Monkey on Road means TROUBLE!

11/16/07

"MONKEY!!!! IN THE ROAD!!!!" I shouted excitedly

"Monkey in the road is not a good thing" replied Bire solemnly, "Means trouble ahead"

Sure enough, a couple miles down the road our FOURTH flat tire in two days left us stranded overnight in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. As it turns out, that "nowhere" turned out to be the perfect somewhere as a band of ten young shepherd boys (ages 10-17), took us under their wing and gave us a glimpse into their daily routine.

These ten boys live by themselves on a hill just above where our tire blew out. They are responsible for a herd of 50 oxen that their families own, and only ONCE a month they see family when their parents come from their village many miles away and bring the boys supplies for the next month. The boys have the torn clothes on their back, a couple of worn tarps to sleep on, a bag of barley flour to make their daily meal of bread, and a BEAUTIFUL view of surrounding countryside.

Our tire blew right at sunset, so as soon as Bire and the driver caught a ride to the next mountain town to fix the tire, Kevin and Yibe began collecting firewood while Beline and I struck up conversation with the boys that had surrounded our bus at that point. I couldn't exactly communicate much with them, as they spoke a tribal language that Idon't know, so I resorted to animal sounds and the kids CRACKED up! They started responding in animal sounds too. Since it was getting dark, one of the boys started a cooking fire up by their camp and brought down a flaming stick to start us a fire by the road. Kevin and I wandered up their camp where all the oxen were gathered for the night. There was an open circle in the midst of the cattle where the boy swere doing all sorst of flips, so I started beatboxing to make it like a breakdance circle, with a different beat for each kid. They laughed and then tried to beatbox themselves.

Kev and I headed over to the cooking fire, where two of the boys were already underway making bread for their evening meal. We sat down in awe and watched. There was a round sheet of metal that was balanced over the fire on 3 rocks. One boy spread the mixture of flour and water thinly over the pan, his hands literally passing through the flames without so much as a flinch. The other boy had a stick and would pop the bread off the sheet after a few seconds. They offered us the first one and we were speechless, but obliged. As the rest of the boys gathered around for dinner, Kev brought up our honey jar and the boys went WILD for the honey on their bread. AFter dinner we all gathered around the campfire and the boys brought their tarps down for all of us to lay on. All 14 of us piled around, watching the stars and singing random songs or making animal noises. At one point, two camels randomly walked through our camp. (Joey, I taught everyone the Samoan Children's game "mile-mile" and the boys got a kick out of it! They asked what it was and where it was from. Beline wasn't sure if they knew where Samoa was.) The boys were our saving grace and so precious. They reminded me of the lost boys on Peter Pan, the way they live and take care of themselves. Their hospitality was incredible. Laying there with all of them by the fire, looking up at the BRIGHT starry sky, I felt so safe adn content in the middle of the African wilderness. There was nowhere in the world I'd rather be.

I had just about dozed off when Bire and the driver returned with the new tire. So we thanked our friends as best as we knew how. We hit the road again and when we were ONLY 2 km from town, POP! We got flat #5 , with no spare and no more cars traveling to catch a ride with, no food because we had given it to a village girl earlier that day when we had flat #3. Sooooooo..........we slept in the van the rest of the night :(. I just had to LAUGH. And we all just LAUGHED. What else can you do???

Early in the morning the driver had caught a ride to town and brought back a tire. We hit the road AGAIN... and not even FIVE MINUTES later, POP! another tire blew and that puts us at flat #6. I'll be honest with you. SIX flat tires in 5 days is my limit. I'm done. The problem is that the owner of the minibus sent us with crappy tires, which have put our lives at risk, knowing full well the condition of the steep rocky mountain roads that we would be driving on. So now we've replaced the tires with brand NEW durable tires, so we don't expect any more flats. Oh yeah, and the owner WILL reimburse us for them.

Re-cap on the first three flats...

FIrst flat: slow leak
Second flat: BLEW the tire off the rim and we nearly flipped and hit a rock wall. THat was the WAKE UP call. Driver's been going a LOT slower since then and we've all been quite attentive to his driving and calling him out when we feel it's not safe.
The next day.... we come across an accident on a narrow downhill slope, where a big 'ol truck's brakes went out and by sheer grace, there was a quarter mile of mounds of dirt on the cliff side of the road, so that the truck got stuck in one of the very last mounds, stopping inches from the cliff. We all got out and the boys helped dig out the truck, while Beline and I befriended a village girl who was making her way back home. She still had 20 miles to walk!! We ended up giving her a ride.
Third flat: On the way to the girl's village, we come to a point in the road where a stream had flooded the road to just a little bit deeper than we could drive through. As we're making our way around the side of the flood, an entire herd of cattle decide to come down for a dip and a drink, blocking our way (not to mention we were stopped right next to a little pond infested with Yellow Fever mosquitos...glad I got the vaccine!) As we're finally pulling through the last stretch of puddle, our tire pops, but we make it out and are able to change it and drop the girl off.

And that sets us up for flats 4, 5, and 6. I think we're in the clear now. HOwever, these delays have cost us time to see all the rock churches. But that night living with the shepherd boys has made this whole trip for me.

We've made it to Axum last night and are headed to Makele tonight.
PRAY For uS!! For safe travels!!

I'm hoping to see a hyena.
Hana T.