The Gibsons online blog

Night driving isn't particularly advised here in Burkina Faso, one; because of bandits on the road, and two; because of hazardous objects such as goats, cows, cyclists, potholes and an abundant of debris ranging from animal carcasses to vehicle parts deposited by the previous day's traffic.  On the bush roads bandits don't seem to be as much of a problem but there is certainly an increased element of the unexpected as well as the possibility of getting severely lost in the network of tracks with trees as your only signposts.  Over the last few months I have found night driving difficult to avoid just by the very nature of ministry amongst the Fulani.

One village I have been working in is about 23km out of Djibo.  Last year some parts of the road out there have been worked on to make it a little easier to make the commute.  The down side of this is that some parts of the road are in a state of semi repair which creates other problems.  For example, whilst one is whistling along at 50kmph there is the risk of coming to a section that is in the state of incompletion.  Not too much of a problem in the daylight.  Big problem at night – and this is what happened to me last week.

I was happily driving back from the village mulling over the evenings events in my mind when suddenly this chasm of a rut appeared before me.  I slammed on the brakes, skidded on the dust and hit the ditch with immense force.  The car just seemed to shoot up in the air as the front wheels hit.  Straitening myself up again and putting my glasses back on my nose I was convinced I must have done some serious damage to the vehicle.  This was axel splitting stuff, I was convinced.  And so, I got out of the car, made an inspection, saw no dripping oil, got back in and drove on being sensitive to the fact that all four wheels could pop off at any moment.  Twenty minutes later I arrived back in Djibo without a hitch, thinking to myself that I had got off very lightly with that one.

The following week I was making the same trip.  I slowed right down and turned of the main road onto the narrow track heading towards the village when the steering felt a little strange.  Must be a flat tyre, I thought.  Once again I got out of the car, made the inspection of all four tyres.  No flat!  Strange, must be the sand on the road.  I continued a little way on my journey only to find the steering was still feeling very loose and so I got out once again making a closer inspection only to discover that when I turned my left front wheel manually my steering wheel didn't budge.  Ah!  We have a problem.  Fortunately the other front wheel seemed to be doing what it was meant to and so, from that point on, driving was restricted to about 10kmph.  I wasn't far from the village so I carried on, informed them that I wouldn't be able to do the teaching that evening and headed back to Djibo.  The journey that normally took 30 mins took over 2 hours, but I was very grateful I got back in one piece.

I managed to find a mechanic in Djibo and was reliably informed that if I had been travelling at any speed when the steering rod had disconnected the consequences would have been a lot worse.  We are now limited to two wheeled transport as the part we need to fix the car has to be shipped in from Europe.  We have been informed that this will probably take about a month (the term "be with you in a month" tends to be understood here as estimating a month at the earliest rather than being an exact date).

I guess 4x4 vehicles aren't indestructible after all.  We thank God for his protection. It could have been a lot worse.