Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for the ‘Life in Dar es Salaam’ Category

This post is going to be kinda weird.  What I’m going to write about is our car and the vast number of things that we’ve had go wrong with it.  And ask if you think our car (thus us) is being spiritually attacked.  I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.

We got the car 11 months ago from missionary friends of ours.  For the year they had it, they didn’t have any issues with it.  None.  Since, here’s what’s happened:

• Rear left wheel nearly comes off while traveling to Kenya – 1 lug bolt completely breaks off – repaired
• Rear left shock completely detaches from the frame of the car – reattached
• Left front 4WD axle breaks – not yet repaired
• Radiator springs a leak – welding repair
• Right front 4WD axle breaks – not yet repaired
• Brake pads replaced
• A/C pipe cracks – had to repair and refill gas
• Radiator springs leak – welding repair
• A/C breaks again – repaired
• Transmission loses overdrive – not yet repaired
• Radiator springs leak – welding repair; new radiator ordered from UK
• Left rear window comes off track – repaired
• Battery dies – replaced
• A/C breaks – repaired
• Left rear fender is dented b/c of a visit with a brick wall – repaired
• Right rear fender flare broken by log in the road – repaired
• Minivan-style taxi hits the front left denting in bumper, fender, headlight and breaks out corner lamp – repaired
• 2nd battery dies – replaced
• Power steering springs a bad leak and damages pump – not yet repaired
• Right rear window comes off track – repaired
• Both independent front suspension tie rods break – repaired
• A/C breaks again – not yet repaired
• Steel gate slams the right rear fender flare, breaking it – not yet repaired
• Speedometer breaks – not yet repaired

Is it the optimist in me that leads me to deny the obvious?  Or is this not a constant attack?  Because there hasn’t been a single month in which at least one thing has broken.  Absolutely frustrating.

Just sitting in the guest house room right now.  I’m piddling on the computer and Dana’s doing some cross stitch stuff.  We’ve got a lot of time to kill today but we planned to just stay here and rest as much as possible before our 30-hour trip home… that starts at stinkin’ midnight tonight.

As we were going to bed our first night here, we noticed the room was warmer than it had been during the day without either of us changing anything on the air conditioner.  So, I took the front panel off of the A/C window unit (not hard, only one screw holding it on) with optimism hoping I could find a problem to fix… then be able to fix it.  Sure ’nuff the entire radiator thingy-majigger was completely frosted over.  Not an A/C expert but that didn’t look right to me.  Pulled out my trusty Buck pocket knife, scraped a ton of frost off, and cranked it back up.  Instead of freezing back over again, turning it on made it thaw the rest of the way out.  Success and coolness… great 1-2 punch.

This morning, we woke up to no electricity.  Not good for a full day in the room in the Dar heat and humidity.  But, it came back on before the temp reached 80 in the room.  Yippee… until just now… out again.  We were chillin at 71 degrees 30-minutes ago.  Already 76 now and that’s inside the room.  I looked on weather.com and it is 90 outside but feels like 97 because of the humidity.  Might try to take a nap now… will probably dream about sweating…