Water and power

Bit of a hectic week around here. The water went on Saturday and was out until Tuesday. It was out longer for many homes around us but our property has a reservoir so we held out a bit. We've also been losing electricity a few evenings a week. Also, I was awakened by a ripping headache 2AM Monday morning, cause unknown. Took some of my last few ibuprofen, waited for it to kick in while Rob worked on ways to make me feel better. We checked the 'Where There Is No Doctor' book that I had recently borrowed from Audrey (friend here in Gabane) for various symptoms to make sure it wasn't any of the big dangerous illnesses that we aren't used to. I had no fever at all, a reassurance. I was still a little shaky when I woke for good Monday morning and could feel the pain hidden by the pill (you know what I mean) and so sent Sarah home early with some transcripts she could work on at home for the next day and half. She came back to work on Wednesday and I was much better then, after a full day of self-enforced rest. I read, mostly, drank fluids and took vitamin C.

Got our laundry done at a laundry place in town (no self-service places that we know of in Gaborone). Got a bit of a shock when they called the day after we picked it up, informing us that we had someone else's khaki pants in our laundry... which we most certainly did not. She seemed sure that we did so I got Rob to come try on the ones we did get in our laundry (his) to be absolutely sure that they were, indeed, his. They are his. I informed her of this fact when she called back to see if I'd checked. She was openly incredulous, at least to my ears, and said goodbye rather resignedly, undertones of, “Well, you got me this time, guess there's nothing I can do to make you pay up.” Kind of pissed me off, really. I mean, who lost the pants in the first place? And if she could remember so clearly that she sent us home with with a pair of khaki pants, why couldn't she remember receiving, washing and drying them along with our laundry in the first place? Sigh. Ah well, water's back now. Hopefully, we can avoid future laundry service experiments. I just hate knowing that she out there, somewhere, thinking I stole a pair of pants.

The whole 'Where There Is No Doctor' is a free download, by the way. A great resource, even in places where there is a doctor but who has time to find one? Or time to wait for an appointment to open up?

Woodpecker Seminary

Here are photos from the music conference where Rob taught in early April:
Woodpecker Seminary

Photo albums

I'm finding that the photo-addition function in Blogger isn't fast enough so I've been posting all my photos to my Facebook profile. I think the following links (click on the name for photos from that location) should take you to those albums so you can see them too:

* Gabane
* Botswana (general photos)
* Rueta Festival
* Francistown
* Gaborone

Barging on

Work is going well, I think. We missed a couple of days at the end of last week when Sarah had malaria but she told me on Sunday that she'd be fine to come in for work on Monday so I took her word for it. She does seem much improved in her energy levels over last week. She will be working from home tomorrow and each Friday from now on as the bus driver on her route has decide that he will no longer stop in Gabane (the official route is non-stop from Gaborone to Kanye, many miles beyond Gabane) from Friday to Sunday as those are the busiest days. He nearly didn't stop for her today, actually. She said that he seemed to be passing her stop and she, from the back of the bus, was calling out, “Stop! Stop!” He said that he would only drop her at the T-junction to Gabane from now on but other passengers pointed out that she would then have to hitch-hike several kilometers to the bus stop that he drives past anyway so it wouldn't be fair to do that. Ah well. So, he'll take her to the foot of our hill Monday to Thursday and work from home on Friday. It's just as well. She works very fast and it is often hard to keep up with her. I've been sending her home some Thursdays afternoons with work for Friday anyway, back translating work that she can do while I'm entering her translations into the database. That gives me Friday morning to do our run into Gaborone for internet access and other errands that can't be left over the weekend.

Anyway, we're right on schedule for where we should be for having done 6 full days of exegetical checks. I allowed a handful of “buffer days” at the end of my exegetical plan so we've just eaten into a couple of those.

Oh, I also gave her Monday off to go to the installation of the new Wayeyi chief, Shikati Fish Ozoo, into the Botswana House of Chiefs - a historic event, for the whole country. Her aunt is organizing the festivities and accommodation for those coming from the Delta, including Shikati Ozoo, so I'm sure that having Sarah available to help her with that over the next 4 days will be appreciated.