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Justin,
I hear ya, that is disappointing for all that to occur to one user. Unfortunately you also highlight another issue; support and repairs within Africa. We currently only list one authorized service shop -- in Morocco (there may be others in SA, but that either means they're official dealers but not official repair shops, or the list needs updating!) Parts can also something of a challenge in that availability comes from the suppliers in Japan.
I'd like to be able to tell you that all of our gear will be perfect all of the time, but we know that would only be true if it sat on the shelf and was never used. All of our units are designed with components that are selected to withstand expected use for a long life of the product, but it can happen that components fail prematurely, which is why we provide a 1 year manufacturer's warranty against those kinds of failures. Anything after that, or use/abuse causing failure outside of our expected use, is unfortunate but can (hopefully) be repaired.
If you can let me know which shop(s) you use for servicing, I'll try and get in touch with the teams that handle the African region to see if they have any known delays for parts.