I mentioned early on that driving here is a little different than driving at home. One aspect of that is that people will come up to a corner or the end of a driveway really fast and kind of nose out into the road. I finally stopped panicking when I saw it, trusting that they would stop. Well, the Tuesday before Christmas, Dustin was driving me into the Embassy, and a big blue Pepsi delivery truck came down a steeply sloped parking lot as we were going by. And it slammed into the passenger door of our car, scraped along it as we moved forward, and kept going into the ditch on the other side of the street. Apparently the parking brake failed and no one had put rocks behind the wheels (a common practice here); the driver wasn't even in it.
(there used to be a side mirror and the door used to open)
That wasn't really how we wanted to start Christmas, but we have a lot to be grateful for. First of course, that our car is a tank; my neck was a little sore for a few days (the doctor ruled out a fracture or head injury) but otherwise we're totally fine. I'm pretty shaken thinking about how my old Civic would have handled that (not well, is my guess). Second, that it was so unambiguously not our fault, so no angry mobs to worry about; the bystanders just wanted to help. Third, that we got amazing support from the Embassy. I called the Marines at Post One right away; they made sure we were safe and sent a local security guard and Ugandan investigators. The Marine called back twice, once with an update and once to make sure we were ok. It helped that we were 200 meters from the Embassy, but the guard and investigators were there within 10 minutes and the motor pool supervisor soon after that. The investigators handled the police (we didn't even have to go give a statement, just write one and send it in the next day), and motor pool took charge of our car.
We found out afterward that the police impounded the truck once the owner took responsibility. Motor pool took our car to two garages they use and trust to get the mandatory two repair estimates, which they brought to the owner. He paid the lower one, motor pool took the car to the garage and paid, and we signed a form saying we were satisfied so the police could release the truck. We're hoping to get an idea of when we'll get the car back this week.
The last thing we have to be grateful for is that one of my coworkers lent us their second car. We're trying not to make any frivolous trips, but it's really reassuring to know that we can go where we need to, and it's been so helpful with all my appointments.
So a week later, Dustin went back to the Embassy to pick up mail. There was a big blue Pepsi delivery truck in that same lot....but someone had parked another truck perpendicular to it in case it rolled again.
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