The long way home

It was a long week. Kahler and I were up til two or so Friday night doing a physical inspection of all the specimens in the repository boxes set to be shipped the beginning of next week. Then worked all morning to ensure that there was time enough for a database transformation to be made prior to shipping. Given this brief history, we decided to reward our endurance through such a week with a trip to the Mexican Food, Revolucion.

Dinner was fabulous! I think that I have blogged about this place before. It was absolutely delightful, they had the little chimmineas (big cloy fire pot, awesome) fired up and the atmosphere is lovely with a huge tree in the middle of the seating area wrapped with little white Christmas lights. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We (especially Katy) found something beautiful called drunken ice cream. Little scoops of a really light vanilla ice cream with a shot (or two) of Kahlua or Amaretto. Might be Katy's most favorite thing in the world.

So we had getting to the restaurant figured out but, back home was sort of up in the air. We had called a cabby named Ernest that lives in the Emmasdale area. He is a grade school teacher (in civics) and makes money as a driver on the weekend, which works out very well for us.

Now, to the nitty gritty of our evening. For our ride home we walked out to Zambezi Road and hailed a taxi with the Revolucion guard's help. We quickly negotiated the price to get us to Emmasdale and jumped in. I do not think that I have ever been in vehicle less road worthy... At least not off the top of my head ( I am going to use that cliche even though, taken literally, it is exceedingly strange to me). This thing was beat... I mean tired and done with it's job of transporting people. I dare say that it made ol Sparky (a beautiful '88 Honda Civic hatchback that was just too legit to quit) look like a Beamer.

1. Apparently one or two of the tires were coming apart, might have had something to do with the wheels being bent and the alignment that was shot to hades.

2. Smell... thats all

3. What's a cooling system do?

4. 'Short cut' through the worst part I have seen thus far

These are just a few of the fun things that turned this eight minute car ride into a forty-five minute battle.

Maybe you are familiar with the internal battle that is between calm and alarm. It's different from fight or flight. What I am referring is that balance between 'we could probably take those guys staring at us' and 'there's nothing to worry about, we are just muzungus, thats all' You try hard to prepare for the worst without showing that you are feeling any insecurity at all. So when the "car" overheats in what the driver admits to be a terrible part of town given by the comment 'roll up your window and lock the door, I will be back soon'. When his lanky figure disappeared into the night it was time to really assess the situation.

I was in the passenger seat, left front, Katy was right behind me with Kahler on the rear right behind the driver's seat.

- Check that he took the keys, yep
- Scope the surrounding, group of five guys off the back left corner of the car
- Faith that my door lock actually works, none
- Check the rear view for visible worry, clean
- Side to side, shantys and complete darkness
- Start some casual conversation to distract Katy from the situation
- Make gestures to Kahler on where possible danger may be hanging out
- Plan: phone out with a Zambian buddy's number ready to hit send, make call, find weapon and defend self until one of us loses.

So what actually happen is much less dramatic. The fellas wandered off and the driver returned with water to put in the radiator. He put enough in to cool the engine sufficiently to get the beater to crank and we headed for the nearest filling station where we pulled off and waited while he was topping the radiator and putting pressure in the front, left tire. All this while we were stuck in the car listening to Lady Gaga's, Love Game. THAT, in retrospect, was probably the worst part, haha!

We rolled along the Great North Road at a speed that kept the vibration from the wheel just beyond tolerable and eventually reached the big red gate of our Flat. We thanked Paul (the driver) and said good-bye. So happy to have reached home none the worse for wear, though Katy's nerves probably suffered irreversible damage.

All in all it was a delicious adventure specked with enough suspense to keep it exciting. We went to Kafue yesterday and had a blast, I will be posting about these great times here shortly.

I hope that you all had a fabulous Saturday/weekend! Call meh, haha

All is Well!