Saturday events

Well, the city was replacing valves or something for our water main pipes up the road from us and on Friday afternoon we got word that the work was finished and our tank was filling up! That was very good news.

For the last several weeks it has been very dry and dusty here – no rain at all which is in stark contrast to all the rain we had in Jan – Apr! The last couple of weeks it even became quite hot – not humid, thankfully – but hot. Friday late afternoon we noticed a change in the weather. A wind came up and clouds (not dusty haze) appeared. In the evening we watched a fantastic lightening storm (we live on a hill overlooking the city). Then, the power went off… but a few hours later, it was back on again.

I woke up to a steady rain on the roof – what an amazing sound! Normally I go back to sleep but I couldn’t stop wondering if the kittens were okay. They are just over 6 weeks old now and we can no longer contain them easily so we decided to let them roam the yard with their mom. (They are not inside cats.) Since I couldn’t sleep I decided to get up and check email and stuff that I hadn’t been able to do that evening with the power off. The kittens were fine – they and Mom have a nice hiding place. They could have gone into the outside kitchen where they have been for the last 6 weeks but that would have been too easy! While checking email, there were some really close, loud, bright claps of thunder and lightening. Mark woke up then and came in to unplug the internet and computers just in case we got hit by lightening they wouldn’t get zapped. So, I went back to bed and slept.

The rain continued steadily for most of the morning. I was hoping to do a couple loads of laundry, since we had water, but with the rain, I wouldn’t be able to dry the clothes. About the time it quit raining and I decided that laundry might still be a possibility, the power went off again. Musengimana, who works for us, told us she noticed the wires on the pole in the street by our house crackling. The ended any hopes of getting laundry done…

Around 8 pm we had guys from the electric company come by to check out our problem. They said it was indeed a problem at the pole and they would have to come the next morning to climb the pole and fix it. Our landlord happens to work for the electric company so he is able to help us expedite these things. This morning during church, Mark got a text message from our landlord saying that there a guy who could climb the pole but Mark would have to go pick him and his ladder up. So after we got home, Mark went off to collect the fellow and his ladder. About an hour later, (29 hours after it went off) we had electricity again! So, tomorrow, (I don’t do laundry on Sundays) I hope to get some laundry done!

To add to our Saturday evening fun –

We had invited a another family over to play games for the evening but they cancelled because mom wasn’t feeling well. Okay, a restaurant in town was advertising live music – acoustic guitar, saxophone and clarinet. Sounds good – we decided to check it out. But we needed to wait for the electricity guys to come and they arrived too late to go to the concert. So, we called Melissa to see what she was doing – after chatting with her family on the phone, she was going to watch a movie and we could come up and join her. Emily and I walked up to her place and were just getting settled into a movie when Mark called – the teacher who we were expecting to arrive Sunday at noon (he will stay with us for a week or so) actually was due to arrive SATURDAY at noon but his plane had mechanical problems and he was delayed! His new ETA was 9 pm Saturday. We hadn’t made his bed yet! Mark and Trevor went to the airport to meet him and sure enough, he was on that flight! Mark let us know that he had indeed arrived so Emily and I rushed home and made the two guest beds and got candles ready, etc for him. Whew! I’m glad we had a little warning! We told him he could take a cold shower or a warm bucket bath. He opted for warm bucket bath. I’m looking forward to a warm shower soon!!

He is a nice guy. Came to teach MS/HS French and Maths. He is from the Twin Cities in MN. His accent makes me homesick for the Schendel family!!

Well, I better go work on supper and getting ready for the other new teacher who is staying here.