The Road Less Traveled By

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The Zambian roads have been an adventure since we got here. First of all, we all had to get used to the fact that the steering wheel is on the right of the car and you drive on the left side of the road. The major highways are paved relatively well; the country roads are not. Day after day we bounce along in our Land Rover we have so lovingly nicknamed “Khaki Jackie”, occasionally becoming air born when an unexpected doozy of a bump and/or hole sneaks up on us. Let me take this moment to say that Dr. Weaver, Becca, and Elizabeth have all been doing an excellent job of toting us around. On our tour of the mission the first day Roy Merritt pointed out two large bulldozer-type machines sitting along the side of the road. He explained that a Chinese company came to fix up the roads in the area. They were able to get a couple machines into the country so they used those to tear up the roads, but the final machine was held up in customs. So here they were stuck with partially completed roads and who knew when they would be completed. Several days later Roy received a call that the third machine would be delivered on Thursday of that week, which we all took to really mean that it would be here Tuesday three weeks from now (Zambian time is a little different than U.S. time). It didn’t arrive Thursday, but it was pretty close. We were driving our usual route when all of a sudden, there it was. The new question was, when would they start putting it to use? The next couple of days consisted of the workers walking around the machines and apparently talking about getting something done, but there was no movement. We joked about sneaking out and marking the grass with chalk to see if it would move at all while we were here. As skeptical we were, they actually started working on the road yesterday. We gasped in surprise and applauded the little Chinese man standing on the side of the road as we drove by. We’re pretty sure he thought we were crazy. Since then they’ve been doing more grinding up of the dirt and then wetting it down over and over again. This morning both sides of the road were slanted, basically meeting in the middle at a point. Those of us on the right side of Khaki leaned back while those on the left leaned forward, feeling as though we would topple over at any moment. Our little Rover remained strong and grounded, however, and we made it. We took our usual walk to the Haven after lunch, dodging the huge machines and sliding in the newly made mud along the way. When B. Weave picked us up we were forced to take an alternative route, but once again, we made it safe and sound. It’s sort of a fun game now to see what will have been done tomorrow by the time we’re ready to venture out again.

-Meredith Pietzman