The DaeWoo Chronicles Continued

As of early May, the title of our blog has been rendered obsolete by the arrival in the family of a big white Nissan Maxima with tinted widows. The Little Blue DaeWoo, however, continued to be a blessing as it had blessed us. Here's the story.

First the fuel pump died. We knew something was wrong, but I asked the Lord please not to let it die while I was on the highway that day, and sure enough, it waited til I pulled up to Will's work site to chug out and refuse to start. Happily, Will was late that day, so while I waited I noticed a small window of open wifi signal, of which we availed ourselves to internet-call the insurance company to tow us out, our regular cell-phone having recently died.

The nice tow-man drove us further than he was technically supposed to in order to get us to our own mechanic, and even prayed together with us before he left and our friend picked us up.

Then we got to use THIS car for a week!

Which was fun. The neighborhood kids' respect for us shot way up . . .

Then we bought the Maxima. It had tinted windows; the neighborhood kids still liked us.

Now enter our friends,  N and Y. They are refugees with a little 6-month brown butterball of cuteness named Adam. N injured his back the first day on the job, couldn't work and didn't have a car. Will speaks their language, so we started hanging out. I cooked for them, they cooked for us and we played with their Fat Baby, and thus began a lovely and dear relationship, the kind you can't quite explain except to say they slipped through a crack deep into your heart. We could spend hours together which with anyone else would have been exhausting. My Spanish is terrible and she spoke about ten words in English, but even driving around Y, carrying along the Very Fat Baby from this DMV to that Revenue Building to the other DMV to get her title registered, was as sweet as the brown-bottled Goya which N sent along to refresh our tired bodies.

The tall white people sold the Daewoo to the short brown people after it was unexpectedly (and expensively) fixed, and they immediately decked it with new seat covers and air fresheners that this construction-worker's wife had not bothered with. They had a car!! Hooray.

But then . . . no job. And still no job.

A month passes, then six weeks. The money is running short. They use food stamps for the Very Fat Baby's increasing appetite, and come to church with us on Sundays. N's case is taken up by a lawyer to get compensation for his injury, but as yet there is no result. Their friends, in Nebraska of all places, begin to urge them to move out there where Y could get a job in a meat factory.

At this opportune time the Daewoo dies. Again. We take it to a different mechanic.

The police visit to say they had ten days to pay their rent or they will be evicted. The electricity will be cut off in a week. Their Nebraska friends say they can come pick them up if N and Y can pay for the trip. But if they leave, they break their lease, which could cost another fortune, and their money is almost entirely gone. Plus, they have this stupid dead Daewoo to deal with! Now when we come in, the usually insuppressible Y is puffy-eyed and tense, and N nurses his back, never smiling. God is in control, he tells Will in desperation, but you don't understand how hard this is.

But! The mechanic has a brainstorm. Will takes N out to put the plan into action, and at last, lo and behold, it is up and running! N declares with tears in his eyes, "Now I know God loves me". Having had a bad day of baked-goods sales, Will gives them cornbread.

The Daewoo works, but is it dependable enough to get them halfway across the country? They decide not. We pray that they can sell the car to pay for the trip, and go to church together.

Monday night. Wednesday is the electricity cutoff date. It's been a terrible day for me (Polly). A Newlywed Doldrums Day, where the white plaster walls block out vitamin D and love, where as far as I know (excepting my husband), nobody speaks my language or cares that I exist, where my stomach hurts and I want my mommy. My dear husband decides we need to get out of the apartment, so we go to see N and Y.

While Will runs an errand first, I ask the dear Lord if He could possibly cheer us up. Will comes back. Oh!
"Hey, love, we should bring them something nice! What about ice cream?"
"There's a Sandy's across the street!"
"Let's do it!"

Ten minutes and a juggling act later, we exit the shop with four cones in my hands, out into the sultry SC July night . . . drip, drip . . . "Aag, let's hurry!" . . . drip, drip. Lick, lick. Blueberry Cheesecake, wow! "It's getting on my jeans! And my shoes!" We speed into their driveway, laughing like kids.

Where is the Daewoo??

It's gone!

We race up the stairs and pound on the door,  Lemon and Caramel Fudge Yumminess  dripping from our fingers. N opens the door. "We brought ice cream and where's the car??" With a long-absent smile lighting up his face N announces that the car sold and they are going to Nebraska.  

"Gloria a Dios, gloria a Dios," he repeats, shaking his head and pointing to heaven.

"How in the world did you sell the car in one day?", Will asks as we maneuver the ice cream into the freezer and I wipe down my clothes. "Oh the people downstairs put it on Craigslist."
They're Arabs. N doesn't even speak English.
"How did they know?"
"Well, my Arabic is pretty good . . . "

Y, perched on the sofa delightedly consuming her ice cream cone with a spoon, rolls her eyes and I giggle. Somehow through sign language and human kindness, the Arabs downstairs had understood enough to put up an ad in English, and when someone called and spoke Spanish they handed the phone over to N. A Hispanic lady desperate for a car had picked it up at midnight, handing them cash enough to cover two bus tickets and extras to get them settled in their new home with friends. "Gloria a Dios".


They left two days later, the day the electricity ran out, leaving us with a carful of useful things they couldn't take on the bus, and an invitation to vacation in Nebraska.

Now we have a sack of stuffed animals in our living room, hand-me-downs of the Very Fat Baby who understood baby talk in two languages, and we eat beets with our green beans.

And sometimes we wonder when we'll run into that Daewoo again.