Tire

I walk over to the mini-bus, my muscles aching and my back burned. I've just been out in the hot sun all putting in the plumbing for our house at the new surgery center in Moundou so the builder can pour the floor and keep things moving. I glance at the rear tire and see it's gone mostly flat. It's had a slow leak for a while, but this is going flat quicker than normal. Sarah and I hop in, I start her up and we pull out onto Moundou's one paved road.

In the round about ahead is the statue of an African woman next to a large, homemade water jar reaching out half a calabash of water to us thirsting passersby. Just past the effigy I spot a yellow tank with a motor and old belt on top. A tire repair shop. I screech to a halt and look down the dirt embankment to a teetering brick wall where someone has stretched out a ragged tarp between a tipped up push cart steadied with palm fronds and an old metal sign. The tarp is attached to it's supports with old inner tube that allows it to toss and turn at the whim of the wind offering varying degrees of shade.

Under the tarp a man is stretched out asleep on a board balanced precariously on each end by two old tires.

"Hey, anyone working today or are you closed?" I shout out in French in the man's general direction. He sits up and smiles and walks up to us.

"My back tire is low and needs to be repaired," I say to the man as I step out of the van and around to the back passenger side. He nods and mumbles.

"TWENTY THOUSAND? Are you crazy?" I respond incredulously.

The man smiles and laughs. "No, no! TWO thousand, not twenty." He walks over towards his homemade tools scattered all over the ground. "Twenty thousand, that's practically the price of a new tire. No, I would never say that."

I agree with a nod and a grin and the man gets to work jacking up the van to take off the tire.

"Mind if I sit in your shade?" I ask. He tells me to go right ahead and then when he sees Sarah still sitting in the van, he motions that she should join me, which she does.

We both quietly read until I see he has the tire off the rim. I get slowly to my feet and saunter on over where the man shows me a nail poking through the rubber.

"That's what made the tire go down quick, put there must be another hole somewhere because it has had a slow leak for awhile."

"Sure, no problem."

I go back and resume reading my friend Franklin Cobos' book about his experiences in Chad in 2008 called "It Could Be Worse." Little do I know how pertinent his title will seem in retrospect.

The man calls me over and points out a piece of bailing wire that he also found in the tire. He patches both with old pieces of inner tube and glue. I figure he's about done, but return to my reading anyway. After 20 more minutes I see him still struggling to inflate the tubeless tire. I see him walk away across the paved road and return 5 minutes later with a back of flour. I stop reading and watch closely. He puts it in a bowl and deftly mixes in a little water till he's created a very sticky dough. Then he smears it around the edge of the tire. I get up and stand nearby watching in typical Chadian fashion. As he tries to inflate the tire with the air hose the dough puffs out in a couple places like a kid trying to make bubbles with chewing gum.

"I need more flour." The man states matter-of-factly and takes off again soon returning with double the amount of flour. He repeats the procedure until practically the whole tire is white with dough. I wonder if it sits enough on the hot Chadian pavement if it'll turn into bread and stop up the holes. It still doesn't inflate after multiple trials interspersed with reapplication of the dough.

"I'll go see a brother who can help." With that he takes off with the tire back towards where we came from, rolling the white doughy mass in front of him until he's out of sight. I go back to my book. Finally, he comes back and shows me an inflated tire with pieces of plastic jutting out around the edges in between the lumps of dough. It seems to be holding air, though, so I nod my approval and he remounts the tire.

"Four thousand francs." He demands.

"Whoa, buddy, we agreed on two thousand, here take it."

"NO! I fixed two holes, two thousand per hole!"

"The extra work wasn't patching the hole, it was taking the tire off and trying to re-inflate it! That's not my problem that you didn't know what you were doing and had to take it elsewhere!"

I hold out the two thousand franc note. He looks at it in scorn. "Either four thousand or you keep your money!"

"Take it!" I try to give it to him, when he refuses I put it in his cardboard box and go around to the driver's side. The man comes to the passenger side and reaches across Sarah and grabs a hack saw sitting on the console between the seats. Sarah grabs the hacksaw as well and almost falls out of the car wrestling with the man until he wrenches it from her grasp. Meanwhile, I've quickly gone back around and take the saw back, twisting it out of his hands.

"Now you're going to steal something or what!?" I motion for some people across the street to come over as witnesses and intermediaries. I motion Sarah to get back in the van and try to close the door behind her. He pushes his butt in the way. I push him out and close the door but he reopens it and wedges himself in there again. I push him out again with a hip thrust and this time lock the door and manage to close it while boxing the man out as I lift the handle on the door so it stays locked.

Meanwhile, a small crowd has gathered and the man starts shouting out in Arabic about not having eaten anything all day because it's Ramadan, the Muslim fast. I switch over to Arabic and shout out a few things about that he'd agreed to two thousand and then tries to change his mind and steal our saw and molest my woman. The man just keeps repeating the same things over and over even as other Chadians try to reason with him and motion me to just go. So I get in, hope desperately the van will start (which it does) and take off without a look back, hoping desperately that the plastic and dough holds up at least till I get out of view.