I had planned to go to Harare for the weekend, clean up some quotes on the Friday, go to the AIDS clinic on Saturday, go to church Sunday and leave after that, this being Africa that was just not going to happen. I picked up quotes on Friday, did some photocopying, printing of more drawings, talk to some new people about rebar (reinforcement bar), write up notes for some contractors. But I had to wait until Monday to meet some rebar guys, wait until Tuesday to pick up the final quotes and Wednesday I had my car serviced. In 7 months I’ve traveled 20,000 km!!! I’ve turned into my dad driving around BC when he was bishop. I can’t believe all the driving I’ve done, but my car is still plugging along and in good condition. All sorts of new things are popping up like the foundation of the old building, moving the current ZESA pole, the current septic tank location and the condition of the tank and the list goes on.

MY BUILDING GOT APPROVED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited!!! AND I’ve found my Godsend to take over for me when I leave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On Monday, I meet with ZESA the electrical people to move the electrical poles, I apply to borrow the neighbouring plot to use for builder’s sheds, I met with Pat (my Godsend) to do some exploratory digging of the existing building to see the damage to the foundations and will underpinning be enough. The cracking and floor separation that had started has become worse over the last 2 months, the concern we have that during excavation of the new building the existing building will sink further or crumble with the disruption of the earth. We are also brick making!!!

So things are coming together nicely finally after much frustration, hard work and lots of learning.

This past weekend was a mess! Friday started with the usual burning but because of the winds the fire spread and got very close to some houses including mine, most people stood around watching while some of us grabbed water and fire beaters and tried to contain it, this was also scary because we were currently in the middle of a water cut! Friday we had a windstorm, which caused trees to fall over, and power lines to come down and cut off our power for 3 days which also meant no hot water. There is no hot water in the rural areas so you boil your water to get it hot or if you are lucky you have a geezer, which we do BUT you need power to heat the water in the geezer SO no hot water. This power cut was a mixed blessing because it meant we couldn’t work and were forced to take a weekend off, which meant I read 3 books in 2 days and didn’t turn on the computer as I wanted to save the battery. Sunday morning I woke up and went into the kitchen to boil water for coffee and the kitchen was FLOODED!!! So we spent a good few hours cleaning up the water only to have the water cut!!! So we now have the power lines fixed but no water. When ZESA came to fix the power lines, they spent about 8 hours doing so, they turned on the power only to have sparks come out of the line to our house and no power. So they turned the power back off, called in a few more people and sorted out the problem. So this weekend we’ve had all sorts of disasters but have survived them all!!!