25 September 2009 – Friday
The morning was spent waiting for Rob to come and fix some plumbing and electrical problems we were having. He was supposed to come at 8:30 and finally –after 3 or 4 of my calls – he made it by 11:30. As usual here, there were lots of excuses but few reasons. Not all that time was wasted – we were able to do some planning, I got the Lexmark printer to work, and we neatened up the house. Rob fixed the leaky faucet, got the toilet to flush efficiently, replaced a light fixture, and managed to replace one of the evil little lights that are in all the ceiling fixtures. What he could not figure out is why the remote does not always open the garage door. We will just live with it for another 10 months.
We got moving towards Esikhawini after noon to go grocery shopping. It was the wrong day and the wrong time to do this. It seems that many people had a four day weekend and that they all decided to go to the mall and buy groceries. To be more efficient we split up the tasks and it ended up only taking 45 minutes and some $90 US to get our to do list greatly shortened. We next went to buy electricity but one look at the line that was almost out the door and I turned around and went back to the car.
At Esikhawini I found that the power was still off so I called brother Holder and Neville about the problem. They got busy with the municipality and found that the problem was at the city’s end. They promised to send some one out to fix the problem. Well needless to say it took another half dozen calls and a couple of hours before anyone showed up. By then it was pouring rain – it had been drizzling most of the day – and it was getting dark. When after 45 minutes of effort they still had not solved the problem I called Sne Mthalane and asked him if he would come over and sit the building until they were finished. He lives a block away and being a good guy he agreed so we could head home.
During this saga, the Youth gathered. Sisters Muvundla and Zibani were there to work with the YW and do pedicures while the elders worked with the YM to clean the baptismal font for Sunday. They worked hard and steady with no complaints. Elder Mokopotsa works well with YM – Elder Musemare just works hard. While they were doing that I cleaned the men’s bathroom so that it did not look and smell too bad. I will get a couple of air fresheners for the bathrooms – there is a great need for them.
We drove home in the dark and rain – not much fun when many of the cars coming the other way have their high beams on. But we arrived at our boarding safe, sound and exhausted. Mainly I was tired because I spent a couple of hours out in the rain and cold with no jacket on. I really do need to remember to leave my rain jacket in the car. Thankfully we did buy a new, large umbrella that kept some of the rain off.
After dinner I called Keith Hillman and talked about some things that needed fixing at the store he rents from us. While we were talking I found out that his daughter was very sick and the doctors do not know what is wrong. Hopefully they will find out something this weekend so they can treat it. Since we have known Kylee all of her life it is almost like one of our granddaughters is ill.
I did not realize how tired I really was until I found myself heading off to bed just after 8:00! I thought I would just lie down and read but I was soon fast asleep. An interesting day in South Africa. 1 1/2 mite day