Stranded

In the middle of nowhere.
On a dusty road in a dry and thirsty land.
Clouds of dust whenever a vehicle passed. The bus in the picture is typical.
Under a blazing sun.
And it was fly-infested.

Daniel and I set off early for Nalerigu, 500km up the road in Northern Ghana, for the next stage of my trip - teaching leaders in Amos Amiiga's church in the town and the village churches he has planted. It was great to have Daniel with me - and he needed the break from his own work.
Was it great to have Daniel's car?
We shared the driving. Most of the way the road is good, but there was a very potholed section for about 20km south of Tamale and I hit some of the potholes a bit hard (so did Daniel - it isn't always easy to see them coming). The car was developing a bit of a knock...
Then you leave the main road at Walewale and after a few km the tarmac runs out - this is a notoriously bad road in spite of frequent promises of improvement. I was driving again while Daniel slept and avoided the worst bits quite successfully - until I hit a ridge across the road in a village 45 minutes out of Walewale - just didn't see it - and lost all drive.
Daniel stopped a man on a motorbike and he went all the way to Walewale and brought back a mechanic - aged about 13. By this time it was dark - at least we had relief from the heat and flies.
Mustafa the child mechanic decided he couldn't do anything - he thought it might need parts we could only get in Kumasi, even further away than where we'd started from. Moto man flagged down a passing truck with a few young men on it - they hitched us to a rope and towed us to the next town.
Meanwhile Amos arranged a car and driver to come and take us to Nalerigu (what would we have done without mobile phones and a signal?) - tired, thirsty (I didn't ask where the cold water they gave me came from but I never had any problems with it) but so happy to see my friends again.