Where to begin???
If you read Tamra's blog earlier today then you already have the jest of the story. What you don't have is my perspective, as well as how it all ended. So I will start at the beginning I guess and go from there. This will be a little long but hopefully well worth it.
We left very early this morning (the roosters weren't even crowing yet) to go to Jinja to get a car we have purchased from an American mechanic who came highly recommended by some friends who live in Jinja. For those of you who are aware of the church planting trips we have done in the past, Jinja was our third year of church plants as well as the first year the kids came to Uganda.
Anyway... We arrived in Jinja in record time as there was surprisingly little traffic. We stopped at a popular cafe there as Tamra was looking for a special cook book they sell there. We were supposed to meet the mechanic there and follow him to his house where the vehicle would be, along with the paperwork. Well the mechanic arrived... and he arrived in our car.
And now a little sidebar about the car...
Now just to be clear, this is no ordinary Ugandan car. Let's just say that this car stands out a bit. It is completely white with the exception of the black steel that envelopes the front and back bumpers, as well as the top luggage rack. This is a 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser with 4 wheel drive and a beast at that. Remember the word "Beast" as I will refer to it again later. This vehicle has NOTHING electric. Everything is manual from the door locks to the crank windows to the lever-sliding seats. Even the 4 wheel drive mechanism is basically a lever. (The idea is that a vehicle that is fully manual will be cheaper to repair as a computer is not necessary to diagnose the system. There is no system to diagnose. Just fix what is broken.)
On top of that, the vehicle has been raised substantially to avoid dragging the bottom on the plethora of speed bumps and potholes that ever road seems to be constructed from. (Seriously!!! I think the roads are really just speed bumps and potholes with some asphalt or dirt sprinkled here and there.) Add to that the ginormous tires that are meant to work us through any off road situation we may find in the mud-soaked village roads. This vehicle is made to not get stuck. It's a Beast!!! The vehicle sidebar is now over...
Since he drove the vehicle to the cafe and he had a meeting he needed to get to, we agreed to just part ways there as the vehicle was now in my possession. So I asked him for the title. Um.... there isn't one. Yes apparently in Uganda they don't really use titles but there is a log book that passes from one owner to the other with signature of the previous owner denoting that the vehicle has been sold and who the new owner is. But since he was planning on us going back to his house, he failed to bring it. Now there were some parts that we brought from the state that he asked us to bring to him, but happened to forget those as well and so we agree to get together the next time he was in Kampala and exchange the forgotten items. Now the fun part begins!!!
Before we left, the mechanic told me that any noises I hear are totally natural. Since this would be my first time driving a diesel, especially one that is 18 years old, he wanted me to know that there would be some noises and that they were totally normal, So "whatever you hear is normal and just accept it as such". And so we drove away.
Things were going pretty well considering the fact that I was now seated and driving in the front right seat of the vehicle on the left side of the road with the gear shift in my left hand, turn signal now on my right side, and my side-seat driver sitting remarkable quiet on my left side as well. Add to that the pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcycle drivers (who were in abundance) all on the left side of the road that I was not have to dodge along with all of the drivers coming at me on my right. EVERYTHING WAS BACKWARDS!!! Needless to say it was a very stressful drive but I was really doing very well. Oh, and did I mention that I was having to follow Pastor Johnson so that I wouldn't get lost? He had a tendency to pass vehicles going slower and leave me behind them to either attempt to pass (crazy dangerous) or sit behind in 2nd or 3rd gear. But I was doing great.
After almost two hours of driving we hit traffic. And I mean traffic. We basically weren't going anywhere, So Pastor Johnson decided to go another way and bypass the bypassing of traffic. Which was a good thing for a number of reasons, not the least being that I would have had no knowledge of said bypass and would have been stuck in the line for hours.
As we went through a town on our shortcut, I noticed that the vehicle was making a strange noise. Now I wrote this off thinking that in the stress of driving I had just tuned this noise out and it was one of those "sounds" that the mechanic warned were "totally normal". Not long after I hear a very loud THUD. I thought that we had hit a major pothole with the rear driver's side wheel so I kept going. Not even seconds later did an even louder THUD ring out followed immediately by the sound of screeching metal dragging the pavement. I turned to Tamra, looked at here with bewilderment and the beginning of what I can only describe to you as fear, and asked, "Did we just loose a wheel?"
Yes we did...
Now the rules that have always been shared with us when it come to accidents is that if you hit someone (a pedestrian) or severely damage anything; DO NOT STOP. Go immediately to a police station and file a report with them of what happened. You see in Uganda there exists just a thing as "Street Justice". I've seen it happen on a small scale and it isn't pretty. Basically the people, all of whom were not involved in the accident in any way, will surround the person they feel is responsible and exact whatever justice they determine is necessary. The bigger the crowd, the worse the punishment - especially if you are white.
But I didn't hit anyone or damage any property. I was simply stuck in the middle of the road (now the cause of traffic for the many who had gone this way to avoid the traffic we had also tried to get around) without a rear wheel. WITHOUT A REAR WHEEL!!! Can you believe it? What are the chances that you drive a vehicle and the entire wheel just falls off???
Immediately upon getting out of the car, locals starting approaching me. I found the wheel and tire (still attached to each other perfectly) and rolled it back to car. It was then that I got a quick look at the brake drum only to see that there were no lugs or lug nuts to be found. The lugs had literally broken off. But how? I'll get to that in a minute.
So the locals are beginnin
g to surround me and I am beginning to get that feeling that something just isn't right. And it wasn't. The next thing I know there is a man standing in front of me with a gash on his shin saying that he was hit by the tire when it flew off the car. Add to that another group of about five people professing how my tire also hit a motorcycle causing it damage. Not there is an injured person as well as property damage - and I'm outside the vehicle and surrounded by locals, each talking (some in broken English and some in Luganda) with there very demonstrative hands expecting my complete compliance and restitution on the spot. I explained (as best as I could) that I would situate everything as soon as my friend (Pastor Johnson who I hoped at the time was either turning around or parking) arrived. Fortunately I finally saw him coming back and parking, allowing my body to descend a bit out of survival mode - but not a lot.
Pastor Johnson arranged everything. He evaluated the motorcycle and determined that the damage they said it sustained from the tire was actually old damage and thus we paid nothing. They were basically attempting to take advantage of the situation. Further, the injured person (who in my opinion really only needed some Neosporin and a bandaid) was demanding 150,000 shillings so that he could go to the hospital. Ultimately the issues was settled for 20,000 shillings. Had I been on my own there is no telling what might have happened. Praise be to God for his protection. In a minute I'll explain how that was only one of the potentially life-saving situations God was involved in on that trip.
The tow truck arrived and it was taken to a local repair shop that Pastor Johnson trusted. He does all the work for the Victory Living Word Church Vehicles as well as Pastor Johnson's personal vehicle. After getting the drum cover off we found the broken lugs bolts as well as one that had not broken. And it was then that we saw the problem. The lug bolts were too short and the lug nuts were too short as well. The lug nuts had to be put on extremely tight and at that were only on the 2nd or 3rd tread of the bolt. It was inevitable that they would break. Now remember when I mentioned God's protection. Imaging if the wheel had come off when I was driving 60 or 70 mph down the highway from Jinja to Kampala. I doubt we would have escaped severe injury - or perhaps even death. But God created traffic to slow us down and push us to a road that was less dangerous and accessible to a tow truck. Again, Praise God for his protection and provision.
Thus the Beast is running and the mechanic has offered to cover all the damages and expenses. That was more than I could have hoped for as most would have done nothing. The Beast is now affectionately names "Bertha the Beast". Don't ask why - that's just what stuck.
Again, Praise God for his provision. So now the vehicle is in the hotel parking lot and we prepare to sleep after a very long, stressful, and crazy day. But God was there the whole time - watching out for us.
If you read Tamra's blog earlier today then you already have the jest of the story. What you don't have is my perspective, as well as how it all ended. So I will start at the beginning I guess and go from there. This will be a little long but hopefully well worth it.
We left very early this morning (the roosters weren't even crowing yet) to go to Jinja to get a car we have purchased from an American mechanic who came highly recommended by some friends who live in Jinja. For those of you who are aware of the church planting trips we have done in the past, Jinja was our third year of church plants as well as the first year the kids came to Uganda.
Anyway... We arrived in Jinja in record time as there was surprisingly little traffic. We stopped at a popular cafe there as Tamra was looking for a special cook book they sell there. We were supposed to meet the mechanic there and follow him to his house where the vehicle would be, along with the paperwork. Well the mechanic arrived... and he arrived in our car.
And now a little sidebar about the car...
Now just to be clear, this is no ordinary Ugandan car. Let's just say that this car stands out a bit. It is completely white with the exception of the black steel that envelopes the front and back bumpers, as well as the top luggage rack. This is a 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser with 4 wheel drive and a beast at that. Remember the word "Beast" as I will refer to it again later. This vehicle has NOTHING electric. Everything is manual from the door locks to the crank windows to the lever-sliding seats. Even the 4 wheel drive mechanism is basically a lever. (The idea is that a vehicle that is fully manual will be cheaper to repair as a computer is not necessary to diagnose the system. There is no system to diagnose. Just fix what is broken.)On top of that, the vehicle has been raised substantially to avoid dragging the bottom on the plethora of speed bumps and potholes that ever road seems to be constructed from. (Seriously!!! I think the roads are really just speed bumps and potholes with some asphalt or dirt sprinkled here and there.) Add to that the ginormous tires that are meant to work us through any off road situation we may find in the mud-soaked village roads. This vehicle is made to not get stuck. It's a Beast!!! The vehicle sidebar is now over...
Since he drove the vehicle to the cafe and he had a meeting he needed to get to, we agreed to just part ways there as the vehicle was now in my possession. So I asked him for the title. Um.... there isn't one. Yes apparently in Uganda they don't really use titles but there is a log book that passes from one owner to the other with signature of the previous owner denoting that the vehicle has been sold and who the new owner is. But since he was planning on us going back to his house, he failed to bring it. Now there were some parts that we brought from the state that he asked us to bring to him, but happened to forget those as well and so we agree to get together the next time he was in Kampala and exchange the forgotten items. Now the fun part begins!!!
Before we left, the mechanic told me that any noises I hear are totally natural. Since this would be my first time driving a diesel, especially one that is 18 years old, he wanted me to know that there would be some noises and that they were totally normal, So "whatever you hear is normal and just accept it as such". And so we drove away.
Things were going pretty well considering the fact that I was now seated and driving in the front right seat of the vehicle on the left side of the road with the gear shift in my left hand, turn signal now on my right side, and my side-seat driver sitting remarkable quiet on my left side as well. Add to that the pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcycle drivers (who were in abundance) all on the left side of the road that I was not have to dodge along with all of the drivers coming at me on my right. EVERYTHING WAS BACKWARDS!!! Needless to say it was a very stressful drive but I was really doing very well. Oh, and did I mention that I was having to follow Pastor Johnson so that I wouldn't get lost? He had a tendency to pass vehicles going slower and leave me behind them to either attempt to pass (crazy dangerous) or sit behind in 2nd or 3rd gear. But I was doing great.
After almost two hours of driving we hit traffic. And I mean traffic. We basically weren't going anywhere, So Pastor Johnson decided to go another way and bypass the bypassing of traffic. Which was a good thing for a number of reasons, not the least being that I would have had no knowledge of said bypass and would have been stuck in the line for hours.
As we went through a town on our shortcut, I noticed that the vehicle was making a strange noise. Now I wrote this off thinking that in the stress of driving I had just tuned this noise out and it was one of those "sounds" that the mechanic warned were "totally normal". Not long after I hear a very loud THUD. I thought that we had hit a major pothole with the rear driver's side wheel so I kept going. Not even seconds later did an even louder THUD ring out followed immediately by the sound of screeching metal dragging the pavement. I turned to Tamra, looked at here with bewilderment and the beginning of what I can only describe to you as fear, and asked, "Did we just loose a wheel?"
Yes we did...
Now the rules that have always been shared with us when it come to accidents is that if you hit someone (a pedestrian) or severely damage anything; DO NOT STOP. Go immediately to a police station and file a report with them of what happened. You see in Uganda there exists just a thing as "Street Justice". I've seen it happen on a small scale and it isn't pretty. Basically the people, all of whom were not involved in the accident in any way, will surround the person they feel is responsible and exact whatever justice they determine is necessary. The bigger the crowd, the worse the punishment - especially if you are white.
But I didn't hit anyone or damage any property. I was simply stuck in the middle of the road (now the cause of traffic for the many who had gone this way to avoid the traffic we had also tried to get around) without a rear wheel. WITHOUT A REAR WHEEL!!! Can you believe it? What are the chances that you drive a vehicle and the entire wheel just falls off???
Immediately upon getting out of the car, locals starting approaching me. I found the wheel and tire (still attached to each other perfectly) and rolled it back to car. It was then that I got a quick look at the brake drum only to see that there were no lugs or lug nuts to be found. The lugs had literally broken off. But how? I'll get to that in a minute.
So the locals are beginning to surround me and I am beginning to get that feeling that something just isn't right. And it wasn't. The next thing I know there is a man standing in front of me with a gash on his shin saying that he was hit by the tire when it flew off the car. Add to that another group of about five people professing how my tire also hit a motorcycle causing it damage. Not there is an injured person as well as property damage - and I'm outside the vehicle and surrounded by locals, each talking (some in broken English and some in Luganda) with there very demonstrative hands expecting my complete compliance and restitution on the spot. I explained (as best as I could) that I would situate everything as soon as my friend (Pastor Johnson who I hoped at the time was either turning around or parking) arrived. Fortunately I finally saw him coming back and parking, allowing my body to descend a bit out of survival mode - but not a lot.
Pastor Johnson arranged everything. He evaluated the motorcycle and determined that the damage they said it sustained from the tire was actually old damage and thus we paid nothing. They were basically attempting to take advantage of the situation. Further, the injured person (who in my opinion really only needed some Neosporin and a bandaid) was demanding 150,000 shillings so that he could go to the hospital. Ultimately the issues was settled for 20,000 shillings. Had I been on my own there is no telling what might have happened. Praise be to God for his protection. In a minute I'll explain how that was only one of the potentially life-saving situations God was involved in on that trip.
The tow truck arrived and it was taken to a local repair shop that Pastor Johnson trusted. He does all the work for the Victory Living Word Church Vehicles as well as Pastor Johnson's personal vehicle. After getting the drum cover off we found the broken lugs bolts as well as one that had not broken. And it was then that we saw the problem. The lug bolts were too short and the lug nuts were too short as well. The lug nuts had to be put on extremely tight and at that were only on the 2nd or 3rd tread of the bolt. It was inevitable that they would break. Now remember when I mentioned God's protection. Imaging if the wheel had come off when I was driving 60 or 70 mph down the highway from Jinja to Kampala. I doubt we would have escaped severe injury - or perhaps even death. But God created traffic to slow us down and push us to a road that was less dangerous and accessible to a tow truck. Again, Praise God for his protection and provision.Thus the Beast is running and the mechanic has offered to cover all the damages and expenses. That was more than I could have hoped for as most would have done nothing. The Beast is now affectionately names "Bertha the Beast". Don't ask why - that's just what stuck.
Again, Praise God for his provision. So now the vehicle is in the hotel parking lot and we prepare to sleep after a very long, stressful, and crazy day. But God was there the whole time - watching out for us.
Thank you Lord for all you did today. I
wonder what tomorrow has in store???
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