Car fun

How many cars does it take to get three missionaries from Banjul to Ndungu Kebbeh? In a perfect world, it only takes one. However, The Gambia is NOT a perfect world. Yesterday, Suellen, Teresa and I were coming home after our quarterly field council meeting which was held at our guesthouse. We loaded the car around 10 AM, hopped in to head to the ferry and...click, brrr, the car wouldn't start. It sounded more serious than just a dead battery so we called Max who had the van, which had just been repaired and was also ready to return to NK. Max brought the van. We push-started the Nissan so it could be driven to the mechanic. Then we unloaded all of our junk from the Nissan and moved it to the van. Fortunately only Suellen had done her monthly grocery shopping this trip. We had a lot of stuff, but it could have been much worse.

On the road finally. We jump in the van and head out, but we notice that it needs fuel. We stop to fill up and find that the gas cap is missing. Since it had just come from the shop, we called Max to check on it when he gets to the mechanic with the Nissan. Max meets us on the road with a gas cap that will fit and away we go.

We arrive in Banjul and see that the wait for the ferry is going to be a long one. We find a spot in line and settle in for the day. Since it was so hot, we left the motor running so that we could enjoy the air-conditioning for a while. The line moves forward slowly and we finally turn into the driveway of the ferry terminal. We aren't inside the gates yet, but they are at least in sight. In the process of moving, we noticed that we were leaking fluid. As we pulled into the driveway of the terminal we can smell the antifreeze. When we turned off the engine, we could hear water boiling. A van engine is under and behind the driver's seat, so the car is very hot. We could see a huge puddle of water under the van, so we knew that we weren't going any where with this car.

We tried to call Max to find out the status of the Nissan, but the cell phone network was not working. After trying all of our phones and all of the numbers for Max, Barney and Adelia, we decided to go call from the telecenter (like a phone booth, but manned). We found Max waiting for the mechanic to call and tell him that it was ready. (It turned out that it was just a loose connection in the Nissan.) After waiting for Max for over an hour, we decide to go back to the telecenter and call again. Turns out he had been trying to call us, but couldn't reach us because of the network problem. He was on the way with some guys from the mechanic's shop.

Max arrived and we persuaded the ferry workers to let him pull in behind us so we could transfer baggage yet again, this time with many interested onlookers. I took position near the back of the van to keep sticky-fingered observers away and Teresa and Suellen took turns guarding the back of the Nissan and carrying stuff. Thankfully we were inside a semi-protected area with security people all around, not in the open street. In fairly short order we had the stuff packed in the Nissan. The mechanics added water to the van and were going to follow Max to the shop. Max manuevered the van out of the crowded line and we hopped in the Nissan to wait for the ferry. Since the line was so long and the ferries running so slowly, we ended up only losing about 5 places in line and crossed on the same ferry as we would have if we hadn't broken down. As we say here, "Yalla baax na". (God is good.)

We arrived home at 6:15PM, hot and tired, but happy to be safely home.