Flat Tire

Sunday, Sam and I spent all morning and half of the afternoon at a 50th anniversary celebration of the Alumnae of schools run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. The open-air mass started late due to heavy rains all night, and lasted a long, long, loooong time. When the choir finished the 10th verse of the Hosanna, in Lingala, and then proceeded to start all over again from the beginning, I have to admit that instead of praising God I had to ask Him to forgive me for barely standing it... It was also getting uncomfortably hot. We finally got away around 3 p.m., leaving the celebrations, which looked like they would continue late into the night. But before we could get far, we had a flat. A complete blow-out, to-the-rim flat, about a mile from home. Luckily, there was a "quado" (kwado?) only a block away. A quado is a sidewalk tire specialist. You know where they are by the stack of three or four tires on the sidewalk. The quado himself is in the shade of the nearest tree, waiting for clients like us, chatting or playing dominoes with other street service providers of all kinds. We flapflopped up to where he was, and let him put the spare on for us. He spoke surprisingly good French, and did a good, quick job. He charged us 1500 FC, which is three dollars. Later, we returned to pick up the blown-out tire, which he had patched. Cost: $10. It's been two days, and it's still holding up. But I'm driving extra-carefully.