The Copeland Ramblings/

30.03.2011 Uncategorized1 Comment

Keys Keys Keys

20110330-093456.jpg This week we received another reminder that simple things aren’t always so simple here. On Friday we were getting ready to head to the conference when I discovered that our car key wouldn’t go all the way into the ignition! It turned out that it also wouldn’t go into the car door. It’s strange because the day before it had worked just fine. I figured it would just be a matter of getting a new key made but no – that is not the case.

Because it’s an electronic key, I can’t get it cut just anywhere. I ended up heading down to a car seller that is affiliated with Citroën (the make of our car). After an hour of getting passed from person to person I was finally told that it would cost about 120000 CFA ($240) in parts because they can’t just replace the keys. Apparently the keys, ignition, door lock and gas lock all have to be changed. I asked how much the labour would be and after talking to about 4 different people I was told that it would be about 100000 CFA ($200). It was adding up fast. I told the woman that had been helping us that it way too much money. In Senegal you can almost always negotiate! She gave me the name of one of the mechanics and I went to go see him. We chatted for a long time and then he offered to come to our house and do the work himself for a much smaller fee.

He arrived monday night and I opened the bag of parts. He groaned and told me that I had been given the wrong parts! It turns out that that the ones they gave me were for an older model Citroën. He said that he would exchange them and come back the following evening. He came back last night to say that they are out of stock of the parts we need, they won’t be in for about three weeks. He is taking the key today to a key shop where they will try and make it work at least temporarily until the new parts come in.

While I don’t mind taking taxis and such, it is much easier to travel with the boys in our own car. Pray that we will soon be able to get some keys that work so that we can again be traveling the roads of Dakar!

On this day..

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Keys Keys Keys

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