Cars and Language - things don't always go the way we plan

Well, we decided to buy the Land Cruiser that we saw on Saturday. Alexis is helping us with getting it registered in our name but first he needed paperwork from the owner. Come to find out, the current owner never had it transferred into his name and the guy he bought it from had never had it transferred into HIS name. So, the registration is still in the name of the first guy who owned it when it was brought into the country. Who knows where he is! Well, the current owner still has contact with the guy he bought it from so he is going to contact him (but I think he is in the UK). I don’t what exactly is going to happen. Basically, we need a document that proves that the duty was paid on it when it was brought into the country. Otherwise, we’ll be responsible for paying the duty. The tax office doesn’t keep such records – they depend on the car owners to keep the paperwork and hand it off to the next guy…

So, we haven’t paid for the car yet and we’re not sure we’ll be able to buy it. We may be back to square one on that deal. If so, it’s disappointing because this was the only decent car we’ve seen within our budget. Sigh. But, God knows all that and he’ll help us get through it all.

I went over to the Rossington’s this morning to observe their daughter during their homeschooling session. I was able to make some notes about a few things they could do differently, some things that they are doing well, and what they might consider for the future. I haven’t missed going to school every day but it was fun to watch and interact with Martha today and I think I was able to give them some helpful advice.

Mark and I had another language lesson today with Charlotte. She definitely doesn’t speak English as well as Joyce and she speaks Kinyarwanda differently (more sophisticated or proper, I suppose.) Joyce had learned it from her grandparents in Uganda so she speaks an older dialect. Or maybe it’s just a dialect from a different area of Rwanda. Joyce’s dialect is not necessarily wrong, it’s just different. At least, that’s what we understand. All that to say, we are having to relearn a few things or we are learning that there is more than one way to say the same thing. sigh. . .

After our lesson, another fellow came by to collect some money from me now that I am the college bookkeeper. He had built some bookshelves for the college. As long as he was here, we asked him to build a table for me to use as a desk. There are several tables in the house, but they are too tall for me to use comfortably with the computer so we special ordered a shorter table. If we like it, Mark might order a smaller table for his computer also.

We haven’t heard too much from Emily lately. Just bits and pieces. She went to Steve and Melinda McMillan’s house for lunch last Sunday. She said she has 4 tests this week in her 4 major classes. This coming weekend she is going camping with her dorm just outside of Nairobi.

It is pouring down rain right now! I really wish we had rain gutters so we could collect the rain water. Our tank is almost empty but the rain is coming down strong.