Adventures with Kofi (rust bucket really!!)

We became the proud owners of Kofi, a 20 year old Chevrolet Geotracker (known in USA as a beach buggy), a few weeks ago. We bought Kofi from an expat couple, Birgit and Raj, living in Accra who were returning home. We felt that we could rely on their word that Kofi had served them well and that it would do the same for us, so we paid a lot more than we should have.

On our way from Accra to Ho, we first of all had to find petrol as there had been no petrol for a couple of days. We were told that we should be able to buy petrol late afternoon as Obama was visiting the next day and Ghana government would not want him to witness the long queues at all the petrol stations.

I was really anxious about getting some petrol as Raj had said that as it is such an old car, we should not let the petrol tank run too low otherwise dirt might get into the engine. Michael and I decided that we should try and get petrol in Tema as we had been informed that one petrol station did have it. Luckily for us it did and we both had a sigh of relief.

Now the road to Ho has many “sleeping policemen” or rumble strips. A huge number of these are made by local people as the cars speed through communities and are a cause of lots of accidents. A huge number of people involved in accidents end up having disabilities and nobody to pay the hospital bills that they cannot afford. So I can understand why they put these up. But Kofi does not like them at all – surprise surprise because I don’t think Kofi has had any suspension for years.

By the time we got to Ho and at the penultimate rumble strip, the car started making a dreadful noise. The exhaust pipe had come undone! So our first visit was to a mechanic before we could use Kofi again. Getting Kofi in our garage was the next challenge as the door is hardly ever used and we have to use brute force to open the locks and I am useless. However, what this does provide is entertainment to the children in the neighbourhood. We usually have a crowd of boys watching and sometimes helping and looking at wonderment at Kofi. I am so tempted to take them for a ride but worry if something was to happen. They usually get to sit and pretend to drive while I wait for the garage door to be opened.

Our next long trip was to Cape Coast when Ananda was here. It got us there with no problems except I was caught by the police for speeding!! I was going to have to go to Court, on hearing this Michael got angry with the policeman and I used all my charm to get us out of the situation. It worked!

The 3 of us plus Gloria and Dave decided to go to Kakum National park and about 5 miles away from Kakum the car just stopped. The accelerator had no impact. Dave and Michael stayed with the car while the rest of us walked to the Monkey Sanctuary run by a Dutch couple, Denis and Annetta. They have been there for 6 years and the local people bring them rescued animals usually babies whose mothers have been killed for bush meat. They have had so many problems from the Chief in the village, lives have been threatened but they continue to stay there. They have to travel to a village further away to collect their water due to the problems. Denis knows a lot about cars and even though he was unwell with a bad bout of malaria, he spent a few hours trying to work out what was wrong. He could not fix it and so Michael went back to Cape Coast to look for the parts Denis needed and we looked around the place and met all the animals. The spare parts did not solve the problem so we ended up parking the car and Denis promising to ask his friend to come and take the car the mend it. In the meantime we got to know all the horror stories the couple have had to face and all of us kept thinking we would not have lasted this long. They seem so isolated.

Next day we were to return to Accra for a meeting so it was lucky that Denis’ friend did manage to fix it – something to do with fuel injection. Otherwise we would have had to return to Cape Coast to collect the car at another time.

Our next long trip was to visit the west Coast and the exhaust pipe decided to pack up again. We had to stop at Cape Coast so that Dave’s friend could fix it for us. Dave had kindly arranged it and when we finally managed to find the place it was to be told that he had travelled to Accra! One of his other colleagues did a holding job saying we would need a new one soon. Lo and behold the next day we had to stop over at a mechanics place and he managed to sort it out and we were able to return to Ho without any further problems.

So although we may make extensive plans about our trip, it is Kofi that dictates whether we make it or not. The journeys are made more interesting as we get to know more about Kofi and what a bad shape it is in. We also get to know the people who work on him. Through a Ghanain friend we have met a local mechanic, Wala, and we have decided to let him sort all the problems.

One would think from the photo I knew what was wrong!!