Driving in Circles

I can't say that Jamie and I were all that surprised when Speed Racer, our borrowed/abandoned car with a duct tape racing stripe, failed to start. The ignition was one of the last electric functions of the car that still worked, and even then, it was pretty temperamental. Luckily, it was parked in front of our house when it quit, which is where it will likely remain indefinitely, at least until our landlord wants to do something with it. Like many other parts of the island, our front yard is starting to look like a place where cars go to die (particularly because the people who own the house have another non-functioning car parked there as well).

On the bright side, last week, we finally got the car that we ordered from Japan. Now that it's all said and done, I can admit that I was a little worried about having sent nearly three thousand dollars via wire transfer to a company in Japan with whom I had never before done business for a car of which we had only seen pictures. The closest thing we had to a guarantee that we would ever see the vehicle that we ordered was an emailed receipt, but based on the luck we had had so far with cars here in Micronesia, I wasn't all that confident.

For our Mazda Demio's maiden voyage, we took a trip around the island. Considering that there's just one main road that runs the entire perimeter of Pohnpei, it seemed like it would be difficult to get lost. However, that didn't stop us from inadvertently turning down some side roads that led nowhere, one of which involved driving in reverse for about a half mile between rows of parked cars with about an inch of clearance on each side, made all the more complicated by pedestrians who were curious what this family of white people was up to. 

Although I admit that it was interesting to see more of the island, that which we saw wasn't really that different than anything else that we had already seen, at least superficially. That is to say that a house on the south side of Pohnpei looks remarkably similar to a house on the north side, and virtually anywhere you go, you're likely to encounter potholed roads surrounded by rainforest and the occasional village, each of which seems to differ only in its fluid multi-syllabic name. Alohkapw, anyone?

Of course, it only cost us about a half of a tank of gas to drive all the way around the island, plus one entire afternoon, but it was an excuse to get out of Kolonia for the day. Having been without a car for most of our time here so far, I will say that our immobility only increased the overall sense of being stuck. That is, not only are we on a tiny little island in the middle of a vast ocean, but we were also confined to the areas to which we could comfortably walk with two young children. It was a very small world indeed.

Now that we have a more reliable vehicle, if we start to get stir crazy, we can at least go for a drive. Granted, the extent of this is the aforementioned sixty mile circle around the island, down some terrible roads marked by a severe shortage of public places to stop and rest, but it was at least something a little different for a change, and it provided a much-needed break from what had been a series of automotive misfortunes.

With that said, I should note that we did get a flat tire about ten miles from home, only to learn that our new car had not been equipped with a tire iron when it left Japan. A local guy was kind enough to help us out, but by the time we had the spare on the car, rather than go out to eat, we decided that we were ready to go home. We had had enough adventure for one day.