Battle Lines
Turkmenistan
September

PEOPLE are firmly divided between cars now – there’s been no changing over since the second day of Turkmenistan when I had a row with Lovey about not wanting to drive Fez anymore. There is/was a stigma attached to the car – Megan and Marlena used to drive it the most and they were branded ‘The Muppets’ by someone in the group. They were blamed for ‘breaking’ fez. The little car has had a lot of trouble with its gears.
The problems have been there since Budapest, but the girl’s tendency to over-rev the engine has led to them being blamed for it. They found being called Muppets quite offensive and it created a bit of an us and them mentality. But since Brady’s arrival I have been in Fez too, and some of the flack heading the girl’s way has hit me.
So I told Lovey it was out of order that the girls and I get the blame for everything that’s gone wrong in Fez, when it’s the oldest car, and the one that’s been driven the most – we first had it for the Treffen back in June, and Carlos drive it around Budapest for a month before we even set off. So its natural that there’s more wear and tear.
But Lovey made it clear it was out fault: “It’s carelessness. Your just careless with it.”
I should have pointed out that carelessness is losing your wallet, credit card, camera and $300 of group money in the first few weeks of the trip. But of course I didn’t think of it at the time.
I asked him if h wanted to drive Fez and he said no, he was going to drive Ziggy from now on. And there it was, battle lines.
Megan and I couldn’t help but feel smug when, teo days later, he wrecked thee oil pan on Gunther. Careless, careless.
J Love is good company half the time, but the sometimes he can be a complete twat. Moody, arrogant, rude: “He’s spent all day storming around like a four year old toddler,” admitted Brady, exhausted from spending a day in the car with him.
When I'm feeling off I usually try to take a backseat, so as not to infect people with my attitude. But J Love does the opposite taking his anger out on everyone and trying to make people look bad.
Brady agrees: “He’s really not very good at dealing with it.”
The two have ridden together since Brady arrived in Baku. We call them the Brady Bunch because they are so coupled up. They normally sleep together in Ziggy, or curl up with a movie. I found them watching Brokeback Mountain late at night in Ziggy. So romantic. It’ll be interesting to see who gets invited into Ziggy with Lovey once Brady has gone. I imagine it’ll be OJ, they rode together before Bray’s arrival, but that will leave Carlos chumless. Megan I leaving us from Kazakhstan, so things should even up again there.

Marlena left us in Turkmenistan –she had a hellish time trying to get out of the country and into Uzbekistan too. Ended up having to live in the departure lounge of Tashkent airport for two days while the Embassy sorted it out.
So since then it has been just Megan and I in Fez, Lovey and Brady in Ziggy, Tony P and Zsofi in Dante, and Carlos an OJ in Gunther.
Being divided up has been strange, It has certainly made me more protective over my car – I'm keen to look after old Fez better and check his filters regularly etc. If we’d divvied up the cars sooner maybe people would have taken better care of them.
I get on well with Megan – she’s no girly girl, very hands on with the car, filling the oil, push starting it, defiantly driving around despite the jeers of men who find it impossible to imagine a woman driving.
She’s a great communicator –always expressing what’s on her mind through a combination of word, song and dance. She has a dance and sound affect to illustrate most stories, and you often hear her singing strange ditties to stray animals.
She is a natural pessimist, and sees the worst of every situation, whenever anything goes wrong (ie. Every couple of hours) she freaks out – aaagh it’s the end of the world- and rather than try and find a solution tends to just rip holes in everyone else’s suggestions. Most of the time I can just laugh her off, its just her nature and everyone’s so used to it they don’t take her seriously, but occasionally it does wind me up.
She really wants to be taken seriously by the boys, but her nay saying approach, compared to their solution driven one, means she often gets ignored. Which pisses her off: “I suggested that, like, twenty minutes ago.”
She is the only girl who really contributes. Zsofi was amazing in Budapest, her home city, where she organised sponsorship, press interviews, mechanics, parties- the works. But since then she’d been happy to take a back seat, and rarely inputs on any decisions.
Sweet Home Alabama comes on as we do repairs, and I overhear OJ announcing that: “You know, this old song still makes me proud to me American.”
Johnny America, sitting in a camping chair with his bulging muscles wearing his Yankee hat.

ends