The Sweet Sounds of Zambia

I am so glad that I am one day late in posting my blog, because do I have a story for you. This week B Weave’s class got moved from 3:00 in the afternoon to 8:00 A.M. SO, being the wonderful G.A. that I am…I volunteered to go to her 8:00 class with her and finish administering the first ever speech pathology exam given in Zambia. You see the power goes off here occasionally. Last Thursday it did, the night before Weave’s first exam, and to accommodate her students she gave them to option of postponing their exam until today.

So we set off at 7:30 this morning. We had to go a little early because we needed 20 more copies of the exam. (Side note: last night the night watchman made us go out and set the alarm on Khaki Jackie… the alarm we didn’t know about) So we’re driving and one minute into the ride the car alarm starts up. First we try the key chain trick, the one where you press the lock and unlock buttons at the same time. It works for 10 seconds then Khaki Jackie proceeds to yell at us more. We try the hazard light switch...negative. Weave takes the keys out to try and start the car again. Bad idea, now the car won’t start up at all and we’re stuck in the middle of the road and it’s 7:30 in the morning and we’re waking up all of Namwianga.

We decide that Weave needs to set out for help. I think “maybe it would stop if we both were out of the car.” Not a good idea after all. I hop out and continue to push the lock/unlock buttons every 15 seconds until she returns. I feel really cool as people are walking by with funny looks on their faces. The whole time I’m trying to reassure them that this is our car and we just can’t figure out the alarm in between the deafening beeps. Weave gets back with a jeep expert, aka, our next door neighbor. He informs us that Khaki Jackie has a secret button that cannot be seen and can scarcely be felt. We finally silence the alarm and turn the key in the ignition. Off we go. The alarm sounds AGAIN! I reach out the door and grab our neighbor screaming “WAIT!” We are now told that the trick is to hold down the secret button and turn the key at the same time. I’ve never been in a higher maintenance car before. Our neighbor promises to give us a tutorial on our vehicle later. All this before 8:00 in the morning! If any two people do not function well before 8:00 A.M. it is B Weave and me.

Brittany

P.S. the alarm has since been sounding every time we start up Khaki Jackie. Weave and I would like to rip out the alarm with our bare hands, however, that seems to be in a secret location as well.