Cursing

The derivation of our $25,000USD kick in the butt. We have received our fair share of people trying to put curses on us and the devil is delighted to try to inflict them. Here is a math problem: "How do you get a forty foot land leveler, an 18 foot box scraper, a 28 foot long 6X6 truck, a 20 foot long tractor, 8 six-foot by twenty inch tires, four tractor engines, and a 12 foot fertilizer spreader into two-forty foot containers?" The answer? Very carefully. Actually, all of this is equipment is intended for the rice farm and engineer Sonny Weimer masterminded the packing. No matter how you slice it up there was no way to get the truck on the same load as the land leveling equipment. To make a long story short, the tractor could not go in the same container as the wheels. The tractor and the earth levelers went into one container and everything else with the truck went into the second. The problem was both containers were loaded in mid December. The truck is a 1993 model with very little use. The Cambodian Government passed a rule that no trucks older than year 2000 could come into the country at the same time the tuck was shipped. By the time we found out about the law change it was in the water on its way to Cambodia. The tractor with the scrapers was deemed 'agricultural' so, no duty was paid, but the truck was ruled a 'vehicle' and all the agricultural equipment with it were ruled 'parts' with 100% duty. The result is that we have a tractor with no wheels and a bill for about $25,000 in duty on the wheels, truck and pump engines. We tried to reason with the government to no avail. We offered to pay the $13,000 duty on the truck with an appeal to allow us to have the tractor wheels, but "No dice!" We have no choice but take our kick in the rear and pay up.

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