candies and little gifts according to how many prayers the children have memorized. I've never been a huge fan of the method of encouragement, but since it works, and memorizing for an iffy reason is better than not doing it at all, I figure I might as well continue the tradition in-lieu of Chris. The outcome was disappointing though. The child with the most prayers memorized recited four prayers. Not great, since in most of the villages that I have visited, the top number is 10-15, and in some villages the bottom number is higher than four.
In Gatenga (where the Anderson house is), for example, there are children who have memorized more prayers than I thought possible. One young boy memorized 51 prayers! Another girl, 70-some. Another, 82. Yet another, 90-some. And the very top number, 101! One-hundred-and-one, folks! That is...mind-boggling. And even more interesting, all five of the previously mention children live under Papa Jean's roof. I believe three of them are his children and the other two are from his extended family (children of siblings or cousins or something). Just another notch on Papa Jean's list of awesomeness.
After the children had finished their prayers and received their prizes, along with huge amounts of encouragement to keep working on memorizing more, we sat down and talked with some local people, a mixture of Baha'is and Christians. And when I say "we sat down and talked" I mean "we sat down and Gad, Fidel and Faustin talked, with some added comments and ideas from Irene and I". In order to make the morning efficient and useful there was no translation except when Irene and I talked (rarely), so I can honestly say that I have almost no idea of what was discussed. They could have been discussing their favourite soccer players for all that I know!
After the mysterious discussion we packed up the truck and headed home. The return journey was fraught with a lack of problems, the only delay being when we stopped at the place where Gad and Fidel were going to catch their taxi home, and decided to sit down and eat some brochettes first. I put too much pili-pili on my brochettes again and ended up hiccoughing for quite a while. Me manly tough man-man. Me do dumb stuff. *beats his chest...and quickly stops because it hurts*.
And that was it. The rest of this week I have spent my time revising plans, making budgets and preparing for our trip to Kampala tomorrow. Its going to be awesome. I am going to take a hundred million pictures.

Safe Journeys

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Photos

Car Repairs
The idea here is to hit the brake casing with something big until you can get it off, pull out all the broken bits, give them to the muzungu and then put everything back together. Safe journey!

The Baha'i Center
With the poor beaten-up truck getting a well-deserved rest.

The Long and Winding Road
On the way to get water.

Gad Goes Hi-Tech
Using a blackboard to teach some Baha'i history.