Puncture

Quick we are leaving 

As I informed you in our prayer update this week, we should still be in Mozambique, at Chemba, on the third stage of a very big trip. However, this, and stage two, were postponed due to international borders being closed because of the virus.

So - What did I happen?

Four of us, Joel and Sarah, Erin and myself, flew fixed wing to Beira, where we left Joel and Sarah to pick up the helicopter, and spend the week with a dental outreach.
With our pilot John, we continued North in the Mercy Air 310, to a sugar plantation at Marromeu, where we had been once before. There we were met by a lonely guard, waiting for the only flight that month. We unloaded our stuff and watched our plane take off to return to South Africa. Looking at each other and wondering - oh well, someone will pick us up! And they did.  Leanna arrived a short while later having been detained by a puncture, on one of many of the very challenging dirt roads. 

Erin, Joel and Sahra 

She drove us to their YWAM base via the tyre shop.
Now when I say tyre shop I really mean a patch of scrub land in the center of town: where leaning together in a lazy sort of way is some corrugated sheeting, with an opening, like a door, but without a door, like a shed, but not enough to qualify as a shed. Housed underneath the very precarious sheeting is a 1961 possibly ‘62 air compressor, as far as I could see the only piece of equipment on site. To put our position into context it was probably a 10-15-hour drive to the nearest wheel balancing machine. When I had my tyres done in Birmingham I would sit in the waiting room with coffee and the slightly out of date car mags. Anyway…

see plug repair in tyre 

The good thing about the compressor is it was not electrically driven as I don’t think there was any electric on site. But it was petrol driven, handy, but Leanna dropping off the wheel earlier in the day had to wait for the puncture repair technician to be paid by someone from the previous day’s work, to buy the petrol for today’s work, so the compressor could be run just for Leanna’s puncture. I do not in any way tell this story to mock the guy. I tell because I am amazed how people like the technician and Leanna get through the week. These are people who have nothing and live close to the edge, so starting the day with nothing is normal. If you complete the day with something for it then it has been a success. I suppose I could say this day was a success. The technician fitted the spare to the rear of the vehicle, he informed me via Leanna that he wants to live in England and I wondered how I could get him on a City and Guilds course.  Secure with our spare wheel on the back of the vehicle we are driven to the YWAM base at Nensa. It takes about an hour on some terrible dirt roads which constantly damage their vehicles. Leanna takes it all in her stride, avoiding the 40 tone artics being welded on the road, swerving around the numerous bicycles, steering clear the hundreds of children walking to I don’t know where. We arrive just before dusk with a wonderful YWAM greeting.
A week later as we were taken back down the same road to the helicopter container base to meet Joel and Sarah to return to South Africa. It was only when we had emptied the vehicle of all the stuff did I build up courage to tell Leanna that the spare on the back of the vehicle was flat again. I presume it was flat by the time we finished the journey a week earlier. Life for this family, just normal: I am genuinely amazed.