“Hey, what are we doing?” Clyde Morgan asked as I turned the truck around. We were on our way to take him to the airport in Ouagadougou.

“The clutch has gone out again, and we need to go back to Natitingou,” I told him.
*T
This is a frequent problem. Since I couldn’t change gears easily, I stuffed it into third gear, the highest I can start with from a stop and not kill the motor.

About 20 km from town, our front tires picked up some sharp chunks of metal. One didn’t seem to poke all the way through, but the other sank in deep. We left it in hoping it would hold air until we got to town. Perhaps 100 yards from the mechanic in town, the splinter came loose, and the tire went flat immediately.

We got the tire changed. We waited for a new clutch piece for a while. When it didn’t come, they decided to put the old one back in. We left again praying that, if God wanted Clyde to get on that airplane, He would help us get there on time.

A hundred thirty kilometers from Ouagadougou, the clutch went out again. Again, I put it in third gear, and off we putted at 60 kilometers an hour. Despite our slow pace, we arrived in town with plenty of time to get Clyde a taxi to the airport for his flight.

I hunted down a good mechanic, and he had to change the clutch disk and plate, which were in terrible shape. Those new parts should last for a while and end my constant clutch problems.

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