Trouble with Vehicles

We would never really wear out tyres (tires) on our vehicles - I guess being used to New Zealand certificate of fitness standards. Anyway, whenever we had new tyres fitted, there were always vijana (young men) waiting to buy them.
We had fitted new tyres to the Maruti and one fellow outbid his mates by offering Tsh50 000/-. This was a good price - Jo had sold five from a Toyota to a 'friendly' travel agent for Tsh12 000/-. The guy did not have the money on him, so said he would come up to the office. He turned up and loaded the tyres then presented us with Tsh20 000/-. I suggested he unload the tyres. He then offered Tsh25 000/-, but I told him that was half of his original offer. We had other business to attend to, so locked the tyres away, but as we drove off he offered Tsh30 000/-.
I wasn't there next day, but I suggested to Jo to take the Tsh30 000/-, and she did.

Next day, Big E announced that we were going to Mswakini in the Suzuki! Wow, the project vehicle! We were going there in response to Jo asking me to action some of Big E's projects. I will report on that later. But I rushed down to Jo to get the receipts etc. pertaining.
After a sort out there, we headed off but I noticed the Suzuki was coughing a spluttering every now and then.

Mswakini is quite far away from Arusha - near Tarangire National Park. But we first called at the primary school where the Headteacher greeted us. He was a big friendly fellow, a Maasai I think, and he told me the reason there were no children in the school was that they were all collecting water. It was a round trip of one and a half hours and the water was being collected for the school teachers' houses. The school had the responsibility to provide water. We were there to address this interruption of education time.
It is worth mentioning that we were going to take the water from the Tarangire National Park, from a borehole and using a pump owned by a phosphate company. We went to see the guy at the company office just past the National Park turnoff.
The phosphate company was not working because it no longer had sales. Hmm says I, there was a lot of derelict machinery there, some heavy machinery and it would be possible to rehabilitate it. The phosphate was found by some South Africans looking for uranium. The phosphate is full of beta rays - not that bad but making the Geiger Counter sing its song. But no wonder nobody wanted the product. As I have an interest in geology and fossils, I asked to look around, but the sun on the white surface nearly blinded me, so we abandoned the idea.

After we had completed our business - successfully gaining permission to use the pump - we headed homeward and at Kisongo the Suzuki began to cough and fart! It stopped complete just at the edge of Arusha and Big E pulled off the fuel filter cover, breaking it in the process! We managed to bypass the filter, but that was not the problem. Big E found a fundi (mechanic - but the name covers any tradesman) who tinkered with the points and managed to restart the vehicle. Just short of the Agency office, she conked out again! I left him to it and walked to the office and he arrived about the same time as me. He then took it to town for repair and I walked home.

There had been no electricity since the previous night and it did return - just for a couple of hours, then it was back to candles and kerosene lamp.

I had been having trouble with the Maruti as well and ended up being stranded because of it - but there must have been a dud lot of those small condensers in the distributor - they would last about a week!

When the Maruti was 'fixed' it still was not running correctly, so I was cautious. and again a few days later it was causing problems and ended taking it back to the fundi. When I check on it I found that they had disconnected the choke because they though it was the problem - only thing was that she wouldn't start in the morning. They said they had tuned the motor, but the air filter had not been cleaned.
We decided to take it to Bobby Safaris, but became stuck in a traffic jam! This was because the police had cleared the main road for the arrival of the Kenyan President!
Mhukta one of the Bobby boys is a very able mechanic and he knew what to do and had the wee Maruti running like a top!

I was very happy with Mhukta as our fundi, but in-office politics saw us move away from him to someone less appropriate and more trouble - but that is after a lot of water going under the bridge and a whole other story.