Fender Bender Kinshasa Style

As I was driving back to work from lunchtime nursing session a couple days ago, I noticed a car attempting to overtake me from the left as I was making a right turn into very slow moving traffic. The other car was clearly doing the wrong and illegal thing, so I just kept merging in as I was supposed to. I noticed the car behind me for the next two blocks until I arrived at a traffic circle with more slow moving traffic, where the driver attempted to pull off the same thing - overtake me on the left where the cars were stopping to give me the right of way.

I should have, but didn't assume that the driver of the other car would be stupid enough to go through with it as there was only limited space in the traffic circle, but sure enough as I moved into the circle, so did she, ramming her smallish SUV into my Ford Explorer, scratching my car and bumper and leaving her side mirror hanging on wires.

As employees of the U.S. Embassy in a volatile area, we are instructed to drive away from a scene of an accident if we are able to, or walk away if the vehicle is not operational and call the security office immediately. Forget that - dumbstruck and ticked off, I rolled down my window and noticed that the car was a right hand drive with a young Congolese woman, all made up with big earrings and dark sunglasses. She also rolled down her window and as calmly as I could without any exploitative I asked her what she was doing.

She proceeded to with a mocking American accent to parrot my words, then saying in French that I should go back to my own country to do this (drive according to the rules?), stepping on the gas, side swiping my car and scratching it even more whilst tearing off her mirror completely, she caught the mirror, put it into her car and drove off, flipping me off in the process. I noted her license plate number.

My car was fine, so I just continued to drive to the embassy and went straight to the security office to report the incident. I was not sure if the woman could have seen me drive out of our gate, but I was assured that there will be some extra vigilance around my house and our people will be on the lookout for the vehicle I described.

Besides feeling bitter about the fact that I was only doing what I was supposed to and I evidently became the target of the woman's road rage, the incident left me with an icky feeling of what the heck am I doing here when they don't want us here....