Driving Miss Jabu

On Monday July 31st, I was excited to move on from Durban to Nongoma, my final destination. I was picked up at the hostel by two women from the UN partner organization, Media in Education Trust. One was Jabu, who had helped Angela the previous student who stayed in Nongoma for the HERO program. We drove to back to the Durban Airport to pick up my sweet car from Alamo. I had reserved the car for a week with the hopes of relinquishing the vehicle later to save money. The 2-door, manual, no a.c. rental had costs me 1000 rand (~$150) for 7 days or possibly 8000 rand (~$1200) - a dense bill for thin pockets. The two women and my organizers were convinced that I would need a vehicle for my clinical work in Nongoma. With a little Asian charm, I drove off with a beautiful upgrade - 4 door, manual, a.c. Nissan Almera.

Jabu quietly sat in my passenger seat (on the left side) not knowing the horror that was too follow. I’m surprised she didn’t have a MI. Here’s why:

1) I have never driven on the left side of the road on purpose.
2) The driver seat is in the right side and the stick is on the left.
3) I have practiced driving a stick only five times previously with my girlfriend Krista and my disc golf partner Nico Zbacnik in the flat lands of Minnesota.
4) SAs are crazy fast drivers particularly the min-bus drivers.
5) The four hour drive consists of mountainous terrain – mostly up.
6) In rural areas, goats, cows, and other types of assorted animals camp out on and dominate the roads.
7) The shoulders of the freeway are sidewalks for hitchhikers.

Back home, I thought moving from a stop on an uphill slope was hard. I was wrong! Driving up a mountain in fifth gear is apparently impossible, which I never learned before. Several times, I would drive in fifth gear and then hit a stretch of upward incline that required me to bottom out the gas pedal. Yet to my surprise, the rpms slowly dropped and then the speedometer fell to a pathetic 20-40 km per hour. Oblivious, I continued to flatten the gas pedal and watch my poor Nissan move like a snail to a stall midway up each mountain. Now my car sat frozen on the mountainside with other vehicles zooming by. Unfortunately Jabu didn’t know how to drive and was unable to provide me any tips. After three to four attempts to move up a hill from a complete stop, I was able to drive in 2nd gear at about 40-50 km per hour and the rpms flying above 4000 (Nico and Krista, where are you?). Luckily, Jabu and I survived my ineptitude thrice more en route to Nongoma.