Cool mornings lend themselves to beautiful runs and walks--a great way to get the lie of the land, see some of the neighborhoods, and find the willingness to face the hot muggy hours ahead. This is a beautiful country, especially so in this lush fall time of tall green grasses and flowering everything. Every color blossoms a person could ever hope to see--many that this person had never seen.
Having planned to zip by the bank to withdraw some money for the well, 45 minutes later (things are rarely as simple as we anticipate) we had to dash out to drop Mrs. Kapenda at home and race to the airport in time to pick up Cheri, whose plane was nearly an hour late. A very familiar "hurry up and wait." Because her flight was so late getting to Johannesburg, her luggage didn't make the final leg, and we checked in with old friends (as they have become with so much missing baggage over the years) to arrange for a later pick-up.
Jen and Theresa waiting at the airport
We came by the Guest House to meet with one of the potential contractors for the building. She's a lovely lady who told a fascinating story of how she moved from a typical female role (you don't need skills or education to get married) to one of successful businesswoman. These are strong, confident women we're finding here--and not just a few of them. We have no doubt at all that she would build an excellent building for us.
After the interview, we walked down to the water company to make the final payment on the well. The woman we were to pay wasn't in so we used the wait time to call on the District Commissioner to let him know we're back in town and to give him an update on our projects. He wasn't in either, but we had a great catch-up chat with his secretary. We think of these folks as friends now, and clearly they think of us the same way, huge smiles on both sides of the handshakes and hugs. Back we went to the water department to wait there. Finally the clerk returned and took the rest of our $4500 well payment. We are always happy to wait for the water department; their $4500 price tag is saving us between ten and fifteen thousand dollars. That's the difference between the cost of a government drilled well and one done by a private company.
Waiting at the Water Department: Theresa, Dave, Pauline, Cheri.
Counting out the money for the well.We were in the middle of one of our ubiquitous errand trips in town when we realized we were going to be late for our next contractor interview. Steve, our brilliant, competent savior from the building department and his draftsman side-kick Noble, brought Gaudencia right on time. We think of ourselves as so punctual (and indeed we have endless opportunities to re-enforce that belief as we wait through what the locals laughingly refer to as "African time,"), but Steve consistently shows us the error of our assumptions. One of the busiest individuals in the circle of people we're closely associated with here, somehow he manages to be exactly where he says he will be when he says he'll be there, allowing us to see the times when we're not! (Riding while he drove, we discovered one of the secrets to his success.)
Gaudencia, as far as we can tell at this point in our relationship, is a dream come true. Originally from Tanzania, she got her engineering degree in the Netherlands. Later she married a Zambian, moved to Ndola, and started her own construction company. Over the years she's been very involved in community development and is clearly committed to a holistic approach to life. When we asked her about the concrete pour--which, by the way, is designed by Steve to put the minimum amount of cement into the earth--she said she would prefer to do everything by hand rather than using machinery because that allows her to employ the maximum number of workers. This she explained not only provides much-needed jobs and money for the community, it gets more people involved and gives the residents a sense of ownership of the project. YES!!!
Left to right: Gaudencia, Dave, Noble, Steve. We are all usually much cuter. It was the end of a long day for everyone.
Cheri went with Teresa and Pauline back to the airport to pick up the tardy suitcase, and Dave fixed dinner using our tofu smuggled from the U.S., while Jen wrote our application for electricity
Our kitchen/office set-up at the guesthouse.