A Road Full of Obstacles

Where we live in Ethiopia, there is really only one option for vehicle transport—the white, two-door, 4WD Toyota Landcruiser. Aside from a few buses and commercial trucks, it is really the only car we see on the road. We have learned to distinguish the few car-owners in our area based on unique characteristics of their vehicle—the number of tires on top, a dent in the bumper, the logo is missing from one side.

This is not your suburban mom’s landcruiser. It is built specifically for powering over the rural back-roads of Africa. The air intake has a snorkel so we can drive through water that goes up to the windows. Each vehicle has two large diesel tanks so we can drive around for days without filling up (a good thing since our diesel supply is never reliable). And most importantly, the low gears are exceptionally powerful allowing us to plow through mud, guck, ditches, trenches, boulders, etc that until a year ago I would have written off as impassable.

On my regular public health road trips, I’ve encountered many surprising road blocks. Sometimes they are as mundane as a donkey who refuses to move from his comfortable perch in the center of the road. Other times, its, well, a little more adventurous…

A few weeks ago we were snaking down a steep gravelly hill after a rain storm. The road was narrow and forest was slowly reclaiming its territory on either side of the road—encroaching deeply into the road way. As we turned a bend we saw it… blocking the entire width of the road… a huge abandoned truck. The road was definitely too narrow to turn around in and way to steep to back up. We got out of the car and scratched our heads. Can’t go under it… can’t go over it… guess we’ll go around it… our outreach staff ran over to a nearby farm to acquire some machetes and set to work, slashing at the forest at a feverish pace--chopping down trees, vines, and brush to clear enough space for the car to fit through. Not trusting that I would actually make it through the forest safely, the outreach team all waited on the opposite side of the truck… allowing me to navigate the new road on my own….

And then, just the other day, we were stopped in our tracks by a group of workers who had dug a chest-deep hole across the road. For drainage, I guess. This time, there was no option of driving around the immense ditch. No option of turning back. The solution was simple enough…we just had to build a bridge over the ditch so our car could pass. So, again, the outreach team set to work… collecting logs, branches and mud. Yes, we were actually trusting that a bridge built out of mud and sticks would hold the car. Again, the team allowed me the honor of testing out the obstacle on my own…

Of course, in both of these stories we safely navigated the obstacle. I have to say, I’ve come to enjoy these trips in the LC. You really never know what’s around the next bend in the road.