Car Troubles

We have been having car troubles lately.  Our Mazda which has been a good car for the past 8 years is starting to show signs of its age.  Since January we have put in a significant amount of money, with three major repairs.  We went through a whole set of car future possibilities.  I was minutes away from going to the bank to pull out several thousand dollars to purchase a new car yesterday and try to sell the Mazda.  But, after some advice from our parents and pondering the situation we decided to try and stick out with the Mazda for 2 more years.  We will probably drive it until it absolutely dies.  But we need it to last through residency.  So after making that decision our van started making funny noises.  Now it needs a costly repair too.  Why? why? why? do we live in a society where we are so dependent on cars? My eye has been twitching every time I think about our cars.

Dave and I often complain of having to drive cars around.  We fondly reminisce about the good old days when we lived in the middle of Moscow, Russia and took the metro everywhere.  We also walked.  It was wonderful to not depend on a car at all.  We were able to travel to Istanbul from Moscow using metros, buses and airplanes.  In Istanbul there is a metro the runs directly to the airport.  I was amazed by that and loved it.  When I get in these moods and am cursing our cars and highway systems I have to remember some very important things.

• It took us 1.5 hours to get to church in Moscow.  We  changed lines 3 times and then walked 15 minutes.
• I saw a little girl's leg get caught in between the metro and the platform.  Very scary but everything turned out.
• We were once caught in the middle of a protest on the metro and seriously (not joking) surrounded by hundreds of young protesters dressed as Santa Claus.
• Pick pocketing was frequent.
• It is really nice to drive a car and get to exactly where we need to go quickly.
• We are very blessed to own not only one but two cars.  Even if they give us trouble.
• When I lived in Tanzania I did not have access to a car and there are no metros so here are a few ways I got around: the dala dala (a small van packed full of 25+ people; one time I was in one when the door fell off), I hitch hiked on a tractor once, the back of a truck standing up holding on to other people for support, a bicycle, a taxi or simply walking for miles.  Transportation was not easy.  But I have some crazy stories.
• I would not want to travel with my children with no car.

We are blessed.  This blog post was therapeutic for me.  My eye has stopped twitching which is all I really wanted.