DRIVE LIVINGSTON TO NDOLA

7 sleepy travellers up and into the van at 4am this morning for the long drive back to Ndola. Jane and I were crammed in the very back with a cooler and food box between us so we lay on each other and snuggled up to sleep the best we could. The trip was extremely bumpy with all of the potholes along the way and Gerry did an amazing job navigating them and minimizing the jarring. This did not aid our attempts at sleeping though and we were all jolted out of a doze abruptly countless times. We were about 30 minutes away from Grace Academy when I heard a strange sound in the back left side of the van. I listened and heard it again but didn't say anything so as not to cause unnecessary drama…..5 minutes later the van suddenly dropped on the left side with a horrific scraping sound as Gerry struggled to gain control of the vehicle and veer us off to the side of the road. We came to an abrupt halt as the tire of the van went bouncing by and on down the shoulder of the highway. With the vehicle safely on the side of the road, we all exited the van and tried to regain our composure as we looked at Mike, who was apparently unfazed and had began to spray himself with bugspray!!!! (This is after he had picked up the missing pieces of the van!) We contacted Susan who was immediately on her way to pick us up, so while we anxiously awaited we unloaded our luggage and piled it all up on the side of the highway. The problem with this as Jane quickly deduced, was that we foolish "Musungu" or white people were now advertising we had all sorts of things that might be worth a lot to poor African people who don't even own a toothbrush! We promptly piled all of the bags back into the vehicle!!! We waited on the side of the highway in the dark for Susan to pick us up, which she did promptly and got us all back to Grace safe and sound. Our trip has been nothing short of an adventure day in and day out to say the least.