Today, I learned how to drive manual

It had been a long day. Having gotten up before 6am (ugh!), and having spent 7 hours with a bunch of international fresh fruit and flower consultants from around the world driving to see a mango farm for 1 hour (that maths didn’t quite work out), I was looking to get back to Chomoio and have some quiet time.

Unfortunately, the fruit and flower consultant-type-guys wanted to go and see, well, you guessed it, more fresh fruit and flowers. One of them had an idea – they would each pack into two 4WDs (there were ten of them) and I could drive the small Fiat hatchback back to Chomoio. The owner would then pick it up later.

I was a bit skeptical. I’m not the world’s greatest driver (as many of you would know!) in my own car, let alone a foreign car in a foreign country (though at least they drive on the left hand side of the road, and traffic – not to mention traffic lights – are non-existent). But hey, I thought, I’m a silver licenced driver back in Australia - and it’s not that far – only 10 minutes or so.

What could possibly go wrong?

So I put my things in the car, grabbed the keys, and waved goodbye to everyone as they drove off. I was really looking forward to getting back to Chomoio. I opened the door, sat down, put the keys in the ignition, and started the car.

Well, I tried to.

Why isn’t this working? I thought. Then I looked down to my left.

Oh crap.

It was a manual car.

[I have driven a manual car once – back in 1999, when I was learning how to drive – and only because my driving instructor, Mr Tomah, gave me a free lesson in a manual after reaching some 35 lessons in an automatic. Oh, I’ve driven manual in some video games as well. On neither of these occasions have I driven particularly well, often stalling the car (even in the video games!).]

I began to panic. I ran out onto the street to wave my compatriots down. Dang, they were out of sight. I grabbed my mobile phone. Unfortunately, I had none of their numbers. Could I phone a friend who could drive manual to come and rescue me? Unfortunately, no friends (in Mozambique anyway!).

The voice of Ed Chan then began to ring in my head. It’s easy to drive a manual, I remember him saying. You could drive manual one handed! I began to analyse the differences between manual and automatic. There’s just an extra pedal, I thought. Oh, and that stick thing.

It was there and then that I decided I was going to drive that manual car home.

It took me a good five minutes to start the car, after realizing you need to hold the clutch down to do so. It took me another five minutes to progress about 20 metres, having realized that, to change gears, you need to push the clutch down the whole way, not just tap it. (Luckily for my pride those roads were almost completely deserted of spectators at the time).

However, ten minutes into this experiment, I was in. I was actually driving a manual car! If only Mr Tomah could see me now. I was starting to get so confident, I went up to fourth gear, then practiced shifting down to second gear quickly (which stalled the car again, but I was unshaken). I even managed to make a right hand turn onto the main road without stalling the car! Schumacher, here I come!

However, my elation at my unexpectedly good motor skills was soon to be quashed by what I was to see next.

A police check.

[Reason for concern: The Mozambican police are famous for bribery and corruption. In order to attract bribes from non-locals, they will stop you for no reason, inspect your car for any defects or non-licensed parts (they even make you register car radios here, in order to increase their customs duty, as they have no income tax), then ‘encourage’ you to bribe them. That worried me for a few reasons. Firstly, this was someone else’s rental car, and I had none of their papers. Secondly, I don’t like having to give up money for any reason, let alone bribery. Finally, I still don’t know any Portuguese word except ‘chicken’ (which I’ve used on a number of occasions now), so, even if they were encouraging me to bribe them, I wouldn’t understand them at all.]

Oh dear.

Luckily for me, they just asked ‘okay?’ and told me to drive off – they just wanted to check I was okay. (The word about Asian driving skills must have stretched to all parts of the globe!)

Unfortunately, by that point in time, I had forgotten how to start the car again, and stalled it twice – in front of the two police officers, nearly taking out some kids. However, third time lucky – and I drove away before they were able to check if I was ‘okay’ again.

Amazingly, I negotiated a roundabout, a dirt road with potholes, a few more right hand turns, along with overshooting my destination twice (resulting in some unnecessary 7 to 8 point u-turns as I had to turn the car around) … all without damaging the car (except the clutch, which is probably kaput by now). I even parked it in a garage! (Admittedly, it was an empty double garage, and a maid had to help me, but that still counts in my books.) In truly fitting style, I parked it by stalling it for the fifteenth time, forgetting to put the park brake on until it had started to roll back a bit.

And so, I can add “driving a manual car on non-crowded streets” to my list of skills (Which presently include “Dance dance revolutionary” and “SingStar extraordinaire”). God was really watching over me that day (as He does every day), and I don’t think I would try it again – though I HAVE to learn manual driving properly when I return.

God bless
John

A picture of a victorious me and the car (the smashed up front panels were caused by someone else, honest!)