My big blue lemon

Less than a week before I headed off to meet up with Kay, Matt, Becca, Kilimanjaro and the rest, I decided I should buy a car.

In truth, it was probably Charles that decided I should buy a car. Charles is one of the drivers we hire for work when we're short-handed. He and I went on a week-long trip upcountry together for couples HIV counseling and testing support supervision visits shortly before the Tanzania trip, and got to talking about my desire and lack of motivation to buy a car. I told him what I wanted and how much I was willing to spend. He told me he’d look around. I considered it a space-filling exchange.

A day later, I got a call. It was Charles. Charles looked. Charles found.

An hour later, Charles picked me up to check it out. It occurred to me that I should have someone manly and somewhat knowledgeable about cars come along for guidance and moral support, as, let's face it, I ain't no Click and Clack. I made a mild attempt at recruitment, but the men in my life were of no use. Ian had a date with his golf clubs, Doug up and moved to Tbilisi, Scott was busy with a newborn in London, I didn’t think Matt had ever even owned a car, and Danny is lovable but car-clueless. So, I went it alone (with Charles).

Note to self: Don’t do that.

One used car lot visit, a 10-minute test drive and 11.5 million shillings in a brown envelope later, I was the proud owner of a bright blue, 1995, automatic, four-door Rav4.

There are, for the record, a lot of Rav4s in Uganda. My peeling off racing stripes, for instance, aren’t anything to brag about, nor is the embroidered gas tank cover. I do, however, get points for the spoiler on the spoiler, and the turbo switches by the steering wheel whose functions still escape me.

I'd be willing to bet that there are also probably few Rav4s that have undergone as much maintenance as mine has in a 2-month time frame. I have already: gotten new steering ends, z-links, cross bar bushes, a rubber boot, self-starter contacts, wiring and wires. I have had to jump it, have my battery replaced, have the back door adjusted so that it would close properly and stop killing my battery, have something cryptic done to the oil/seal/top cover, and have it re-wired after the initial botch of a wiring job. It has been recommended that I still have my fan belts, ball joints and steering lack (or whatever it is the mechanic’s handwriting says) replaced. I do not have headlights – only brights and parking lights, there’s a circular dent on the back door, I’ve already had a flat tire, and the air conditioning does not work. Even when cruising along at a respectable speed with all the windows down, I find myself sweating profusely, waggling my hand in front of all of the vents searching in vain for the source of the heat. Whether my knobless knob is all the way blue, all the way red, or somewhere in between, my only temperature seems to be perma-heat.

Anybody want to buy a car?