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Saturday:

“Wow, the Zoolander is behaving itself so well, I’m so proud” I thought to myself. It was about 5:30pm and Anna and I (with dearest Lydia in tow) were tooling along the flat straight away between the hot springs and Ntandi when we heard a clang of sorts. It sounded a bit as if we had just driven across a small metal bridge/panel, but there is for sure only one of those (the bridge of delightful smoothness) and we hadn’t yet reached it. So, I picked a relatively unoccupied part of the road and slowed to a stop where I got out and realized that the cover for the fuel tank had begun to drag on the ground with only one side still bolted to the vehicle. Hm…well…I wonder if that does anything except protect the fuel tank from trauma (which on these roads is no small task)…well, not being exactly at the top of my “kumechanica” game (actually I have no kumechanica game to be at the top of…), I decided to call John Clark (recently returned from the US after adding a small ka boy to their family) for help. Anna meanwhile had shimmied herself under the vehicle in true kumechanica fashion and was advising the phone call with firsthand information. We agreed that we could take the cover off (is it called a cover? I don’t know, but that seems the best way to describe it) for the remaining hour or so of the trip home, and then repair it from there. So, I found a “spanner” for lug nuts on the tires that miraculously fit the bolts of the fuel tank cover and Anna expertly removed the remaining bolts from the cover with minor assistance from a few English speaking men who were miraculously not drunk and spoke respectfully to us (webaleh yesu). “Wow, I just took the fuel tank cover off, I feel so…independent!” Anna exclaimed as she held her grease covered hands in mid air so as not to get anything else dirty.

We moseyed along with the cover added to few pieces of luggage we were carrying in the back of the vehicle and in Ntandi someone on the back of a boda zooming past us flagged us down. It was Kawa Vincent, a friend of ours from church wanting a ride back to Nyahuka with us. “It’s fine, hop in” we told him. We told him of our car repairs of a few minutes back and continued on our way, so proud of ourselves. “I wish I had photo documentation of your mechanic skills, sorry Anna!” I said.

We begin the slow climb up the winding hill to Bundibugyo Town and about 15 minutes after our first repair stop we hear a loud bang under the vehicle that sounded like I had accidently hit a big rock. Vincent begins to yell “Stop stop stop, something has fallen off the vehicle!” So again, I pull over to the side of the road to a stop and look back. Several yards down the road is the fuel tank lying on the side of the road…THE FREAKIN’ FUEL TANK FELL OFF!!! I kid you not.

“Holy $#%&” I thought to myself…I wish I could say that something a bit cleaner came out of my mouth but I’m not entirely sure that would be a truthful reporting of what actually happened…in fact I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what came out of my mouth.

So, you might ask, what does one do when one’s fuel tank falls off?! That, my friends, is a very good question! If you’re me you scratch your head a few times pondering the fact that your fuel tank is lying in the road instead of attached to your car and then get on the phone just as fast as your fingers will dial the number!

“Hey John, it’s Heidi again. Yeah, we’re fine. So, the fuel tank fell off. Yeah, no, I’m not kidding ☺…”

to be continued....