Living in East Africa, you become a dab hand & changing a tyre in a hurry ... It’s been a long day with another school run …. got up just after 5 am …. left the farm at 6.30 am …. got to school at 8.00 am …. the school is short one teacher at the moment so I helped out in the older class (fun !) until midday when school ended and we headed straight back to the farm.
We had to go to school in my husband’s pick-up because he had to collect chemicals for the farm and also because the diff lock on my car is being repaired in the “Big City” at the moment. (‘cause a girl can’t live here without – amongst other things – a diff lock, you know !)
On our way home, we got a puncture ! (Or “Puncha” as the locals call it). You learn to change a tyre pretty quickly here because if you are not fast enough, before you know it you will have about one million local people from the villages/surrounding area appearing from nowhere and standing on the roadside gawking at you ….
Of course you also soon learn to carry 2 spare tyres with you when traveling here because Murphy’s Law dictates you will get 2 “puncha’s” (or a tyre burst) in a row and then you’ll be a bit stuck (we have learnt this lesson the hard way !). It is also wise – especially if you are traveling a long distance – to stop and get the “puncha” repaired at a “Puncha Repair Shop” which is often just a chap on the roadside sitting under a tree with “Puncha Repair” hand painted on a tatty signboard …. (or “Faster Puncha Repair” if there’s any competition around under a nearby tree)
Upon changing the tyre (or should I say, upon my husband changing the tyre whilst I looked on and took photographs, much to the amusement of a slowly gathering crowd of onlookers) we hopped back in to the car and were on our merry way ….. after passing a dead donkey on the road, and then being flagged down by the Police, we finally made it on to the farm … where we found about 100 head of cattle illegally grazing on a newly germinated crop of beans.
But that’ll be a story for another day ….
So much for the monotony of school runs - never a dull moment, eh ?!
We had to go to school in my husband’s pick-up because he had to collect chemicals for the farm and also because the diff lock on my car is being repaired in the “Big City” at the moment. (‘cause a girl can’t live here without – amongst other things – a diff lock, you know !)
On our way home, we got a puncture ! (Or “Puncha” as the locals call it). You learn to change a tyre pretty quickly here because if you are not fast enough, before you know it you will have about one million local people from the villages/surrounding area appearing from nowhere and standing on the roadside gawking at you ….
Of course you also soon learn to carry 2 spare tyres with you when traveling here because Murphy’s Law dictates you will get 2 “puncha’s” (or a tyre burst) in a row and then you’ll be a bit stuck (we have learnt this lesson the hard way !). It is also wise – especially if you are traveling a long distance – to stop and get the “puncha” repaired at a “Puncha Repair Shop” which is often just a chap on the roadside sitting under a tree with “Puncha Repair” hand painted on a tatty signboard …. (or “Faster Puncha Repair” if there’s any competition around under a nearby tree)
Upon changing the tyre (or should I say, upon my husband changing the tyre whilst I looked on and took photographs, much to the amusement of a slowly gathering crowd of onlookers) we hopped back in to the car and were on our merry way ….. after passing a dead donkey on the road, and then being flagged down by the Police, we finally made it on to the farm … where we found about 100 head of cattle illegally grazing on a newly germinated crop of beans.
But that’ll be a story for another day ….
So much for the monotony of school runs - never a dull moment, eh ?!
