Our Car adventures..... or mishaps..... ;)

Well we have had some adventures….. ( that’s not really the right word for it but that will do) over the past 2 months since we bought our car.

We have never had a car here in Uganda and it was rather exciting and to know that we wouldn’t have to always rely on public transport – particularly now that we had Hezekiah was a huge relief – public transport here can be rather a nightmare at times and add HOURS on to a normally short trip.

Which you can imagine with a baby isn’t always ideal!

So with the help of a friend, and his mechanic they searched the car yards for the sort of car we were after and in our price range.

And when they found one under our price range and the mechanic said it was in good condition we were excited.
They negotiated a price before we came to look at it – just so that the colour of my skin didn’t send off signals to ask for more money.

( People see how we live on TV etc, and imagine we must all have a lot of money….. not understanding what they see on the tv or movies isn’t always reality – or that the majority of white people also have large DEBT to support their life )

So when we turned up to look at it it was rather overwhelming…. At first all the men that surrounded the car didn’t realize Rob was my husband  - so assumed I was the buyer with my driver or guide or something….. until we made it quite clear ROB was making the decisions etc, then they stepped back and gave us a chance to look at the car.

Although not in the best condition internally, it wasn’t too bad.

It was hard for me because I had no idea what would be considered ok for that price etc. here in Uganda.

I asked to look at the motor…. I got under the car even to look at exhaust etc…. started the motor….. checked brakes etc…. did all those things my mechanic brothers would be proud of – just to make them think I KNEW what I was doing and that they couldn’t sell us a dodgy car J

Our mechanic had said mechanically it was very good – which is always what it most important.

It was Disgustingly dusty inside though!!

Rob and the seller chatted again over the price and after much conversation it was decided we would take it – but it was Easter Saturday – banks were closed till Tuesday

The man said he wouldn’t hold it without deposit.

So Rob went and got the deposit – we came back and filled all the paper work out –

Long story short – we returned with the remaining money on the Tuesday to drive away with it.

It is recommended here that you buy and drive away on the spot ( NO ONE Mentioned THiS TO US!!) ….

When I started the car ready to drive out – I said – HOLD ON – there is a noise that WAS not there the other day…..

They said they’d look – they said oh yes… the spark plug – we will put a new one in…. so they took a few minutes and it sounded better so off we drove.

It was clear within the first day – that the car was NOT running like it had only a few days before??/

How could this be……

I noticed the brakes were terrible….. it was making all sorts of noises….. lights started coming on the dash board….

After a few days driving it like that we decided to take it back to the city to the mechanic our friend who had said it was sound mechanically….. ( I was thinking he must not be a very good mechanic if he hand’t noticed all the problems …. I was wrong  )

As soon as he opened the bonnet of the car – he started shaking his head and talking fast in Luganda… Rob translated for me….. what I heard I COULD NOT BELIEVE!

They had changed the car parts for OLDER parts in the time between us paying the deposit and coming back with the remainder of the money.

I had obviously shocked them and picked up on the noise with the spark plugs – but there was no way to know that they had also switched many other parts in the motor for much older parts.

We were all extremely mad – but the men were not surprised.

The mechanic did a full service and told us all the things he was going to have to repair – the list was long… and the price would end up being pretty high…. Money we could have spent getting a better car!!

There is no way we can take action against the car seller either …..

We made the decision to leave them to God to deal with….. we would never get money back or anything like that here – so going and yelling at them ( which is what I wanted to do )…. Would just be a waste of time and probably bring laughter from those standing by.

Sadly the desire to get out of poverty causes some to be greedy or corrupt….. ( sadly they’ve seen this modelled from the very top of the nations leadership all the way down) …… what they don’t realize is that in the end it doesn’t pay.

We will never go there again… and now we’ve told many others… including others from other countries.

Anyways – the frustrating thing was that over the next 8 weeks – we had constant problems with the car – something would be fixed and then something else would go!

We honestly had the car at mechanics more than with us in some ways.

It was a blessing not to have to travel between city and our home up country on public transport – but it got to the point that it was costing us a lot of money.

We also had to end up paying a HUGE amount of parking tickets for this car from THE PREVIOUS OWNER!! One day we came out and found our car with a lock on it – they wouldn’t undo it until we paid the fines from the last few years.

See here cars are not registered to people – number plates are registered to the car….. somehow the previous owner had been getting lots of parking fines and theyd been letting him just pay the bare minimum to get car free from the lock……

Well time had run out and they wanted them paid ….. so who had to pay it if we wanted to drive our car again…… WE DID!!! Just another thing this car has put us through!!

And don't forget the adventure of someone running into us on one of the first days we got the car - a governement car ran straight into us at a roundabout as they tried to swerve in front of us..... what ensued I will never forget... governement people yelling and threatening police... boda boda drivers ( like 50 of them) standing up for us.... and many hours sitting at the police station writing reports of what happened.... So thankful we got a wonderful, honest policeman that day, even if the person that ran in to us took off and never went to police station like they were meant to. 

When someone offered us some money for it – we quickly prayed about it and decided to sell it.

Robs uncle in the village has a very old car that he doesn’t use – not an ideal car for us but would do for a little while so we decided just to use that while in the city and while we took our time before we bought another car!

Well – this car of Rob’s uncles is an old 80s Toyota corona ….. obviously been used on hard roads… and very very dusty – and when you start it – it sounds like a rally car or something.

People stare at me driving as it is – very unusual to see a white woman driving here – particularly in areas we go …. But when peope started to see me driving this old bomb around…. The stares and opened mouths increased that’s for sure!! J 

I have almost caused many accidnets …. Just by being me J hahah

Well at least the car would get us from A to B safely and soundly….. that was until… it stopped working.

It just wouldn’t start…. Then it would…. So you’d drive it again fine for a day or so… then you’d be out somewhere and it wouldn’t start again …. We fixed a minor, cheap issue with it and knew where to bang it on the engine if it wouldn’t start.

We thought at least for now our car troubles had ended and we were in no rush to get another car – we decided we’d save some more money and buy something much better.

Well on the day we moved to our new house we loaded up the truck and our car ( rob’s uncles car) with all our belongings – we said goodbye to our friends that had housed us for the past month and headed off – the truck went ahead of us and was to meet us at a known place near our house so we could show them the rest of the way  ( no street names or anything in the housing areas)

Rob and I were chatting saying how good it was that we’d gotten away by 2pm and that we’d there and have unpacked the car and truck etc well before Hezekiah needed dinner and bed.

We were also glad to have missed the horrendous traffic!

We spoke to soon…..

We had just come out of a heavy lot of traffic….. when all of a sudden I felt the excelerator go… I said – the car is stopping ….. I quickly pulled over in a safe spot on a quiet stretch of road ( very unusual to find one ) ………… that just happened to be outside the Sheraton hotel….

Very quickly there security guard jumped up and another man standing by and started yelling at us – fuel fuel fuel….. petrol….. get out of the car……

Rob jumped out to see fuel POURING ( and I mean POURING ) all over the car and over the road….

The security lady said – move the car… you can’t leave it here… others were saying get out get out…. Was very confusing…

Well rob managed to push the car down the road slightly ( so we didn’t blow up the Sheraton hotel heaven forbit ;) ….. we grabbed our important paperwork and ourselves and locked the car…..

I could not believe it – after all that had happened this past month…. Finally on the way to our new place….. and this…. Arg…..

We remained calm and called our friend and he said he’d ring for the mechanic to come….. meanwhile we had a truck sitting waiting about an hour away waiting for someone to let them in the house… but we couldn’t leave the car…. 

Thankffuly I was able to sit with Hezekiah on the grass in the Sheraton hotel gardens and wait for the mechanic… Rob took a boda motorbike all the way out to meet the truck… show them where to go – open the house and then leave robs brother and the truck driver to unpack….

 Hezekiah and I sat and played on the grass…. An hour passed before mechanic got there and said he’d need to tow it to the shop which he did…..

Rob came back two hours later….. we wren’t sure what to do then because all our household items were in our car at the mechanics ( and you don’t leave anything in your car here unless your with it )…

We made the decision that rob would take Hezekiah and I on boda boda’s to a shopping centre… and we would have some dinner… while rob went and got a special hire ( this is where you hire a car that comes with a driver… nothing fancy… just usually very old car and its comes with a driver ) …. Then he would go to mechanics empty our car in to the special hire and we’d go home to our new place that way…..

By this time it was clear we were not going to be there before dark or before the crazy traffic started… But we were safe and thankful that at least it had broken down in a non congested area and somewhere I was able to wait safely for rob with Hezekiah.

By the time we reached the shopping centre our mechanic rang and said car was fixed was simple problem with fuel hose…. And we could take it – he decided to drive it to us where we were so he could confirm it was all safe and well…..

HALLELUJAH we thought – at least it was a simple problem….

When he arrives we thank him – pay him and head off out in to the now crazy crazy traffic.

It was dark and crazy busy and I HAD NEVER DRIVEN THAT ROAD BEFORE!

About 15 minutes down the road…. When stuck in bumper to bumper traffic…. Someone leans out and starts yelling at us….. rob puts his window down to hear someone yelling fuel fuel…… and then the engine stopped – I looked at fuel gauge – we’d now lost almost a full tank of fuel after only having filled the tank when we were leaving our friends house only few hours ealier…..

To say mayhem ensued would be an understatement… we had an overtired baby… crazy busy traffic ( no order to it either ) …. And we were in the middle lane – so the furtherst we could be from the edge!

All of a sudden some helpful young men who saw a way to help us out and make a few bucks came over and stopped the traffic and helped rob push the car off the road and down in to a mechanic…. ( Rob rang our mechanic and he said he’d come straight away  - he still hadn’t arrived home from bringing us the car in the first place. )

When we get out of the car it is PITCH BLACK… and I mean pitch black…. And there were about 40 men all swarming the car asking ME what was wrong… eventually Rob was able to share with them what had happened and that our mechanic was on his way…

.

Well that resulted in lots of shouting and yelling….. if we weren’t going to use their mechanic we needed to move the car back up on to highway….

Hezekiah was crying because of all the shouting and how dark it was…. But thankfully I placed him in his wrap and wrapped him on to mummy and he went straight to sleep!!

After much conversation, yelling, confusing and the men trying to push our car back up on to the road, one young guy was able to convince them to let us leave our car where it was and allow our mechanic to look at it.

Our mechanic eventually arrived…. And much bartering took place as he asked to use some of their items etc to replace fuel pipe on our car……

One young man was kind and found me a broken chair to sit on.

Its hard to describe what the place was like…. Felt like middle of no where that’s how dark it was but it was right near main highway.

Although overwhelming, even for Rob with everyone talking trying to make decisions for us…. I was at peace, and had a sleeping baby in my wrap so we were fine.

Thankfully mechanic got the car fixed and we decided he would drive us to our new place and then help us unload our items and then drive car back with him to check it again the next day at his shop…..

The trip to our place was only normally about 40 minutes….. but now we had hit peak hour it took us another 2 hours to get home….

Robs brother had been waiting for us all that time in our new place…. He was wonderful and found the lightbulbs to put up and at least get our curtains up for us and swept and mopped the place.

We arrived after 10pm after having left our friends house at 1pm.

What would normally take an hour had taken us  9 hours!

A long story short…. After having decided we were just going to keep driving Rob’s uncles car – we found out through our mechanic about a business man who was selling his 4wd van as he was moving overseas and he needed to sell it quickly.

Our mechanic had a look at it and Rob went and checked it out. It was in amazing condition, had barely been driven as the business man was out of the country a lot.

It was the sort of car we had wanted originally, being a 4wd van we thought it would be great for when visitors come, and for when we have the childrens home. Place its good on the road. But we had thought we would have to save for quite a long time to get one in good condition.

After a few days of prayer and chats with the mechanic and owner and after I took it for a test drive we decided we would take it.

It was amazing how good it was and for the price.

We got our mechanic to check it again just before we handed over the money to ensure no parts had been swapped ( even though It was a private seller)

Everything was perfect. And everything in the car worked – all the windows… all the doors… even the aircon!!!

In both of the other cars most things didn’t work J

So we are now the proud owners of a NOAH 4wd van…. Which is absolutely a gift from God. We have owned it for a week – and have had 0 problems with it!!

Praise God!!

Now I get stared at for driving such a big car  :)

Disbite all the mishaps and money that went in to the other cars... one thing is clear to us... God has been surrounding us with His protection since we came. 

Driving here is TOTALLY CRAZY.... and scary at times... and its something I did not think I'd be able to do - But I have become more assertive and now understand how things work here. 

But the traffic is crazy, there are SO many people walking everywhere, so many cars, with very poor roads, huge amount of motorbikes ( boda boda) with passengers on the back swerving in and out of traffic, taxi vans pulling up all the time in front of you without signalling.... and a lot of speeding and no intercating.... for someone who learnt to drive in a country with strict driving rules this is very frustrating... but more than frustrating... its so dangerous. 

There have been COUNTLESS TIMES when we have been had new misses in small accidents.... but there has also been two times.... when very clearly we were protected by angels from life threatening accidents ( both of which i never told my parents about until now ;) 

In the first incident -  I literally saw my life flashing before my eyes as a high speeding truck with NO LIGHTS came speeding towards my side of the car trying to overtake me as I turned.....if it had not been for a sudden voice telling me to stop... I would not be here today and unlikely that Rob or ziah would be either.... 

And the second incident was similar... and involved a truck again - but this time..... The full brunt of the accident would have been felt on Rob and Hezekiah's side.... as I was about to pull out in to traffic... I saw something flash.... and felt my heart race... so I stopped - next minute a HUGE truck came from no where... no indicating... turning right towards us... again they had No lights on so you could not see it at all....

I have never felt so protected as I have with those incidents that have happened while driving since being back.... I know God has a plan and a future for us.... it has been shown so clearly by the things we have been protected from! 

We pray and believe this is now the end of our car adventures..... now we pray for only FUN adventures in our new car J

 THE NEW CAR - perfect for the ministry

GOD KNEW all along what we really needed.