Misc. family and daily life stuff

We hopefully are on the mend. The virus ran through most all of the family. Sarah had an ear infection and is on some drops now, and Emma has been having her wheezy croupy cough, so she is on albuterol now and hopefully they are on the mend.
I have had a sinus headache and was feeling pretty bad yesterday and a little better today. I had planned to go to bed early, because I did not sleep well last night, but I couldn’t fall asleep and I had much to write so we’ll see if this blog gets posted tonight.


I went this morning to Zesco, the electric company to get more power on the prepaid card, since we were running low. So I came home with the code and card. Then we left to go to someones house for lunch today, as it is a holiday-Womens Day.
When we returned about 4 hours later, maureen said the power was finished. I didn’t quite know what she was saying and then realized, we had bought the power but unless you type the code into the box in the kitchen, you run out! So minor power issue, our own fault!

We had more visitors today, Pastor Bota and his wife Mavis. They came to “call” on us and I again served tea. Since people eat dinner so late here, it is perfectly normal and acceptable to “call” during what we would think would be dinner hours. (5-6:30)
We had a nice visit with them. It has been very kind for a few people to stop by and welcome us.

The church has cell groups weekly in each neighborhood area and so hopefully in the next few weeks we will start to attend the one that is in our area.

The kids were off school today, and enjoyed their day off. We finished arranging and unpacking a couple of the kids boxes, and got the books all on the shelves.

We hope to get internet set up at the house this week.
We had called a few weeks ago, and they came out to the house, did a survey and then told us the equipment we needed to get the signal.
Then they told us that they did not have the equipment. They were out of it. The have it on order, but who knows when they will get it, as the man said because it is coming from South Africa and someone else may have priority to get the equipment first.
And maybe we could sign up with another company, get their equipment and then transfer to their services.
I was a bit dazzed and confused when they left.

Since that time, we had a man show up at our gate (from the company) with the equipment saying that another white man was moving and he had this equipment, did we want to buy it and get the internet set up?
So tomorrow James is planning to go downtown and talk to them and hopefully get it set up. Crazy how things work sometimes…Or rather, don’t work.
Last week Pastor Jim finally was able to get a hold of us, he has called several times. When he called I was laughing because we were in the middle of getting bookshelves negotiated and strapped to the roof, but the bungee cord was breaking and it was not working out! At that point, it was just funny. “Hi, this is what we are doing right now!”

I must say James is getting pretty good at these negotiations. Its embarrassing sometimes though, because I am not used to it yet.
We were buying a rug, or piece of carpet really, for our Living room and I was along and he and the man were going back and forth with prices, and then there is the dull silence for a few minutes while they are thinking and looking around at the item then at you, and you are not budging and then they say "ok".

I negotiate some, like this past Saturday, a woman was selling me something at the craft fair and she had a clay pot and it was the end of the day and she said “please” buy this. I have a baby, (that was nursing while she was carrying a pot and trying to sell it) and I need money for transport and food.
I had a 20,ooo kwacha in my hand, left over from buying some mugs and she was asking 40. I really did not need the pot, but I thought maybe she does need some money. I stayed firm on my 20, saying this was all I had in my hand. And she accepted the deal.
Then another woman came by a few minutes later (probably heard I had already bought one) and she had an identical pot for sale. She said the same story and I realized I was being suckered. A man was behind her saying, please buy it she has a baby… I asked were the baby was and she said back at the tent. So I bought it from her only at 25, after I said 20 for the first lady. I came out good in the deal, 2 big clay pots for a total of about $10.oo. Really good actually. But as we were driving away, I saw her smiling and laughing with the man and she handed him part of the money. I must have had the look of , “What?!?!” on my face and they smiled and he said, “she is my wife”. Likely story…

So sometimes you get a good deal and still get suckered out of it as well.