Driving

Today one of my colleagues came back from a trip to India. I was the only one around, so I was in charge of driving to the bus station to pick him up, dropping him at his house and then bringing the truck back home. How this truck is a Datsun pickup, which is older than I am. It's a fierce beast, but before continuing this post, I feel like I should list some things that we take for granted driving to the states.

1. Power steering
2. Defoggers
3. Labeled gears (you just have to memorize where to swing the gear-shifter)
4. Anti-lock brakes
5. Paved roads
6. Paved roads that don't have speed bumps every 50 feet
7. 1st gear

Now then, I drove this truck once for a quarter mile while we were in a village. Other than that, I haven't driven in 15 months. Prior to that, I was nearly always driving an automatic (with the exception of a few lessons from my father on driving stick, where I was always really close to getting the hang of it). Well, nothing like a little fire under my matako to help me learn.

The first step was getting it out of the parking space. Getting the gear-shifter (not located next to the driver's seat, but rather on the side of the steering wheel, so not exactly a gear-stick) into reverse took some effort, but I finally pulled it off. I backed out and promptly stalled out. I guess that's the right time to do it. Then I put it into 2nd gear (the truck technically has first gear, but it's hard to find it reliably) and started driving. Now, the windshield was completely fogged over, and there was no traction in the mud, and I had to fight my way through the rain, so I drove (slid might be more accurate) about ten feet before hitting a tree. Fortunately, I was going around 5 mph and banana trees have a lot of give to them (our neighbors have that banana tree way too close to the road anyway), so it wasn't much of an issue.

Then, I made it to the path where some mamas asked me for a ride. I figured that they weren't really dangerous strangers, and it would be pretty cruel to leave them to walk through the rain, so I invited them in. It was actually a lot more calming to have passengers. I drove down the path about a quarter mile to the road. I figured it probably made sense to shift to 3rd, so I made the change. I didn't shift the gear again until I arrived at the bus stop (I was too busy struggling to see through the rain). The road was nice, being paved and all, but it also introduced the challenge of traffic. The first thing that I saw was a car driving at me (always unpleasant when it's raining). After a moment's hesitation, I remembered that I was not driving in the US, so I needed to drive on the left side of the road. Weird. Fortunately, collision averted.

I dropped the mamas off at a roundabout and drove one block to the bus stop. There was a bus exiting, so I had to stop before the speed bump for the turn in. I tried to start moving again, but wound up stalling out. I was too panicked to switch back to 2nd, so after three attempts, I managed to start the truck in 3rd and pull into the parking lot. The car pitched and grunted a lot those last 50 feet.

When I arrived, Bernard had just gotten in, and offered to drive the truck back to his place. I was very grateful. He was much better at it than I was. I've now seen Bernard in 3 different countries, met his sister, brother and parents, but today was the first time I met his wife and daughter. They were very friendly and Claudia (probably two years old) was adorable. Bernard asked his wife if she remembered me from the picture on top of the TV and she returned a puzzled look. Then we walked into the sitting room and he picked up a photo with 80 people in it and pointed to me. We all had a good laugh.

Driving home from Bernard's was a lot easier. There was no rain and I could change gears comfortably. I even found 1st gear a couple of times (unfortunately, usually when I was looking for 3rd). The traffic was a little tough to navigate (fortunately, after driving in Boston a few times, I felt that I could handle just about anything), but nothing unmanageable. I made it back home without event. Until the last 100 feet when I stalled and then I couldn't find 2nd (that gear-shifter is really infuriating). Fortunately, there was no traffic, so I had all the time in the world. I parked the car and went home to just relax a bit.