Automobile Problems in Albania

Well, after 6 months of escaping any kind of auto troubles and accidents (really, pretty remarkable, given all the daily opportunities for disaster), the last 10 days have been a time of catching up! In this short amount of time, in 3 separate incidents, I've (Marty) mangled a wheel rim (driver's side front), destroyed a tire, mangled another wheel rim (passenger side front), and destroyed a tire, had an accident involving our only other automobile in the mission(he hit me, though), and had another flat tire (passenger side rear)!! Right now, the VW Sharan van that Liz and I normally drive around in is not really in condition to go very far (no spare tire, rim on order, one tire with an ugly bulge in the side wall, and no 195/60 R16 tires in the whole country of Albania!!). Tomorrow, we'll see if we can get some 205/55 R16's.

The rest of the story: on the biggest shopping day before New Year's (a Sunday), we offered to drive the Saraci sisters to the furgon (private bus) station in order to get to Durres for the funerals of two cousins of a close friend. But everyone was on the roads of Tirana buying last minute food, fireworks, and fun...we were totally stuck in traffic, and decided to try some back roads known to the sisters. With their guidance, I started off to short circuit the whole mess, only to end up "stucker" than ever. Patience wearing thin, I set off to do a trick play that involved going over some 8 inch high concrete barriers in the road, only to discover that I'm not driving my trusty Dodge Dakota, but a wimpy VW, and the drivers' side front wheel went crunch, the wheel cover flew off, and the tire popped. I maneuvered to a spot off the road, and tried to change the tire, only to discover that the wheel lugs had been over-torqued, and I couldn't get enough leverage to get them off. A young boy selling Albanian pens came by to help (and to sell us a couple of pens), but no luck! Finally, I gave up and called for help from the assistants and Elder Newhouse, who showed up with a longer wrench, and we finally got the tire changed!

Not too many days later, we were invited to attend FHE at the home of Sister Xheka in Durres. We met another family going to the FHE at the train station and began following them to her home. It was very dark and raining, the streets were filled with water, and we were going slowly but unfortunately I couldn't follow them precisely. Suddenly the van was jarred violently, and the entire passenger side took a deep dive downward! Since we were in 15 inches of water, I didn't know what it was, but I guessed that it was an open manhole, and I've now mangled my second wheel rim, and destroyed my second tire! We drove on to Sister Xheka's home for a very interesting 3 hour FHE (I wasn't the only one asked to give a lesson, but the other lessons were all people reading complete conference talks from the Liahona, followed by a complete formal dinner! Amazing!!). We had parked on the muddy edge of a dirt road that was very close to a 20 foot chasm, and I spent the whole meeting worried that 1) the van would roll down the calvert and 2) both tires would be flat and we wouldn't be able to get home. I call it the FHE miracle, because the van didn't roll, and we were able to get home (although the steering wheel shook violently at about 40 mph!). The next morning, both the front and rear passenger side tires were flat!!

Then yesterday, driving two newly arrived missionaries home from the airport, we were hit on the side in the mission van (the only auto working in the mission at the time) by a Mercedes that was entering traffic, and got too close. The driver claimed that I had hit him, and went running for a policeman to sort things out. The policeman came and clearly saw that he was in my lane, and hit me in the rear, and that it couldn't have been my fault. He asked me if I wanted to press charges against the driver, but the damage was minimal and I said no (to the great relief of the driver of the Mercedes, whose whole demeanor changed incredibly when he saw that the policeman was on my side). Then the policeman asked me if I was satisfied with the service, and when I said "yes", he saluted and we shook hands and parted. I hope we've gotten this all out of the system now, and can go the next couple of years with no problems!!