Last Sunday I was backing out of an unfamiliar driveway, looking over my left shoulder, when I realized I had grazed a tree with my right side mirror. It cracked the mirror, so yesterday I took my car to our base garage and mechanic. Unfortunately, he was in town and didn't get started on it till today. I can see the garage from my bedroom, and I saw my car up on the lift. Thinking that was an odd way to change out a mirror, I went on with my business, which was pre-school today. However, the mechanic caught up with me and said the dreaded words, "I need to show you something about your car." Never good, no matter which country you're in!
Turns out, I needed an oil change, a new air filter (imagine that!), and 2 parts in the engine that I saw were broken but don't even know the names of! He said he'd call the shop in town for prices and let me know. Turned out to be 370,000 Tz shillings, or around $300. Miraculously, I had 420,000 shillings in car repair money that I had been putting aside from an allowance I'm given every month for that purpose. I jokingly told several people I was sure the labor would take the other 50,000. Almost! The 2 mechanics brought me back my car a little while ago and said they had forgotten to include the price of the mirror which was......50,000 shillings! I could only laugh! I've always thought mechanics knew exactly how much money you had to spend for repairs!
The really good things are: I had the money, so it's no out-of-pocket for me, and this was discovered before I got on the road to Karanse at 5:30 Monday morning! Happy ending!
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