one of my best friends is about to come and visit; she’s arriving this sunday and I am planning to do a long overdue roadtrip through Rwanda; exploring the country with her. of course a car is an essential component of any successful roadtrip and because I didn’t want any bad surprises to happen whilst we’re on the road I took my car into the garage last week to get her serviced, i.e. change the filters, change the oil, control the brakes, and grease all the joints and also to have the electric cables replaced. I’m sorry if I’m giving you more information than you actually need, but suzuki samurais get rather hot when driving and therefore the cables melt occasionally. the dashboard lights have been in disco mode for a while and starting up the car has been a temperamental thing too. so I took her in, told the guy who received me that I wanted the big service and all the cables replaced. it took me a while to explain to him and when I left I was not convinced that he’d fully understood. but this is africa, and you have to have a little faith. I had not used that garage before but it had been recommended to me by several friends and so I left trusting that things would turn out just fine. according to the guy the car was going to be ready the same evening; I knew that they were not going to finish it in 3 hours. never mind, I could wait a couple of days; as long as I’d have the car back in time for our road trip I would be happy.
so the next day I called and asked how things were going. ah, madame, we are fixing the starter, you will have to wait. I had the first adrenaline rush. replacing the starter is expensive. but I was assured that they had not replaced it; just fixed it. fine. turns out that on friday the car was not ready either. so – a weekend without a car… oh well. I’ve done it before. on monday I call again and that’s when they are telling me that they’d not finish the car today as they’d removed the engine… I got angry. I told you to replace the cables, change the fluids and grease the joints – why the F do you take the engine out?
him: il y a probleme avec le volant-moteur; il faut le remplacer.
me : c’est quoi le volant-moteur ?
him : vous ne connaissez-pas le volant-moteur ? (with an incredulous undertone)
anyway – I won’t transcribe the entire conversation; but he could not explain to me exactly what the thing was or does; just that it was a part attached to the engine and that it was knackered and needed replacing; they had already enquired with rwanda motors, the suzuki spare part place. I was furious. spare parts are expensive and they had happily started enquiring but could not even give me an approximate idea of how much this was going to cost me… they told me to call back tomorrow. in the meantime I found out what the volant-moteur is and does: it’s a piece attached to the engine and makes the engine turn when you start up the car.
I went on a field trip for a couple of days and when I came back on wednesday I decided that the time for phone calls was over; some personal contact was in order. so I went down to the garage and asked for the woman in charge – she is an impressive woman that manages the mechanics; she shouts a lot and makes them move; understands a lot about cars and is generally the one to talk to if you want things to happen. I was angry and I told her. when I’d dropped off the car I’d also told the guy that I wanted to be notified of any spare parts that needed purchasing; that they were not to do anything outside of what I’d told them without notifying me. they hadn’t. had it not been for me calling to check in I would have probably not known about the replacement – or rather it would’ve at least taken another 10 days… anyway – we were arguing and I was particularly furious that after 3 days there still wasn’t a spare part. so I told them to give me the old volant-moteur and that I’d find one myself; after all I’d done the same with the carburettor and succeeded in a short time. so off I went, in my work clothes hoisting a huge piece of metal oozing oil and grease and weighing about a stone. I heaved myself onto a moto taxi and went to the magic spare part shop. there they’d promised me that they’d have one ready in 30 minutes. another 20 minutes later I got a call from the garage that they’d found the part. why is it that you have to shout at people to make them move? it’s tiring.
never mind, tomorrow at 3 pm your car will be ready I was told. sweet – all in time for the holidays! so tomorrow (i.e. yesterday) at 4 I called them to ask if the car was finished. yes, your car is finished, but you can’t pick her up tonight; come tomorrow morning; they hadn’t serviced her yet. NO – I’m coming now and I’ll do the entretien elsewhere; I’ve had enough. so I turn up at the garage and the car was not finished at all. the battery needed charging and overall there were still many screws to tighten and adjustments to make. I negotiated again with the woman in charge and told her I was not going to leave without my car; that I was sick of it. she started taking my side and told me that she was going to lock all doors and that no one was going to leave without having finished my car. this made me smile. as I was waiting I called my friends to tell them about the story – and suddenly I see them pulling into the yard… ;-)) their radio which had been fitted 2 days ago was already not working anymore. we were standing around, talking cars, laughing and discussing africa and the skills it takes to make things move here.
the boys working on my car couldn’t get her to start up, since they’d removed the engine they had to twist many screws and get them all to work in symphony; this takes time. eventually we hear screaming from the corner where my car is and hear an engine revving and see a cloud of smoke dissolving into the air. they’d started the car. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. more screw turning and adjusting. switching off the engine and trying to start it up again; not every time successful. 3 trips round the block and many twists of screws later they suddenly concluded that the cables were the problem.
by that time I had gotten beyond the point of being angry – after all I’d been making friends with the mechanics and general staff of the garage. so I started laughing the laugh of an exhausted person who was close to hysterics. I told them to take a look at the fiche which they fill in when you drop off your car. there it was, clearly marked: change all electric cables. yes – I did have the ‘I-told-you-so’ look on my face and tone in my voice. I explained to yet another guy that seemed to be the boss what had happened and told him I WAS NOT IMPRESSED. that just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I don’t understand about my car and what might possibly be wrong with it. that the starting mechanism had been doing exactly what it was doing now for a while and that was why I’d wanted them to change the cables. by that time the sun had set and the boys had been doing an hour and a half of overtime. the boss reassured me that ‘non, madame, ca n’a rien a voir avec le fait que vous etes une femme’ – I told him I didn’t believe him; mechanics was still a man’s domain and they generally didn’t believe that women understood anything about it. my new woman-friend in the garage just smiled. female solidarity is a fantastic thing!
when he told her that it was the cables and that I’d said that from the beginning she was mortified. and I’m sure she went pale, or maybe purple – but you can’t really tell, not as a mzungu. she apologised to me, ranted about the boy who’d received me and then shouted at one of the mechanics to be at work at 6am and have that car ready for 10am. I butted in telling her that I won’t be able to pick up the car before 2pm anyways – she just said: I don’t care, tomorrow at 10 I will call you to tell you your car is ready. ok, whatever. I was about to walk off to get a cab and go back to work. she insisted that someone would drop me off; I couldn’t possibly go by taxi after all this. it took another 20 minutes to sort out someone and a car to drive me. ‘and tomorrow we go for primus [local beer]!’
so once again it’s all about the cables; bloody, effing, cables… and it took 2.5 hours of me breathing down their necks to make them move. but this is africa, and often you have to shout and insist to get things done. but despite all of the shouting you generally part as friends, have a laugh at the end of the day and all are happy when things sort themselves out. and I think I have a good chance to pay a reduced price on the bill which is no doubt going to ruin me until the next paycheck.
and although these situations are nerve racking and annoying sometimes, they make for good stories, bring you closer to people and have taught me a great deal about the interior workings of my car. and although I struggle to interiorise the mix of patience and impatience you need to handle these situations I feel like I’m learning. in europe you just wouldn’t accept shit like this; why should you do this here? I too often still feel pity for the people. you are confronted with so much social inequality and I feel bad about shouting at people and possibly sacking them for doing a bad job – but on the other hand I strongly believe in that if you don’t deliver, you don’t deserve your job. why should it be any different here? if you are not clever enough to do what is asked of you, you should move on and do something that is better suited to your abilities. is that hard-core capitalist thinking? I never claimed to be a socialist – but does that mean that I don’t care what happens to people with lesser capacities? I guess the one thing that I have learned is that this world is not fair, never was, never will be. how can I make a difference? does it really help people to excuse everything just because you feel pity for them? until what point do you drag them along, give them chances to improve? and when do you call it a day and focus on achieving results? it’s all about striking the balance – but what balance? that is what I am constantly trying to figure out.
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