Never a dull moment...

Today I was involved in something that all us expats here dread being involved in. A car accident. I should go back a bit and explain that over the past year, the city of Sentani has put concrete medians in the middle of the road for about half of the main road in town Sometimes there are even pretty flowers growing in them… They put a few openings in the barriers, but not always at the best spots. And, you are only allowed to make u-turns on two spots a ways down, the wrong way for me. This morning I went to the Hypermarket grocery store with Brynnie and did some shopping. I exited the mall and proceeded towards one of the openings (one that you are not supposed to make u-turns in) but before starting to move to the centre of the road I put on my signal light and stuck my arm out my window to indicate my intentions. I have found it far more effective to stick my arm out the window than to just use my signal light; in fact just using my signal light alone produced no results in past attempts. I looked beside/behind me and noted that the road was clear and proceeded to the middle. I was waiting there for the oncoming traffic to clear when suddenly a young kid on a motorbike plowed into the driver’s side front quarter panel. I was in shock!! I really don’t know what his intentions were. I had only been looking at the oncoming traffic and didn’t expect anyone to try to pass in front of me as I had my nose right in the gap in the concrete barriers. So I pulled over and noticed that he right away went to the side as well. He didn’t come up to me at all but other students on their way to or from school came to me and asked me what happened so I told them that he had hit me. An expat had seen the aftermath and pulled over to make sure I was okay. Somehow the police were right there and some guy with a big video camera who tried to get my name. I didn’t say anything and the students said,”Maybe she doesn’t understand. What your name?” I told them in rather fluent Bahasa that I knew exactly what he was saying but that I had no interest in giving my name. We’ll see if I turn up on the local news… The police were actually quite nice but didn’t say much to me aside from telling me to be patient and then telling me that my daughter was really beautiful and was she my only child? No, I said, I have five and she’s the youngest. “Oh,” said the one police officer,”You don’t use family planning?” I replied,”Yes, we planned for five. If God gives us children, we are happy.” He agreed and said that we can’t refuse them and that he has four of his own. They loaded up the kid’s motorbike into their pickup and took him to the station. In the meantime I had called an MAF fellow for help and he and Hugo and two other National workers, one who takes care of car maintenance and one whose job it is to deal with police and immigration for us expats, hopped into a car to come to my rescue. The police took my license and when I asked for it back they didn’t want to give it. I guess they wanted to make sure that I would really go to the police station. I asked them to wait for my rescuers to come. They did and we all went to the police station. We were ushered into a little room with a large poster of traffic signs on the wall behind a large tv and enormous speaker on a stand. In front of that was a playstation on a desk… hmmm, guess what they do in their “down time”. They took down my info from my SIM (driver’s license) and confirmed that I was of the Protestant faith. Such important information for them… Turns out, the boy who hit me, who wasn’t really injured except for a sore shoulder, does not have a driver’s license. He also said that he was sixteen but I don’t think any one in that room believed him… The police let him call his dad. Now, this boy is a local boy and those folks can actually be the hardest to deal with. They often see accidents as ways to obtain lots of quick cash. So the MAF folks with us were a little nervous about this. They made sure that no police officers talked to the dad before he came into the room. Turns out the dad works at the airport and the MAF guys were super friendly with him and made him feel comfortable. The police officer dealing with our case was quite efficient and said that while I was turning where I wasn’t supposed to be, the boy was obviously going way too fast (the tire on his motorbike actually bent) and not being careful. So really, both parties were at fault in this case. I rather disagree actually because I was standing still when he hit me and since when are you allowed to drive without a drivers license? They actually made light of the whole lack of license thing. The boy left to “go to school” and they let him take his motorbike again! He has no license!!! Anyways, the dad agreed that his son was at fault and that each party should pay for the damages to his/her own vehicle. It’s really quite funny, because the dad knew that his son shouldn’t have been driving at all and then for sure wasn’t driving carefully. But the reality is that car/motorbike insurance is only for rich people. Even if it was determined that the boy was 100% at fault, they could never pay for the repairs on the MAF car. I actually wouldn’t want them to either if it came to that. The dad obviously has a low level job and doesn’t make much money and has three kids. He would be the one who would have to pay. I just wish the police were stricter about allowing only those who are actually of legal age, have a driver’s license, know who to properly operate a motorbike and obey the laws, be allowed to drive. But, this is Indonesia and that’s just a pipe dream…
I am extremely thankful to God that this accident was only minor and that everything was settled quite quickly and in as good a way as you can expect here. MAF has insurance, so I will just have to pay a deductible.
As we left the police station, I saw a number of officers playing billiards… Boy they have a tough job…