As I went in to get some maps made I saw this line for pre-paid electricity…it was longer when I came out and I imagine tomorrow – the last day of the old rates – it will be even longer.
I am not good at waiting so I started taking more pictures. I thought the coffee/tea break cart full of cups was rather interesting. A woman pushed it around with pots of coffee and tea – she seemed to be a better waiter than I am.
The circus is back in town. I took this from the second floor balcony. BTW the second floor here would be the third floor in the US.
As always the elephants were a big draw. Although they are not as exciting as seeing them in the wild, these two were not chained but were allowed to move freely around in an area enclosed by what appears to be an electric fence.
This shot shows the circus and if you look carefully you can see the bay on the Indian ocean. We are going to miss Richards Bay and all the wonderful people that live here.
When we went to the municipality offices, I noticed that the line for electricity was out the door which means people may be waiting hours to buy their electricity before the rates go up. Mary got stuck in a smaller one on Thursday that only took about 30 minutes. At that time we did not realize why the line was even that long – usually there is only a 5 minute wait. It turns out that electricity is going up 30% on July 1 and people are buying large quantities of pre-paid electricity before it goes into effect. Normally we could buy electricity at any grocery store, but for some stupid reason the municipality shut down all outside sales so everyone has to come in to the city center and buy their electricity.
I was there to get some maps for the area book we are making for the Nuzmans. The very nice man who runs the office is not very fast so it took most of an hour to get what should have taken an hour. I would not have minded so much except I had not brought in anything to read and soon exhausted the dated handouts that were available. I did get to take some view shots of the bay and the circus that will be in town for a couple of weeks.
We then ran a couple of more errands – including putting some of our favorite spots in the GPS for the Nuzmans – before having lunch. We then drove out to PD to pick up Sandy Chirwa so he could apply for his passport – the last major step for his mission application. One of the things he needed was a certified copy of his identity papers. To get something certified you go to a police station so we went to the one in Esikhawini.
We had forgotten that while they will certify things for free, you have to have them copied elsewhere. But just as we were figuring out where to go to get a copy, a very nice man came out and said he would take care of it for us. So he made the copies and then got them certified. I was impressed by his kindness – something that does not often happen here or elsewhere.
At home in the evening we continued to work on getting things organized for the new couple when they come. We are writing down everything we can think of about how to get things done in Richards Bay from buying electricity to where to get replacement cartridges for the printer. Hopefully this will help them acclimatize quickly.
I am making book for each branch with the latest branch lists, and other lists that they should find helpful. Now that we have maps we can mark them as to who lives where. Of course this will not work for Port Durnford because even Google does not provide maps for there.
During the day I called President Mann just so I could hear his voice say “Hello, President Mann.†He thought that was funny and so I wished him and Sister Mann a safe journey home. Later we got an e-mail telling us about a couple’s re-union with the Manns to be held in August in Provo. I imagine almost all the couples will be there – most of them are from Utah or Idaho – and will be great to meet together. It will almost be like another August Couple’s Conference. However I doubt if we will be able to go on a game drive.
I thought that it should read – Offenders will be eaten!
This is the granddaddy of the area – over 10 meters long and weighs in over a ton. At least that is what the guide said.
This is just a little guy who was about 2 meters long. We were able to get within about 10 feet of him without his blinking an eye.
This is the same little croc but oh what big teeth it has.
Best shot of hippos during the trip – notice the different size young ones. The smallest is less than 3 months old.
Five birds – four different varieties. I enjoyed seeing so many beautiful water birds as much as I did the hippos and crocodiles.
We saw lots of red duikers on our last two trips to St Lucia but this was the only one that stayed still long enough to get a picture. The duiker is a very small antelope and this one was about 2 feet tall – smallest we have seen. As soon as I tried to move closer it was instantly gone.
No trip is complete without a picture of a herd of zebras.
This female kudu posed for us just about where a male did the last time we were in St. Lucia. They are beautiful and majestic animals and, other than the Eland and the Wildebeest, is the largest antelope we have seen in South Africa.
After the beautiful Kudu the stately but ugly Warthog!
