The beginning of the year

Well, this year is off to a strange start. It began with a break-in at the intern's house; some things were stolen and it was decided that she should move to a safer location (i.e. with dogs, barbed wire fence, and metal doors). It meant some trips to the police station, reports to insurance, and the like. She's still shaken up, I believe, but working on recovery. She fell ill this weekend, which we both suspect was the stress catching up to her.

I've been somewhat unwell myself. Not to get into any detail but I have been have some malfunctions in a certain organ (how's that for vague?). It has left me fatigued and stressed. Part of the last few weeks has been trying to find a way forward, health-wise, for the months before we head back to North America for our very-3-year trip. I'm trying a few dietary modifications and will keep you posted as to my success.

We're back in the translation project office these days and will be expanding our hours of being open as we ramp up for (hopefully) getting staff. Next week, we prepare for the WBTP advisory committee meeting that will be held on Saturday morning. My printer is busted so I'll be having to do a bit more mucking about than usual to get documents printed for the meeting. Oh well, I guess it means a trip to Francistown soon, to shop for a new printer.

Testing a theory

Wondering if I can just post to this blog from my iPhone.

No longer covered

We're about to head out tomorrow on vacation with some friends visiting from Seattle. As a part of getting ready, Rob and I were getting gas at the station when I started to muse on how many trips we had left on the car before our next scheduled maintenance. I was thinking it was at 64,000 km but couldn't remember for sure. So, I asked Rob to check, looking down at the mileage and seeing that we had driven 60,128 km. He checked; it's supposed to be done at 60,000 km! And the nearest registered service center for Jeep is 1000 km away!

OK, so I freaked out for a bit. Suddenly, I was thinking that we'd have to rent a car for driving our friends around, which would make me feel all manner of stupid and unprepared, especially with a perfectly good car beached in my parking space, just waiting to be taken in for maintenance.

I'll spare you the gory details. Sufficient to say that we discovered during the booking of the service trip that the car is more than 3 years old now; therefore, we're out of warranty. So, going over the 60,000 km is no longer relevant, in terms of warranty. Thank God! And I think I can honestly say that this is the first time I've ever been happy to find that the warranty on something had expired!

Have we really had that car (i.e. lived in Maun) for 3 years already? Time flies, eh?

(Re)learning to pray

As of 5PM last night, there were 3 things that I could not find, all of which I needed to complete my week's work: the contact info for our newest committee member, the call for papers for the conference that I may be speaking at in July, and our coming due phone bill. I searched and searched, to no avail. Rob saw me looking frazzled, expressed sympathy. I prayed that I would find them but quit looking for the day.

This morning, I set about looking for them all again, in all the same places I had looked before. I found them all. Thanks be to God! And there was much rejoicing.

Hitting the road

Tomorrow morning, Carolyn (the intern) and I head for Gumare, along with Bahiti. We head back to Maun a week from today. Workshop, meetings, and the cultural festival; welcome to my holy week!