the support vehicle gets stuck

So we bought a ‘moto twa woo’ a three wheel moto-cum tuk-tuk to take the children to and from the respite care centre, Maison de Benediction (MDB), because local taxi drives would either refuse to take the disabled children or charge a crazy premium (x10 the fare!).

After many weeks of bureaucracy, painful bureaucracy (don’t get me started), we had insurance and ‘tags’ (a number plate).  For the first run, we figured that it would be a good idea to go in support, checking addresses, lifting and positioning technique for the children and of course reliability – so far we have had many, many ‘teething troubles’ and it hasn’t been used yet!

It rained over the weekend, but we were greeted with bright blue sky and hot sun today.  The first pick up went well, a good omen?  The second pick up was half way into town through a maze of streets – well dirt roads I guess, there is very little tarmac here.

We followed a t a discrete distance, and as we rounded a corner I could just see the moto in the distance, some way on from the enormous puddle of brown soup spanning the road and maybe 30  yards long! In these situations I normally try and keep two wheel on the firm(ish) ground at the edge of the puddle as you never know what is under the surface.  But little did I realise that the edge of this one was 5 or 6 inches of porridge, so we soon came to halt.  No probs, I’ll just select ‘low ratio’ and crawl out (2WD of course I think I said previously our driveshaft had been stolen…).

No joy, nor in reverse either.  There was no procrastinating to be had, I knew the next option was me pushing, so just jumped out into the puddle (its LHD remember), so that’ me upto my shins in, well, not pleasant.  

After lots of pushing and shoving, digging, rocks under wheels, even a willing volunteer we were getting no-where.  My new best friend flagged down a passing taxi and I got the tow rope out.  That was no good though.  We were too heavy / too stuck and his truck was not man enough.  That didn’t stop him trying though, and clearly the lack of movement was due to my fellow ‘blancs’ lack of driving skills, so he jumped up onto the door, prised it open and shoved my mate out of the way to take charge himself.  Only such was his enthusiasm for helping us, he did not assess the situation properly.  If he couldn’t pull us out, then there was clearly no way he was going to drive us out whilst also pulling 1T of dead weight… we were still attached to his truck!

As you can imagine a crowd had gathered at this point, what a spectacle they had for themselves!  

Then we got our break, someone had called a friend across with an enormous dump truck.  From their perch on high, dry, solid ground it was barely an effort to pull us out.  Success!  But by this point I had been wading back and forth in the brown soup and mud for probably 45 minutes, oblivious to myself.  Sadly, there are no photo’s but it is safe to say I was a complete mess.  So, before I was let back in the ambulance I had to be hosed down and clean up.  Again more great sport for the watching crowd!  Someone very thoughtfully (pitifully?) brought out a bucket of water for me to wash down my pants and shoes.  I made an effort, just wanting to get out of there (or have the ground swallow me up, which it nearly had).  But that was not enough; no sir!  As I handed the bucket back, a scrubbing brush appeared!  So if I was not embarrassed enough, I now had to spend another 5 minutes scrubbing myself clean to their satisfaction before I could leave.  I ‘took care’ of my new best friend and climbed back into the ambulance to head for home, and needless to say, the moto was ‘home and hosed’ (literally) by the time I got back for my second cold shower of the day (even though it was only 1000).

The little tuk-tuk may look slight but it sure did give me a beating that day.