I was going to be different.

You know the stereotype; the nervous sweating driving instructor who frequently screams in panic and bursts into tears with seemingly no good reason.

Calm was my mantra, and I’m not ever sure what a mantra is. But I would gently reassure them and guide them into happy driving. After all, I had spent the term covering the curriculum with them and had fallen in love with all of them. It was going to be easy.

Not that driving here is easy. Kenya drives on the left, there are no automatics here, there are no paved roads, and we are in a very hilly area. But I was serene the night before; my bride was not, but I was.

The first driver did fine. She had driven in Nairobi with her father, and she was a very competent driver.

Then my problems began. The next driver stalled out 22 (no exaggeration) times. I thought that I might have to sit on her lap and operate the clutch for her. She came up with a different solution; she gave her full concentration to the pedals, at the exclusion of everything else. And she got it in gear. The car started moving, and she kept her eyes on her pride and joy, her feet.

In a calm voice, I said `It is good that you got the car in gear, but you must also steer the car.’ Her reply will live with me the rest of my days: `Oh’ said she as she continued to look at her feet while the left wheels of the car went up an embankment and stopped. She got out of the car, and I moved the car to a level area, but at this point I became aware that I was perspiring.

The next driver was what we driving instructors would call a nervous driver. She informed me that she could not drive, and had always fancied buses anyway. She stalled out the car several times. In a still gentle voice, I told her `Ease off the clutch and gently touch the gas pedal.’

Several things happen next. She put the car into gear, which was a good thing. But as she removed the clutch, she put the gas pedal all the way to the floor, which was a bad thing. She screamed rather loudly, and I said in a somewhat encouraging voice `Ease off the gas, but you got it into gear: Great job!’ She then steered the car into an embankment with the gas pedal fully engaged, which was a worst thing. `Steer the car’ I yelled in a somewhat panicked voice. `Where is the gas?’ she screamed in a very panicked voice.

At this point, I was standing in my seat, pulling the emergency brake up as far as it would go, screaming as loud as I could: ` Get Off the Gas, Get Off the Gas!!!’ The car was confused: the gas pedal was fully engaged, as well as the brake. What did we actually want to do, I could imagine it asking us. Finally it stopped, and as I tried to survey the damage, she asked `What is that smell?’

The answer was a sad one: `That used to be the brake.’ But no damage to the car of any passengers, and we begin again next week.

We hired Charles to do a carving demonstration for our dorm boys. He makes his living carving wood into ornaments and spoons. He is an amazing guy; he had his thumb bitten off by a hyena that was attacking his cow. He fought it off, but lost his thumb and the use one finger in the battle. And somehow he has developed an incredible skill in carving.

He brought ten pieces of wood in various stages, to show the boys the process. Then he took a raw piece of olivewood, and began the work of making that into a serving spoon. His tools were a machete, a file, one piece of sandpaper, and a log. He made all the cuts with a machete, used the file and sandpaper to smooth out rough-cuts, and his log was his workbench, vise, and measuring tool.

In two hours, he turned the piece of wood into something beautiful. Without a thumb and with the crudest tools imaginable. The boys were just amazed, and again we hope for something that moves down to their hearts. Africa can break your heart, but it is full of people who have made something beautiful out of so little.

YOP

S