Land Cruising

I've always thought driving a land cruiser through a river sounded fun. To leave the hospital to go to Harare this past weekend, we had to drive through a river that crosses the road just below the hospital. During the rainy season everyone drives around the river which is an extra 30 minutes longer, but why not save time by driving through a river when you can?



We packed up the land cruiser and headed off to Harare on the left side of the road with me behind the steering wheel on the right. For the first few miles I repeated "left side of the road" out loud to remind myself I wasn't crazy. Driving on the left in the city traffic brought more excitement, but thankfully all went well. I may have grown too comfortable, because on the way home I got a speeding ticket. Twenty dollars later though we were on the road again. We had just reached our last major turnoff on the way home when we recognized a nursing student among a small crowd of people waiting for rides by the roadside. Hitchhiking is a common way to travel here. We pulled over to see if she wanted a ride. She said "yes, but..." looking at the four other people with her and then at our vehicle already full with 3 adults (we had Corrie, a short-term teacher with us) a baby, and a month's worth of food piled in the back. Five minutes later we had crammed in three midwifery students and two nursing students, Lisa and Jude BOTH sitting in his car seat and Corrie laying on top of the food and bags in the back.

We were glad there were no more police checkpoints. If we had left the ladies, they likely would have been dropped off by someone else at the last major road 4 miles before the hospital unless they were lucky enough to get picked up someone else headed to the hospital, which is rare late on a Sunday afternoon, especially since the weekly Sunday afternoon Karanda soccer game was away that week. Needless to say, we were glad we could give them a lift. Everyone but Jude was also sore and "squished" by the time we finally reached the hospital, but thankful that God brought us safely back home.