BrianJBecker.com

Rewind two weeks ago to the weekend before Thanksgiving. As the holiday and my coincidental birthday approached I felt an extra-strong desire to talk with friends and family over the net. Eastern DR Congo is now ten hours ahead of the West Coast, nine from Arizona, eight from Minnesota, and so on. This means that the prime time to talk to friends and family is their weekend midday and afternoon which keeps me up late at night. I’m usually fairly disciplined- I know that I need good rest, but two weeks ago I just couldn’t resist and I stayed up very late… two or three nights running.

Sunday morning I valiantly fought off sleep while seated before the congregation on the platform in the little mud brick church. Not my finest hour. After church there were many little kids crowded around the jeep. I was mostly thinking about a nap. Rather than backing up and making a three-point turn I decided to head about 100 yards down the path that the church is on where turning would be easier and where I wouldn’t risk backing into a toddler. I think I’m the only car that goes down this “road”. Nonetheless, it hadn’t rained for a couple of days and the dirt was fairly dry. There was a slight dip that looked a little damp, nothing serious. That damp sandy patch ate the jeep! And when the car went down, water started coming up. It’s the closest thing to quicksand that I’ve ever seen.

Once we managed to free the car we still had to turn around and make it back through that mess. A man said that he was a professional driver so I handed him the keys and asked him to show us his best pro skills. He gunned it and aimed straight for the big ruts I made the first time through. I’ve never seen so much liquefied earth fly so far! The rearview mirrors were caked in brown. (Beware: the cops give steep fines for muddy mirrors here.) It looked so cool… and the car was again so very stuck.  Round 2.

I’ve learned that when the car is stuck in mud and I am in the driver’s seat, I must only take direction from one designated foreman. At any given time I’m receiving advice and outright orders from three or four people and if I listen to two at once I risk shooting mud up somebody’s nostrils or worse, running them over if the car actually breaks free!

So there I was standing there in the hot sun, tired beyond belief, cracking jokes that I should use the mud to make bricks and just build a house next to the buried jeep. I tested out all of my sound effects, stupid human tricks and funny faces on the crowd of kids that gathered to watch my antics. I figure why not give them a good show.