From Greenwich to Zimbabwe, a gift of fire trucks

From Greenwich to Zimbabwe, a gift of fire trucks
Christine Negroni, Special to Greenwich Time
Updated 07:16 p.m., Tuesday, January 10, 2012

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- When the Fire Brigade in Zimbabwe's capital city of Harare took delivery of two new fire trucks just before Christmas, it doubled its number of working fire engines.

The trucks didn't come from the government. It was a gift from an unusual source: an Old Greenwich travel agent who specializes in sending tourists on safari and her Zimbabwean-born husband.

Diane Ebzery Lobel and Peter Lobel decided to make the contribution to the southern African nation after the particularly deadly summer of 2011 when fires destroyed homes and killed people. Among the fatalities was Solomon Mujuru, a national war hero and husband of the country's vice president, who was a longtime friend of the Lobels, who split their time between New York City and Zimbabwe.

"We have a commitment to uplifting the people of Zimbabwe," said Ebzery Lobel, a Riverside native whose parents still live there. "One of the ways is through providing better services, and this happened to be a need that became very apparent in a concentrated period of time."

Ebzery had a business reason as well. Her travel company, African Portfolio, specializes in sending well-heeled Americans on safari vacations. About a quarter of the tours she arranges include a visit to Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls.

As it turned out, making the decision and buying two rebuilt Volvo fire engines was the easy part. Getting them from Kent, England, where they were purchased, to Namibia, where they arrived by boat, and then to Zimbabwe more than 1,300 miles to the east, required many of Lobel's travel-planning skills.

As his wife organized from America, Peter gathered five friends and headed overseas to take the trucks on a movie-worthy road trip across sub-Saharan Africa.

"Shipping is inherently unpredictable, and it was a logistical nightmare," said Peter, reflecting on the trip after the trucks had reached their destination.

Jonathan Marks, an American volunteer driver and long-time friend of Peter, left his home in New York at the end of November, flying via London and Johannesburg to get a connection to the Namibian port city of Walvis Bay. He joined Lobel and other men from America, Zimbabwe and South Africa and they waited for the fire trucks to arrive.

Lobel had been charting the progress of the transport ship Arcadia Highway since October, when he contracted for the fire trucks to be loaded onto the 587-foot carrier. There was an anticipated arrival date, but with many other factors at play, Lobel and his volunteer drivers could only hope that the trucks would arrive on schedule.

Two days after they had assembled in Walvis Bay, the men were eating at an oceanfront restaurant when the Arcadia floated by. Lobel was overjoyed.

"I said, `That's it. There can't be anything larger than that,' " he said.

"We were very excited," Marks said.

The next day, the men and the trucks set out on the eight-day drive, armed with a list of diesel gas stations and repair shops along 1,360-mile route. Ebzerly Lobel had found hotels that could accommodate six men and two large vehicles and Peter rented a GPS transponder so families and Facebook followers could see in real time how the trip was progressing.

The drive was broken into three- to four-hour segments, and the men would stop along the side of the road in the shade to lunch or relax and visit with curious passersby.

Several of the men said their most memorable stop was at Planet Baobab, a guest house in Gweta, Botswana, where the only other guests were 17 American teenagers on a school tour. Along the way, the volunteer drivers also accepted good wishes at a quick gas station ceremony with the mayor of Windhoek, Namibia's capital, and visited fire stations in Francistown, Botswana, and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

But for raw emotion, no part of journey could match the arrival of the group in Harare. With a blare of sirens, the fire engines rolled down the last street and turned into the driveway.

"It was difficult to describe how it felt," the station's fire chief, Servias Mugava, said of the first sight and sound of the new arrivals. "A lot of people say they will do things, but Mr. Lobel really did it. I said to him, `You are a star.' "

A few days later a crowd that included Vice President Joice Mujuru, the widow of Solomon Mujuru, gathered to celebrate. Mujuru held Lobel's hands and both cried as they spoke of the death of the general and what the fire trucks would mean to the community.

"You have shown love to my husband and to City of Harare," she said. "On behalf of the family and children, we have no better words to thank you."

Like much else in this politically troubled African country, the Harare Fire Department is in advanced stages of neglect. Chipped paint hangs from the ceiling of the garage. Firefighters work in threadbare coveralls. Against a fence in the back parking lot, a half-dozen fire trucks need repairs that the department cannot afford. Fire Chief Mugava said he battles an average of four building fires a day in a city with a population of 1.6 million people.

"We have 255 fighters, and they are professionally trained," Mugava said. "But the future is bleak. They have no tools to work with."

The firefighters were already learning their way around the new pumper trucks as the chief discussed plans to get the new equipment insured so the department could begin using them.

Ebezry Lobel said many of her travel clients have made generous gifts after visiting Africa, and like the gift of fire trucks, these can be attributed to a greater global awareness.

"People are just more conscious of what's going on around them and high-profile programs like those of Bill Gates and Bono and Bill Clinton," she said. "All of those high-profile people who have initiatives on a large scale have made people think about what their own contribution can be. That has been inspirational."

Christine Negroni writes about aviation and travel at www.gohowknowhow.com



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