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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How to buy a 'new' car in Kampala

In some of our previous blog posts we have mentioned ‘Suki, our trusty Escudo which has been chauffeuring us around Uganda.  She came to us about five months ago from a shipping bond.  Vehicles in Uganda are almost all imported (mostly from Japan) and then sold of as new at these bonds.  What new really means is that the vehicle hasn’t yet been on the pot-holed paths they call roads here.  Most vehicles don’t last more than 4 or 5 years before things begin to fall apart in a serious way.  Getting our little Escudo proved to be a nerve-racking experience.  To begin with, I (Stu, Deb decided that as long as it was green and ‘not too big’ she would be happy with whatever I got) went around with our friends Paul and Robert to more than 10 shipping bonds.  Each one of these bonds is filled with the slimiest of used car salesmen who are looking to make a cut.  They even follow you from bond to bond to try and explain why their vehicles are better.  We ended up having to go out several weekend in a row because we could only stand an afternoon of being heckled and pestered to buy vehicles that I would not feel safe with my enemy driving.

Finally, we came across a nice new-ish looking GREEN vehicle that matched everything we were looking for.  After taking so long to find the car, I wanted to move on it to ensure that it wouldn’t be sold to someone else.  When I inquired about what the next step was, I didn’t really know how to answer.  I needed to find money to pay for the car….in cash…and they wanted it in USD if possible.  I had no idea how I was going to find the money, let alone in dollars. 
Up until then, we did not have a Ugandan bank account and had just been withdrawing money from the ATM.  Finally with a little finagling, we managed to secure the appropriate cash, but walking around with this much cash, especially in Kampala, was terrifying.  It isn’t like you can hide it very well.  Because of the exchange rate, we ended up with a huge stack of bills.  When the time came to pay for the car, the bills got shoved down my socks, into pockets, anywhere possible for people not to notice we were carrying a big wad of cash.  
 

All I have to say is that we are so happy about our little car, and I would be happy to go through the whole ordeal again.