On Sunday morning, on our trip to Dodoma's cathedral, I allowed Joel to sit on my knee in the driver's seat and play in the front of the car whilst we sat and waited in a mini "traffic jam" to find a parking space. To his great delight, Joel discovered the lever for the headlights and had great fun flicking them on and off....When we eventually parked the car, I did not think to check whether we had switched the lights off again- and in the bright African sunlight, I would not notice if they had been left on.
We went into the service and then joined church friends afterwards for tea, coffee and cake in the courtyard at the side of the cathedral...and by the time we returned to the car, 2 hours had passed...and to my horror, I discovered that not only had we left the headlights on, but that the car battery was completely flat! That will teach me to allow small children near the controls of a car!
Since Andrew was still away on his South Africa trip, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to get the car started again- but it seems most ex-pats and missionaries who have lived in Africa a long time are very experienced at starting cars with flat batteries, so help was close at hand!
Under instruction from such experienced bodies, my children were strapped into the car, an older lady hopped into the driver's seat to steer the car and keep the clutch down and the rest of us were dispatched as the Work Party, using a bit of muscle to run around and around the cathedral car park until the engine thankfully sprang back into life!!
Good job it happened there in the cathedral grounds and not on a slippery muddy road some where or on one of the roads in your next blog!
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