We've been told not to put our trust in cars here. The weather, the quality of the car, the road conditions... there's no end to the problems or causes! Having already done some work on our little sport car, like replace the spark plugs & general tune-up, we had our 3rd break down of the month last night, and then again this morning. This time, however, it all happened around fatuur time... not good. While it is a manual car, and thus can be started by "popping the clutch", it is also fuel injected. Thus, when the battery goes, one can only "pop the clutch" so many times before there's no more juice, therefore no more gas... So, we pushed her over to the side of a busy road and pondered what to do...
Roaming around a strange neighborhood in search of a battery charger (our guess at this point is a bad alternator) at sundown during Ramadan... good times. The first mechanic we found had a charger, and about 7 other batteries he was waiting to charge. So he connected ours and then proceeded to make a chain with cables to the 7 others. Perhaps that might have been just one too many batteries (maybe?) as within seconds the charger was burned out. On to greener pastures! The next place we found a very friendly group of locals about to start their fatuur, Ramadan Kareem! (Kinda like Merry Christmas- Happy Ramadan...?) The mechanic kindly agreed to charge it despite the hour, replaced the water... and we proceeded to wait... while watching them fatuur. We had to turn down joining them more than a few times- it's customary to welcome anyone to eat- Fatal! (Welcome!). But they did offer (encourage strongly!!) us their local Ramadan drink "Abre", some sort of tea-ish/old shoe/wet cigarette tasting drink which takes days to make... Shukran! (thank you!)
An hour later, freshly charged battery in hand, we headed off to the car, hooked up the juiced battery, drove 5 minutes... only to have it die again. Stranded once more. This time at night, in a less commercial area. We opted to leave the car where it was and took a bus home.
The next morning we returned to our little Ferrari, recharged the battery again, hoping to make it to a friend's house for fixing... to drive it about 7 minutes... in the middle of a busy intersection... It ended with us taking transport to the friend's house, getting a larger battery, returning to the car, hooking the larger battery up via jumper cables to the little dead battery hooked up to the car praying that a) we would make it to said friend's house, b.) the hood, loose to accommodate cables, would not fly up mid-journey, and c.) the engine, hood, car, us would not burst into flames... Well, long story not so short, after almost a full day of focus, it all worked out and the car is now fixed and parked in our hosch... phew!
Housing Update: We've been looking and have found some great options and some not so great ones... and prices seem to be ridiculously high. Praying for wisdom to choose- Location, space, temperature/water (top floors are cheaper, but hot and less/no water pressure).
Visa Update: Jess' Passport/Visa are still in the security office... We'd like to travel to our target city after Ramadan (there is a short holiday then called "Eid" celebrated by Muslims), but need the passport/visa to travel...
Photos: Car troubles, first time...Fatuur at the Mechanics... Car troubles next morning... Car troubles mid-day... Waiting for the fix--Ice Cream ALWAYS helps : )...
2 comments:
May your car troubles be over, and may those ever be the worst of your troubles.
I hate that stranded feeling. We had a pickup that would die in the middle of intersections and we'd have to start and start until it finally started. You'd have to drive like mad pray that it wouldn't die. My little sunfire had starter problems and i never knew if it was going to start the first time all the time. I told Jason there was a demon in it because I would pray for God to help me and it would start. Don't pray, it wouldn't start. Funny how that works. But we've traded off the sunfire for a new car this weekend and all the comments we get are that its a great family/kid toting vehicle. I'll post pics later on my blog. Love you guys and hang in there. I'm still waiting for my 10 yr green card that is already almost 2 yrs late!
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