So this happened one day....

To jog your memory, this is what the front yard of the house looked like when I moved in:

Nice and green and full of trees and such.

Now it looks like this:

See a difference?

A few weeks ago, I was sitting inside scanning some study documents when there arose such a clatter!  I walked out the front door and saw, well, this...

This is NOT supposed to be in our front yard.  

So let me back up,  a few weeks previous to this, APYN (African Probiotic Yogurt Network) had approached Kate and Susan and asked if they would be able to park their new-to-them-van at our place for a few weeks.  They were in the process of organizing the probiotic shipments to the kitchens and NIMR had yet to start scaling up the production.  We live within a 5 minute walk to their office and there is no parking for them there.  We hesitantly said yes - what harm could come of it!?

On the morning this occurred, Kate had left with Celestine (Celly), an intern, and who was to be their driver.  They were off to deliver some bottles to NIMR.  I'm not sure I even knew the van was missing until the crash boom bang happened.  Susan and I just stared at what was presented to us in our front yard.  My immediate thought was 'Where's Freddy (our guard)!'  He has to open the gate for the van to get in.  I saw him standing in shock over to the side, I could see Celly moving in the van so I knew everyone was fine.  Ok, NOW what do we do??!!

Celly gets out of the van and starts talking to Freddy.  Susan and I tell them they need to go back to APYN and get some of the other guys that work in the building to help them get the vehicle out.   They insist on trying to move the van themselves with some wood and Freddy pushing.  I was NOT going to help push knowing that this guy wasn't the best driver and the angle at which is the van was on to the concrete wall in front of it.   

Kate arrives home and her face mirrored what was on all of ours.  We finally managed to convince Celly to get some help and then one of the directors arrives from APYN.  She is also in shock.  

Kate then explains her morning to us: Celly nearly took out a tree at the side of the house while exiting in the morning!  Also, once they got to NIMR and unloaded the bottles, they couldn't get the van restarted because of the battery.  They called Celly's dad as he is a car fundi and he jumped the van.  Which is why Celly didn't want to turn the van off when it was stuck in the yard - just in case it wouldn't start again!  She was convinced he didn't know how to drive - turns out he didn't have his licence just yet - he was getting it the next day!

After a long time of trying to rock and roll the van out of it position (the only wheel not in dirt wasn't touching the ground), they realised that the trunks of the papaya tree (which are what made a lot of the noise, papayas flying across the lawn!) and impatient bush the van took out were keeping it from moving.

They sat around for a bit waiting for Celly's dad to arrive and there was talk of towing the van out.  They got tired of waiting and made another effort to remove the tree trunks.  Finally, after much hacking and crawling and rocking and pushing, it moved!  I had to make them open the gates again as I foresaw the van flying backwards through them - and that would have been an even bigger problem! 

So the van is free and instead of parking it right were it was, Celly tries to turn the corner into the front of the driveway - almost taking out the side of the house as he was at it!  We were all yelling at him to STOP! but he wasn't listening.  Thankfully he got it parked without any further damage!

ALMOST!

Add caption

FREEDOM!

Poor papaya tree never had a chance. 

Surprisingly little damage except for the trees.

Kate rifling through the carnage.  

So all's well that ends well. No one was hurt except a couple of trees and the cement curb.  Our landlady, Mama Mary, was awesome about the whole situation. She said to make sure that poor boy gets back in the car and gets driving again!  (As long as I'm not in the van, he can go for it!)  

Kate has since got back in the van with Celly and she says he is much better.  I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how he got the van in that position!  Granted our driveway is very crappy - fairly steep with a lip to enter from the road - but the one skid mark was only a few inches away from the post.  I'm pretty sure he scraped the van down the gate.  

Well, that's it for now.  This was supposed to be a short post!  I'll tackle safari and Dubai pics for a post later this week.

Usiku mwema,
Shannon