What do you do when your stove breaks?

Well, first you try and fix it. The knob came off and the screw is stripped but I did manage to fix that on my own. However, I pulled out the wick and for the life of my could not figure out how to get it back in. Logic would say it should go up from the bottom, catch and be able to turn it up. That would involve opening the stove to the resevoir and I could not figure this one out. Thankfully, I live next to a motorcycle garage. Every morning on my way to work and every afternoon on my home I'm greet with warm smiles and enthusiastic waves. I figured this was a good place to start. Still I waited a few days because the VSO handbook clearly states that if your stove breaks DO NOT get it fixed locally. Call VSO. So I did. And VSO said, get it fixed locally. So Wednesday afternoon I went the market to get food because Suzanne and her sons were coming over for dinner. At the market there was a Turbo King promotion. Despite its name, Turbo King is not a high performance engine lubricant. It's a new beer to Rwanda and they had brought a large stage and some dancers with equally large behinds to draw a large crowd to promote the beer. Yes, folks, booty came to Kibungo on market day. But I had no time to watch the spectacle and no camera to capture the look on old, women market sellers who walk hours in traditional clothing with bananas balanced on their heads when they saw girls in short shorts.

I headed home (after running into Patrick sans motorbike. It was at home and he was on foot and truth be told I hardly recognized him with no helmet. He's a lot shorter than I imagined) and brought my stove next door for the mechanics to fix it. 2 minutes turned into an hour and the whole town (it seemed) stopped by to help.

Figuring that the top must come off but not sure how.

Finally the top came of and we could get on with business of putting the wicks in.

Posing for the picture!

Back at my house to clean the stove and wash hands.

Finally the stove was put back together again, filled with kerosene and......now it leaks! Kerosone drips out onto the floor. Off the store to get crazy glue and almost 2 hours later.....it still leaks. Sigh. So, maybe my stove is still broken but at least I met my neighbours.