Growing Pains: Part 1

I have never had growing pains. I hear they are painful, hence the name I guess. I have, however, had learning pains: pains in the form of frustration, learning induced brain fatigue, and other such unpleasant things. Most recently my learning pains have come disguised as French language learning and driving big, expensive, manual, right-handed land cruisers.

First, I will discuss the later: driving. I have been legally driving for eight and a half years now. Somehow in my relatively short driving history, that is compared to someone who is the ripe old age of 40, I have not had significant practice driving a manual vehicle, definitely not a macho land cruiser – the vehicle of choice in the humanitarian sector.

After working a few short weeks with many Europeans, I have come to find out that if only I were a European, I wouldn’t be so inexperienced in this very important area of my life. Supposedly Europeans prefer manual vehicles and to quote my tea drinking, proper English accented colleague: “I guess you guys drive mostly automatics ‘over there,’ right?”

When I was just home in the U.S. a few months ago, I got an international driving license which is accepted by any country who is a member-state of the United Nations. Despite the convenience, I must confess AAA’s requirements of merely filling out a two page form and taking two passport photos didn’t quite prepare me for the feat of driving internationally, or at least driving in Africa which is a skill set all of its own.

So here is the point of this sometimes stressful, painful learning process part of the story. You see, learning to drive in Africa is a bit different than in a nice, organized, developed country where driving laws not only exist but are also enforced and followed, most of the time. I am currently residing in a locale with a population of 300,000 people and no paved roads. And like most other African countries, roads in Congo are multi-purpose: playgrounds for children; market places; toilets; and herding corrals and feeding troughs for cows, goats, and chickens. So aside from the actual performance of maneuvering a foreign contraption such as a manual land cruiser, driving is an obstacle course.

I would also like to emphasize that our vehicles are right-handed and we also drive on the right side of the road. Our cruisers came from a previous project in Uganda, where they do drive on the left side of the road thus making right-handed vehicles sensible. It is a bit of an eyeball guessing game since the middle of the road is on the complete other side of the vehicle you are driving. But this point is almost obsolete due to the fact that there are no road rules and you can pretty much drive on any side of the road you prefer, you know – the one where the potholes are smaller or the cows aren’t defecating.

Lastly but not least I will mention that if you get in accident, you are screwed; which is mostly due to the fact that there really isn’t a fair justice system let alone a road-rules-enforcement agency. Those with the money pay. And since white people, affectionately called mzungu’s, are walking dollar signs, they are always at fault and responsible to foot the bill. Naturally. There are also similar reactions and serious consequences if you accidentally execute a by-stander’s-brother-in-law’s-cousin’s-best friend’s-nephew’s duck.

When I go out driving it is probably my most fervent prayer time. Every moment I am praying I don’t decapitate a chicken or embarrassingly stall out when pulling into the compound, which I did last week – the stalling out in front of the gate, not the decapitating part. Needless to say, I am embracing the challenge. Driving a right-handed, manual Land Cruiser through craters called roads in Congo is just another thing to cross off my bucket list. Perhaps I need to amend that list and make a few adjustments to save myself from getting into other precarious, potentially hazardous learning experiences. But what fun would that be?