A good night of sleep can sometimes do wonders, and so did it for us this time. The shock of the expensive solution to our car had sunk in, we had found a much cheaper solution and we decided to stick with that. Whatever would happen now. The only thing left, was to make the best of our waiting time in Kasama.
The first morning in Kasama, we walked to the Toyota service center as we wanted to be near our car. Here we made our office in the customer lounge. The car was locked and there was not a lot that could have gone wrong, as there would be no working at the car. Still, we felt safer if we could pop by the workshop from the lounge every now and then to make sure indeed nothing had happened. We felt bad for being this mistrusting, but that is what being cheated did to us. We spent some time in the customer lounge charging our electronics (as there was still no power at the lodge) and doing some writing, editing and admin. Time well spent and we made our best of the situation.
In the afternoon we walked back to the lodge, so we could have some exercise this day and this gave us the opportunity to see the town we got stuck in. It was nice to walk around and see the town, but we felt quite uneasy on the streets. It did not feel unsafe, but the way people looked at us was a bit more aggressive than we are used to, even in Nairobi. Definitely not the friendly smiles we got in Uganda or Tanzania. Still, we enjoyed walking around and seeing another side of Zambia, one that tourists usually don't see. As we ran out of clean underwear, we bought some new clothes. All in all, a day well spent. At the end of the day, we received the message we had been hoping for. The spare part had survived the trip from Lusaka to Kasama and had arrived at the Toyota service center.
The next day we woke up with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. The new rack would be installed, and hopefully, that would solve the problem. We had a quick breakfast (sugar on toast) and went to the Toyota center again. The staff already knew we wanted to be with the car, so they were not surprised when we walked into the workshop. The fitting of the new rack would take about 3 hours, so we had better make the time as nice as possible. Fortunately, that was not very difficult. The sad feeling we had 2 days earlier, felt like a week ago and we were excited. Still a bit worried that the issue might not be fixed after fitting a new rack, but mostly excited.
The music in the workshop was very nice and so were the mechanics. We stayed with them, asked questions about the car and made jokes with them. We actually had a very nice time at the workshop, as the mechanics slowly took out several parts and reinstalled them later, together with the new steering rack. When the old steering rack came out, we had the evident proof that Olivier cheated us in Kigali. The steering rack that came out of our car, looked nothing like the one on the pictures he sent. He 100% installed a very different, very worn steering rack in our car. Extra confirmation for us to stay with our car at all times. We confronted him and were told the money would be refunded. We had little hopes, but there is not a lot we can do but hope. Time went by faster than expected and before we knew it, we could take the car for a test drive. The wheels had also been aligned in the meantime and it looked and felt good. We spent an extra night at the lodge, so we could leave early the next day to our next stop. We were so happy to have our car back!
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