Fellowship in Africa: Mission Impossible: Opening wine in rural Africa without a corkscrew

One of my roommates received a bottle of wine for her birthday. Wine is a rare treat here, so we were super-excited to pop it open and start our Friday night off right.

The only problem: no corkscrew.

So we evaluated our options. They were:
1. Ride a motorcycle to town and have someone in town open it for us (which as ridiculous as that sounds, it has apparently been done more than once before)
2. Open the bottle Macgyver style.

We went with the second option.

According to a Google search, it appeared our best option was using a screw and the multitool that I brought with me here. It seemed so simple. But... Not so much. Either the cork was just really stuck in there or we just weren't using the right technique.

Getting down to business.

We started with one person working on the bottle, then two.

Roommates attempting to open the wine. All smiles, at first...

After a good 20 minutes or more (including a rest break) the screw eventually broke into the cork.

Broken screw (not sure why this photo is sideways but I gave up on trying to fix it)

Breaking out the glasses a little prematurely

Not to be deterred, another screw was put into the cork, reinforcements were brought in, additional locations and approaches were attempted to gain greater leverage.