What was That!!??

By John Arthurs, K7WP

“What was THAT?” I looked over at Mike, KC7V, after the loud “thump” as we travelled along the rural two lane from Burkina Faso to Mali transporting our load of VooDoo equipment. At first I thought some of the tower sections had fallen off of the top of the bus that we had supposedly strapped down securely. Nope, I should have known after being in the tire business for 25 years…a flat tire on the bus. Little did I know just how fun that tire change experience was going to be!

Our mishap just happened to be across the road from a rural village, and the children of the village had just been released from school, it seems. In a very short time we had a large audience lined up along the road across from our disabled bus, watching the driver and myself (elected because I had ALL that tire experience) wrestle the spare tire onto the bus so we could proceed. But, as it turned out, we really did not want to proceed too quickly. We made many new friends that day…

Upon seeing them standing, all lined up, on the other side of the road, we motioned for them to “come on over!” And, over they came, smiling, shaking hands, chattering away, jumping around, watching with excitement as we changed that old dirty tread…what a great time. (Wish we could have understood what they were saying about us). Then, it was waving hands and gentle smiles as we left them standing by the road as we went on our way…

Best “tire experience” I ever had…