Speaking of liturgy

We eventually made it down to the Woodpecker Seminary south of Gaborone for the recording session that was scheduled to begin on Friday. Couldn't go Friday because Rob was still not well enough to drive so we left Saturday morning. Got to Mahalapye, just a couple of hours drive north of the seminary, and pulled in to top off our gas in the car. The attendant noticed that we were leaking oil heavily, enough that the spare under the car was totally soaked on one side. He called a mechanic for us, who came out to direct us to his shop. After sitting there in his yard for a few hours while he drove all over town trying to find the busted part (blew a gasket of some sort), Maria, the ELCB person organizing the event, said she'd drive up to pick us up. She did and we were at least able to finish one set of recordings that night. The composer was only available that day and he stayed until well after dark to conduct his part of the liturgy. It sounds great.

Sunday, Rob finished recording the new Lutheran Setswana liturgy and Maria took us to our hotel in Gaborone to wait for the call from the mechanic in Mahalapye. Rob took it easy, still recovering from the illness that came on Thursday night.

Monday, Daniel (the mechanic) called to say that he had found the part and was fixing. He also said that he could drive the car down to Gabs to pick us up! We were thrilled. The guy from the Jeep dealership called to see if we wanted to come in to test drive the Patriot (one of reasons for wanting to spend an extra day in gabs after the recording sessions) and we explained that we had no way of getting to the dealership because of the car breakdown. He offered to pick us up so we jumped on the offer. We drove it, it was fine. We filled out the paperwork for the order. Oddly enough, the only colour of automatic Patriot available in southern Africa right now is a shiny, bright blue… so that's what we're getting. Kind of sporty looking. You'll see us coming a mile away.

So, Tuesday, Daniel came to pick us up. We drove him out to Mogoditshane to pick up a couple of tires for his personal vehicle (how could we refuse, eh?) and then went to lunch before hitting the road. We made it back to Maun (via Francistown) on Wednesday. Thursday, we recovered from the drive and the last dregs of Rob's illness. Friday, we hit the house-hunting again.

It's pretty disheartening to have the house situation still hanging over our head. And you can't force people to help you any faster than they choose to. This includes real estate agents and individual renting homeowners, both parties whom you would expect to have a vested interest in getting you into a place ASAP so the money can start coming in. And people say they'll call me but they don't and I have to call them. Like, one place, I called in mid-January and asked about it. She said they'd find out later that week and get back to me. I asked if she'd like me to call her. She said, no, that he'd call me. He didn't call. So, I call yesterday, now that we need a place again. I'm told that they've already rented it to someone else. Like, why didn't they call me back? And I never know when calling again is being pushy. If I push, they may not help me at all. If I don't push, I may not get anywhere.

Sigh. In happier news, I ran into my friend Bontekanye at the grocery store on Saturday and she invited us to a luncheon on Sunday. It was celebrating the publication of her latest book, “The Seed Children”. She asked us to perform a couple of songs during the entertainment portion so we did Wayfaring Stranger and You Move Me (by Susan Ashton). We had a great time. Bonty does great development work with the local youth. Whenever she publishes a book, she develops a multi-media presentation of it for the book launch and uses local youth as performers in the presentation. That way, she is providing them employment and developing their professional skills. She's a pretty cool lady and we're constantly encouraged by what she's doing.

And one of the people she works with who was at the luncheon asked us if we'd be willing to sing at his church sometime. That was also pretty cool. A bright spot in an otherwise dim few days.