Saidi to the rescue, again!

You may not remember that my car has a name, as do all my cars. This one’s name is Saidi, which is “help” in Swahili. I named it that almost time I knew it was my car, as I knew what a big help it would be here. Today was another one of those times. As a partial digression: at our house we have a solar water heater with an electric back-up. Since it’s the rainy season, we haven’t had enough sun lately to heat our water, and apparently the back-up isn’t working, so we’ve been heating kettles of water every morning and taking bucket baths. However, this morning, after 2 pretty sunny days, I actually had warm water for my shower, and I got in without having to wait for my (at the moment) 5 housemates to finish with the shower! I had a lovely shower and had come down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and begin a leisurely Sunday morning getting ready for church when… Corinne, one of the other mentors, came in and said Samwelli, one of our TZ security guards’ wife was about to give birth and could I… she just left it hanging, but I knew she meant could I take them to the hospital? I told her to tell him I needed 5 minutes, and I rushed upstairs, dressed, put on make-up, grabbed what I‘d need for church, grabbed my tea, and was out the door. It was drizzling a bit, but not enough to make the road any worse, and he and I took off to get his wife. She and her friends were walking (!) down the road to meet us, so I picked up 3 of them and we were off. As bad as the road usually is, it felt even worse today with a very pregnant mama in the back seat! I actually prayed I’d miss most of the potholes! No trouble, and we made it to the hospital with time to spare (as she didn’t have the baby in my car!), and Samwelli had the biggest grin when they all got out of the car! Can’t wait to hear what they had. You can’t make this stuff up!