Driving Miss Crazy

I find out of a couple of driving schools in town. I visit VETA first and learn that they only teach you to drive automatic cars. I arrange for a trial class with a teacher, mostly to check we can communicate OK inside the car. His English is worse than my Swahili but nonetheless within ten minutes he has me reversing. It feels great but somehow I think we’re cutting corners, and I am told by my colleagues it’s not safe to drive with male strangers even (or especially) if they seem friendly at first. In any case I need to learn to drive the STT jeep and only at Don Bosco do they teach manual driving. So I call Mr Siassa, a teacher recommended by two people I know. He is kind and respectful but his English again is very limited. I turn up to my first lesson wearing a buttoned up blouse. “Hello Sister Sophia”. He thinks I am a nun, I smile and decide it’s not such a bad idea to keep it this way. Our lessons take place in a very rusty jeep, the doors often flapping open unexpectedly while we drive, the gear box too stiff to move with one hand (he helps me so I can keep my other hand on the steering wheel). Mr Siassa does his best to explain things to me, I understand most of what he says and seek for clarification when I can’t. For instance when he gets the words ‘first’ and ‘second’ and ‘third’ muddled up, I try to elucidate what he means. The problem is he doesn’t reciprocate. So when I ask questions like, “Should I accelerate when I turn?” or “can I take my foot off the clutch now?”, his default reply is “Yes”. This has caused a few scares but I tell myself that there’s nothing like learning as you go.

On Saturday mornings I practice my mountain biking skills as I cycle to the Don Bosco convent, a 30 minute ride from Dodoma. On my way there I am struck by the sight of a man pushing a carriage of waste the size of a car. He is tiptoeing bare foot on the gravel, using all his strength to move the load. Cars drive fast past him. I join four teenage boys in our driving theory class. This can take place under the jeep, where we are instructed to look at the car’s organs close up, or in the garage, where we learn how to adjust dissected car parts. After checking the tyre pressure and wheel balance I wonder if I’ll qualify as a car mechanic before I can drive!