Hey folks! I don't usually hang out in here--too much to keep up with elsewhere on the board already--but I've got a piece I'm working on that I posted up in my LJ, and Steph suggested I put it up here too. So I hope I'm not crashing the party or anything, but I'd really appreciate seeing what you have to say about this. I'm using it as a writing sample for a job I'm applying to. Thanks in advance for your help. (Steph, and others who may have seen this in LJ, the ending is a little different now.)
Toyota Country
The trouble began as soon as we crossed the border from Zimbabwe into Zambia. By all rights that's where the trouble should have ended. Our forty-eight hours in Zimbabwe had been exhilarating, but not without their share of dangers, including eight roadblocks manned by armed soldiers and the very real possibility that we might run out of gas in a remote area of a country experiencing a severe fuel shortage. Once we'd jumped through the usual hoops at the border crossing, the rest of the day's drive should have been easy.
Our destination that night was the Lake Kariba region of Zambia, a mountainous area with poorly paved roads, to which our truck, a Toyota Hilux four-wheel-drive, took an instant dislike. Every time Henrik, our designated bad-roads driver, switched gears, the car shuddered and made ominous noises; meanwhile, night was coming on rapidly. Fortunately, we weren't too far from Kariba, and we made it safely to our campground that night, but it was clear that the problem required immediate attention of the sort that we were unlikely to be able to provide ourselves. Our crew was composed of an artist, an aspiring journalist, two musicians, and an architect--not a mechanic in the bunch.
Henrik, who alone among us could claim any degree of competency in the field of car repair, eventually determined that the clutch was completely shot and would have to be repaired. The good news was that this meant it wasn't our fault: the clutch had simply worn down over several years of hard use, and the rental company would have to reimburse us for the cost of the repairs. The bad news was that we would somehow have to get the car to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, to find someone whom the rental company would authorize to fix it. I must admit we weren't terribly disappointed to cut short our stay at Lake Kariba, which was full of bilharzia and crocodiles, besides being a favorite breeding ground for mosquitoes and giant spiders. In the morning, once the violent storm of the night before had settled, we set off for Lusaka.
By some miracle, the clutch survived long enough for us to locate the Toyota dealership in downtown Lusaka. They seemed competent, and so we tried not to worry too much. We stayed the night in a nearby hostel, where I washed my hair for the first time since we'd left Mozambique. By the next day our truck was fixed and we were on our way to Victoria Falls, already back on schedule. My chief memory of the Zambian countryside is of huge red termite mounds rising out of the ground on both sides of the road, an eerie but not unpleasant landscape. We spent an enjoyable few days at Victoria Falls and then headed off into Botswana to stay in Chobe National Park.
We hadn't driven very far into the park before we came across a herd of elephants spread out across the plain before us, most congregated near a small river about a quarter of a mile away. We stopped the car and got out to admire the sight; after all, we had plenty of time before nightfall, certainly enough time to meander through the park and enjoy the views. Until we tried to move the car out of the sand, and discovered that the four-wheel-drive wasn't working anymore.
Twenty minutes and several strained muscles later, we finally managed to push the car out of the sand where it had stuck, but we had no choice but to go back into the small town we'd passed through earlier and look for a place that could fix it. Without the four-wheel-drive, we'd never be able to reach our campsite in the middle of the park; the roads, barely more than sandy tracks, were unnavigable without it. We made several inquiries, and someone directed us to a local Toyota dealership. We were in luck! Except that it turned out to be no more than a gas station, where they obviously did not employ anyone who knew the first thing about car repair, nor could they tell us who might be able to help us. We began to despair of finding anyone who could possibly fix our vehicle. Underneath a billboard proclaiming "Botswana is Toyota Country!" we drove up and down the same few roads, searching for a mechanic and cursing the incompetency of Toyota Lusaka.
Finally our luck turned, and someone pointed us in the direction of Mario's Repair Shop. Mario, our savior! Mario, I forgive you the calendars of naked women posing on the hoods of classic cars in your office; I forgive you your terrible smoker's breath and the sorry state of your bathroom. Mario, I would have forgiven even worse sins than these, for you fixed our car and put it back together properly, unlike the halfwits at Toyota Lusaka who put the gear box back in upside down. Thanks to Mario, we reached our campsite just as the sun was going down, in time to see a silent elephant shadow passing by not fifty feet away.
(continued in next post)