Marti had the honor of participating in cultural lesson #324. As she was driving to pick Sarah up from Ballet, she had to go through a roundabout. As she carefully entered in, the matatu (a 14 passenger minivan that is the bane of this culture) stopped unexpectedly. She alertly stopped and did not hit the matatu.until the car behind her plowed into the back end of our new car. She was jolted forward and then hit the rear of the stopped matatu. Praise God, no one was injured.
Fortunately the accident was witnessed by the police directing traffic in the round-about. Unfortunately, we are talking about the Kenyan police. What should have been a straight forward procedure of the police taking down insurance information, driver license, and license plate as well as statements on what happened turned into a cultural experience. Marti was directed to pull over to the side of the road. She parked next to a Land Rover full of 4 Kenyan police. As she got out of the car, she turned back and looked at the traffic circle. She could count another 8 police officers. But oddly, no one came over to take the statement. In fact, they sort of just sat there and explained that they had called the officer who took the reports and he was having to walk to the scene. Marti would just have to be patient.
By this time, I had been notified and was able to catch a ride to the scene. As we stood there, we realized that one of the delays resulted from the Presidential Motorcade. Yep, the President of Kenya passed right by as we waited. Oddly, he did not get out and assist us!
The longer we stood there, the man who actually rammed into Marti's car got more and more frustrated. He told Marti that the police were just dragging their feet because they were going to see if they could get a bribe. We do not know if this is true, but it took an hour and a half for the "incident report" officer to arrive. And he did arrive on foot.
Finally the details were obtained from each of the drivers and each of the vehicles. The officer then huddled us together and pronounced that his report would state that the man that hit Marti was at fault. He then told us that we could pick up copies of the report on Monday morning. Interestingly it seemed that the man at fault was more insistent on getting the report tonight. The police released us. As we got into our injured vehicle, I noticed that the police got in the car with the man that ran into Marti.
I am hoping that the report on Monday morning contains the TRUTH about the accident..
Marti,
What a terrible introduction to the Matatu culture! We wish you well and are glad no one was hurt. We will continue to pray for you all.
Posted by: Rebecca Gitu | November 20, 2004 at 06:55 PM
Sorry to hear about your wreck!! Glad to hear you are okay!
Posted by: The Keelers | November 21, 2004 at 07:56 PM