The Truck

Some 9 months ago we ordered a new truck from Japan to be delivered here to Tanzania.  Our old truck, while it usually got us around, got us around a bit too often to Mwanza for repairs.  There's no mechanic in Geita and when you drive a 13 year old truck on crazy dirt roads all the time, things are bound to happen.  Our muffler, for example, was held on by twine.  Having to go to Mwanza every time something needs to be repaired is both time consuming and expensive.  We were worried the truck would only need repairs increasingly often the longer we live here and thought it probably wouldn't make it through our tenure.  Hence the new truck.

There's a company that allows us as missionaries to order certain vehicles at a much lower rate straight from the factory in Japan.  Living where we do, a pretty hefty four wheel drive is a necessity, albeit expensive, so we're quite thankful to this company.  When we ordered the truck in July, they said it would take three to four months to reach Tanzania.  We were told once in Tanzania, it should take an additional three to four weeks to go through customs.  The truck arrived in Tanzania as scheduled but it it did not take an additional three to four weeks to go through customs.  It took an additional three to four months.  The government charges port fees while the things you own are in customs.  Every day something's there, you're charged more money.  So why, really, what is the motivation to ever speed the process along?

Even so, after much waiting and calling to talk to people about the situation, we finally got the call our truck was ready.  We flew to dar a few weeks ago to pick it up.  And it actually was ready only 4 days after we were told it would be, with a couple of parts stolen and a whopping $6,300 in port fees added.  But we have our truck.  Finally.  And we're grateful.  We feel like our time will be freed up more to do what we came here to do.  And we can fit some 11 people in there, so that free taxi service I spoke of a while ago can really be cranked up a notch.