Flat

When in a country where you don't know the language and there are people everywhere and police and militias are all over, you don't often want to stop on the side of the road if you aren't going to quick go into a shop and quickly get out. So when there was a weird sound coming from the car whenever I accelerated I didn't really want to stop. A surgeon from Holland who now lives in Uganda didn't notice anything, or if she did she didn't say anything anyways. Finally though there was a space on the side of the road I was comfortable pulling over into. There weren't too many people and I had to check it out. Something wasn't right.

As I had thought the back tire on the passenger side was flat. I was pretty disappointed because I thought I was doing a really good job of avoiding potholes and couldn't think of one pothole that was worse than any other I did and was trying to figure out when it would have happened. Either way though, the tire was definitely flat.

I put in a call to Harper as a guy came to the window and started chatting with the surgeon. Soon she was leaving with this guy to go to the hospital and left me, who had no clue what any of the 6 people around the car were saying, by myself. Harper was calling the hospital and they would send someone, but I didn't really want to wait. Getting out and fixing it myself was much more comforting than having every Congolese person who walked by try and talk to me through the window. I opened the trunk and was looking for the tire jack... couldn't find one. There was a tire iron under the driver's seat so I got that out.

There was one guy who said he would help me. If I could only find the jack I wouldn't need his help and I could do it myself. Oh well, I gave in knowing what would happen. Someone had the tire iron and was taking the spare off the back and someone else went to get a "crank." Soon the spare was off and the flat tire loosened. The crank was brought and in no time at all two people had the tire fixed, but there were also 4 watching. As it got closer to being done the guy who was helping me said something about "see we are finished, now we just wait for a gift from DOCS*" I knew that was coming.

They finished and I grabbed the tire iron and the spare tire and trunked them. Then I got in the car and shut the door with the window only open a bit and looked for some money I pulled out a couple dollars and the guy laughed. I was thinking 5 maybe, but you can't start like that.

"Maybe 10" he said indicating all the people who had helped.
"Whatever" I told him "two people helped and the rest watched."
"Come on, we need 10"
"No way. 5 at the most."
"5? no."
"Fine" I said as I gave him a dollar and 200 franks (like 40 cents) and closed my wallet.
"Ok, 5. And 1 for crank. I need gift for man with crank."
"all right" I said as I handed him the 5 as well. I drove off after saying thanks thinking we really need a tire jack in the car. I wonder if there is one and I just didn't see it. Anyways, I knew it was going to cost me and besides not minding the 5 dollars, it was a great cultural experience and happened remarkably like I thought it was going to.

* DOCS is what HEAL Africa used to be called and around Goma it is still often called DOCS HEAL Africa or just DOCS