Last night was a night to forget! There were so many mishaps on our drive home that I think we filled our quota for bad-things-that-happen-on-the-road for the rest of the summer.
Yesterday we left the office a little late, around 5:30, and drove to a nearby market so that Chris and Leehe could do some grocery shopping. When we started to head home, our new driver Charles realized that we didn’t have enough gas for the ride.
Charles stopped at a couple of gas stations but none of them gave him gas—the first station couldn’t print a receipt (the driver needed one to give to the office), and the second station said they didn’t have any gas.
We turned onto the highway to head to yet another gas station. Just as we entered the highway, a local bus started to exit the highway. Our car and the bus hit each other and then separated as soon as the hit happened. The damage wasn’t bad—our mirror was knocked off and there is a paint-stained dent at the front of our car—and, more importantly, none of us were hurt. An elderly man hanging from the side of the bus could have been badly injured—he was sandwiched between the bus and the car when we hit—but all he got was a bloody nose.
Both the bus and the car pulled to the side of the highway to sort things out. Because the accident was not the explicit fault of either driver, no one lost their temper. However, the fact was that an elderly man was injured and needed medical attention.
The crowd outside assumed that we White people would have money and want to get the episode taken care of quickly, so they asked us to simply give the man N1500 (about $13) and continue on our way. We decided not to give him cash but to take him to a hospital instead, and have the elderly man and the medical staff negotiate the price of his care.
As we headed to the hospital, however, the man insisted that he would rather have the N1500, that the hospital would charge him too much money, and that we should just drop him off at the side of the road. We concluded that the hospital would be too much trouble, so we finally gave the man N1500 and dropped him off, as he asked.
Our car was dented, the mirror was knocked off, and we still had no gas. So we returned to the office to switch our damaged car for one that had enough gas to get us home. When we set out, it was getting late and the traffic had picked up considerably. By the time we reached Chris and Leehe’s house, we had spent nearly two hours in traffic that moved at a snail’s pace (the drive to their house usually takes less than an hour).
It was finally time for the driver to take me home. As we turned onto the road outside Chris and Leehe’s house, the car simply stalled. A dead battery was the likely culprit. I called Chris and Leehe and told them to meet me on the road so I could walk back to their house.
While I was waiting for them, a woman pulled onto the side of the road to ask if we needed help. It turned out that she lived only a short distance away from where I live, so she drove me home. Or almost home—she didn’t want to take her nice, new car through the pond-sized puddles on the road outside my house (a decision I completely understand), so I took my bags and trudged around the water, finally getting home at about 9:45, over four hours after leaving the office.
While I was enjoying my dinner at home, Chris and Leehe and Charles pushed the dead car back to Chris and Leehe’s house, and Charles spent the night with them. He was really grateful for their hospitality and for the chance to chill out after the ride.
This morning, another driver from FATE Foundation came to check out the car. He realized that the battery was not dead after all, and that it was a simple security switch that Charles needed to press to make the car work again. He must have been frazzled from the accident earlier that night and forgotten how to work the switch.
Chris and Leehe and I have yet another story to tell once we return to New York...
