Oh My Vanuatu: Spare Tire

On the way to take Alexis to school last week, a friend walking down the road flagged me down. Assuming he wanted a ride somewhere, I pulled over. He asked, "when are you going to change your flat tire?" I had no idea the rear passenger tire was flat ("why not?" is a-whole-nother OMV post), but he and I quickly set about changing the tire. We got the spare on and began letting the jack down ... and down ... and down ... and down ... until the rim was resting on the ground. Ah, yes, the spare was flat too.

Plan C. I didn't have any money on me to pay for a bus, but thankfully a guy saw us standing beside the road and recognized Alexis' school uniform (every school has a different shirt/skirt combo). He was taking his daughter to the same school and offered to give us a lift.

Also weighing on my mind was the fact that I was supposed to meet a guy at the church building at 7:30 (it was now 7:45). I hurriedly walked home, got some money for a bus and made it to meet Donald shortly about 8:15 (he had come by our house asking for work a few days prior, and so I offered to pay him to mow the church's land). I got him started working, and hopped on another bus to go pick up the original flat wheel, and then got dropped off at the tire place. They had the tire patched in about 15 minutes, and I flagged down yet another bus to take me and the wheel back to the truck. I removed the flat spare and replaced it with the newly patched wheel, threw everything in the truck, and went back to the tire place where I dropped off the spare for repair and headed back to the church building. It was now 9:00 and I had basically gotten zero accomplished for the day (although I had certainly managed to sweat through every square inch of clothing on my body!). Oh my Vanuatu!

The experience reminded me of a time when I jumped in the back of a truck in Malekula a couple of years ago. Upon seeing the spare tire in the back, I hoped that we wouldn't have a flat, because I wasn't sure how long the spare would hold out (see pic below!)...