Meet Ory…he is a parking attendant at the Moori River Mall. While Mary was in helping get a food order for one of the families in the branch, I found a parking spot and met Ory. I have often wondered who hires the attendants that are in almost any parking lot and how much they were paid. So I introduced myself to Ory and asked him if he would mind answering some questions. He was not very busy so he agreed. It turns out – although he wears a shirt that says Moori River Mall – he does not work for the Mall and he does not get paid anything for his work except the tips that people give him. I asked him out of 10 cars he helps park or helps get out of their spot safely how many people tip him. He said about 2 out of 10. I then asked him about how many hours he worked and it turns out it depends where in the lot he is working. Some times it is as few as 3 and sometimes as many as 6. He makes from 60R to 200R a shift but he must pay someone – I forgot to ask him who it was that he paid – 30R a day no matter what he makes. He told me he likes the job because he gets to talk to people and help them. He has been working at the mall for 4 years. When Mary and the sister was through shopping and brought the cart load of food to the car, Ory loaded the bags into the trunk and I gave him a good tip…hopefully one of many he got today.

This morning I clicked on the Tembe Elephant Park webcam in time to get this great shot of a very old – just look at those tusks – and large elephant. The park advertises that they have some of the larges elephants in Africa and looking at this guy I believe it. Unfortunately the waterhole is getting smaller and smaller each day and if it continues it is likely to dry up. If that happens than the animals will have to find someplace else to get their water.

The only picture I took on Monday was of the great fried rice and chicken spring roll I had for lunch. We are lucky to have a very good Chinese restaurant just 2 minutes from our flat and they give large portions at very reasonable prices. This pile of rice will make three meals for me. Mary usually has almond chicken and we share the spring rolls.

On Tuesday one of our stops was the orphanage that we help out with some food from time to time. If you are a follower of our blog you have met Lolo and Peter before. They have 13 orphans right now and they seem to take good care of them. They grow some of the food but not as much as Peter would like because of a flooding problem when it rains. I was interested to see one of the women who help at the orphanage washing dishes out in they yard – I do not remember this from our prior visits and wonder if it is something new to make more room in the main building.

As I have mentioned before if there is an empty piece of ground and a ball around you will find a group of boys play some kind of soccer. I asked this group who was the best player and of course they all raised their hands. You might think the area does not look like much of a play area but it is better than the community dumping grounds that is right behind the orphanage where they sometimes play or look through the trash to see if there is anything worth saving.  Even though they play in dirt, somehow their clothes and themselves always seem to be clean! We found this true in Indonesia and our two missions here in South Africa.