I think that Don and Mary Thomas first met Luzu through the American staff from Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) about five years ago. I think. With the exeption of 2006, when Luzu was unable to get off from work, Luzu has been a driver for five years with groups lead by Don and Mary.
Not only is a superb driver, he is a very nice person. I liked Luzu from the time we first met, when he met us at the airport just outside Lilongwe. I believe that Luzu has been at his current job for at least one year, so he used his vacation time to be our driver. From what I understand, he earned in two weeks, what he normally earns in two or three months. In American terms, the $20 or so we paid him each day, seems inexpensive, but to a Malawian, it is a nice piece of change.
From the start, I knew that he had experience driving on the dirt roads in the more remote sections of Malawi. I only have one picture that shows a somewhat typical road in a remote section of Malawi. And believe me, we were on worse roads than that one.
Luzu never lost his cool and knew just how to tackle driving on these roads. There were a couple of times when he went around to the back of the van either after we stopped or before we drove off. We always wondered if something was wrong. The worse that happened is that we lost a small section of the rear bumper, or perhaps two sections. No punctured or dragging tail pipes, no punctured fuel lines. No accidents. He seemed to know just how to approach the ruts and rocks on the worse sections to avoid damage to the van.
He never minced words, when asked a question, but we always knew that he was on top of things. For example, on that rainy Saturday when we visited Mindanti and points beyond in a very remote section of southern Malawi, I told him that I heard that this road was bad and could be impassable in the rains.
He said "yes, we have to go soon."
And we left soon after that. Probably because it was the dry season and it had only rained that day, the dirt roads had not turned into that awful slick mud. And as we drove down a long hill to cross the river and her tributaries over a bridge with very, very low clearance, the river had not spilled over onto the road. So, we made it back. When we passed Mindanti on our way back to drop off our passenger, Luzu did not try to get on the turn-off to Mindanti. Instead, he dropped him off at the side of the road. He wasn't going to risk getting stuck.
Considering the size of the van we had, it had a very small tank that took about 40 liters of diesel fuel. That is slightly over 10 gallons. My subaru outback wagon has a 15 gallon tank. He knew just how long to time it between fill-ups and just where the petro station would be.
Another challenge was to not be run off the road by speeding minibuses and pick-up trucks packed to the gills with people. Luzu always let them pass. In Malawi, motor vehicles share the road with people walking, bicycles, lots and lots of goats, and Ox carts, As we approach villages, the crowds increase, more walkers, more bicycles, more speeding mini buses, etc. The horn is always honking and we swerve to avoid hitting something. Through this all, Luzu kept his cool. I would have been cursing up one side and down another. Not Luzu.
We passed many, many broken down vehicles, just as many on the tarred and the unpaved roads. It is a tribute to both Don and Luzu's driving skills that we did not end up as a statistic or stuck in a remote area with a broken down van and/or car.
He was also a great tour guide, answering all of our question about Malawi. We were always asking him, Luzu what is that? We would describe what we saw if necessary. And he would have answer for that the next time we passed it. Often he could guess at an answer from what we told him. As time went on, I got less and less shy about asking him questions. And we learned so much from him,
Why do people burn grass and other vegetation near their villages? Either to clear areas for crops, or to chase out the mice so that they can eat the mice. Honestly.
We passed some very large (5 feet or so) hills that looked like large ant hills. They are termite hills. We asked why the sticks in the top? The stick keeps the termites from exiting the colony.
We learned to identify baobob tress and banana plants.
And we all gained a new friend in Luzu.
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