Stranded in Senzani

We woke up on the Thursday morning of the 21st of August and we were ready to go! After a nice cup of coffee (which we knocked over twice) we hit the road! After we checked the tire pressure and we filled her up, off we went! Yep, she’s loud, but the radio was working and with our new Zambian Hits collection 2008 we felt like a King.
It looked like she got her power back after her treatment at Simms and we could even take over trucks if we needed to. Great! But we took it slow; she likes an average speed of about 80 km an hour or less. BB (which stands for Big Bertha, or Beast of Burden, applicable to different situations) surprised us after about 90 km. Suddenly we smelled something burning. And we saw some smoke, not a lot, but just a little. Also Martin felt she was losing power. So we pulled over and opened the hood. Yep, there was some smoke, though we could not exactly figure out from where exactly. We checked the oil and it was too low, which was strange, but not unusual. So we filled her up and thought we fixed the problem. She did not show any signs of leakage, so we went on.
Sadly for us it got even worse! She lost all her power and we managed to roll her down into a small village.
Great, stranded in the middle of…where are we actually? The meter showed we had driven exactly 99.5 km from Blantyre.

It turned out to be the beautiful village of Senzani. First everybody stared at those two azungu. One was lying under the car and the other one was going through the pages of a big manual, both trying to figure out the problem. After Martin asked if there was a mechanic in the village, everybody started coming to the car. Sensation in Senzani! Within no time our car was surrounded by curious kids and a lot of men. It turned out there was a mechanic. He came towards us in a nice suit, so he had to borrow one of Martin’s old shirts in order to climb under the car. I thought that was odd, but he, we’re not in a position to question here. Within a few minutes there were 5 people under our car.
We called Isaac from Majete and had him talk to the mechanic here to figure out the problem. They both agreed it might be the seal between the engine and the gearbox. But to take that out, they had to take out the whole gearbox, including 4x4 part. This was connected to the handbrake (of course) and to the axle (aandrijfas). It was all taken apart. A good thing (really?) was that they found out the clutch plate was about to go as well, so this one needed immediate replacement as well.

We heard music coming from the local bar. Yep, it was our favourite hit…it’s over-over. When Martin told the guys haha, our car is over-over, they all started laughing…yep bwana, this car is over-over! This disturbed me, because normally Malawians think everything can be fixed…

Ok, so we needed new parts. But we’re still in Senzani. The parts needed to be bought in Blantyre, if available at all.
This put us in a dilemma. We don’t want to send someone with our money to Blantyre. We are not going to split up. And we don’t want to leave our car with all our stuff here. So what else can we do?
We thought of Mich. We met him in Doogles before and he said, if there’s anything I can do for you, no matter where you are, just call me…Well…

By now it was about 4 pm and we really ran out of options. But Mich was great! He apologized he could not pick us up today anymore, but if it was ok if he would be there tomorrow morning. He could tow us back to his workshop and we would fix her again. Eh…that’s absolutely great! Our Landie provided us a place to sleep and we could keep an eye on our stuff at the same time, so that was no problem.

The people in Senzani welcomed us warmly. We could use their facilities like toilet. Eh, change the picture in your head now, I mean a Malawian village toilet, but he, we have nothing to complain! Martin was offered a shower by James, one of the ‘mechanics’. A big bucket was filled with warm water! Martin already started to wash himself, when James said: what are you doing? You can use the shower. The shower was a mud walled little place outside where he could use the whole bucket. But Martin, being modest, only used two cups.
The next morning we spoke to James again and he told us his mother asked him the question if white people get cleaner easily, since Martin only used two cups? James told his mother that it was a mix of their skin and stronger soap, so they needed less water…;)

Back to the Thursday. At around 1 I really could not hold it any longer and asked at the office of World Vision (a well-known NGO in Malawi) if I could use a toilet. Jane jumped to this and took me to her home. She invited me for lunch right away and Martin and I entered a house where the television was tuned in in the Olympics. That was unexpected. But Jane works for World-Vision, and her husband is back to school. I think they are in a better position then many of their neighbors, although Jane was asking if I could find sponsors to help her and her husband. Ah, always the same questions.

We spend the night in our car. The people of Senzani were great. They looked after us and the car and we felt safe.

The next morning Mich arrived and towed us all the way back to Blantyre. A journey of about 3 hours. There we parked the car at the big workshop of Loadmasters. Mich invited us to stay at the guesthouse at his house where we were welcomed by two kids who were besides themselves of happiness…two kids who met us in Majete already with their schoolvisit. So when they found out the Majete people were coming…haha! So it was a very warm welcome.

Fortunately we could find all the spare parts in Blantyre, although it set us back another $ 500. Well, that’s life. And that’s what you sign up for when you buy a 28-year old car I guess. But at least we had everything. Tomorrow another day. We celebrated the fact that we were back in Blantyre (never thought I would actually be glad to be back…) with a beer, or two ;)

Saturday
Mich lent us his mechanic to help on the car!!! We have a manual on the car, but it is divided in 5 phases. We have the books of level 1 and 2. So we can look up how to replace a diesel filter, but replacing a clutch plate, pressure group, release bearing, slave cylinder and a rear camshaft seal (keerkring) is something else! Actually, that was level 5! No, we did not have that book ;)
It took the mechanic the whole day to put back the seal. We left at about 3 and in the evening we got a phone call... it broke…*sigh*… and tomorrow is Sunday, so no spare parts. We try to look at all things as positive as we can, but sometimes it’s just pretty difficult!

Sunday
Easy going Sunday. A good Sunday since a long long time! Went out to town for some coffee and lunch, watched a movie in the middle of the day, jumped around on the trampoline and cooked dinner for our host family. It almost felt like holiday!

Monday
Another day, another chance. We found another seal and started again. Mich and his brother-in-law helped us all morning with the car. It was really quite difficult and not something any mechanic could do, so we were really really happy they put their time and effort in this. They know Landrovers by heart from traveling through Africa themselves and that helped a lot as well!
They also pointed out some other things we should keep an eye on and teached us all the ins and outs on Landrovers. It was sort of a 3-day intensive training course. But that’s exactly what we needed.
We’re not done yet, but tomorrow we will. And then we will treat both families on a well-deserved braai for their fabulous hospitality and all time and effort!

In the end it was actually a good thing we broke down, because this was bound to happen. And it took 3 days to fix! But now it has been done by people who know what they’re doing and we learned a lot as well. And we had a great time!

If everything goes well, we’ll probably try to get to Lilongwe on Wednesday again.

With love,
Amy and Martin