Yesterday, in spite of not feeling great, I had the satisfaction of tying up quite a few strings. I opened a Mozambican bank account, so that I can get a cellphone contract, and also to handle funds for the book programme and other Fiel matters more easily. I had to wait a while to deposit money to make it active, but it could have been a lot more hassle. The social security people were giving us a little trouble with our monthly report, and I rather dreaded going over there to sort it out, but thankfully the “dragon lady” didn’t even get up to give me a hard time and the man who helped me was very friendly. I also am solvent again – I have been a bit paranoid about withdrawing money, after what happened last time. And then, when I really needed cash, none of the Standard Bank ATM’s had any money! On my way to Social Security yesterday, though, I thought I would just see if my bank card worked at the machine at the Girassol building (a big expensive hotel, but also an air conditioned complex with nice stores, a travel agent, the Internet company, a nice coffee shop… a little haven of civilisation for me). For some odd reason I had always thought you needed a VISA card, or somehow I had just assumed my card wouldn’t work.Well, it did, and it was so much better than withdrawing out on the main street where anyone can see you! After my time in town I spent about 5 hours at the Woodrows and finished calculating the bricks we need (probably made loads of mistakes, but oh well…). It’s rather depressing, if we do order them from SA it’s going to require about 9 containers, each costing a few thousand rand… Therefore we may look into getting them made locally, although that would be a hassle.
I left work early, watched a movie and then got back into Conference work. I had a little bit of excitement when I went to take a shower, pulled the shower curtain, and out ran a rat! Yuck! I think he got in because we haven’t fixed the screen on the veranda since the burglary, and where the steel door was put in they had to remove the wooden door, so there was nothing solid keeping anything out. I am so thankful that my guard was here, he killed it and carried it outside and cleaned up the blood – I can’t imagine having had to do that myself!
Today my handyman put the wooden door up at the other side of the doorframe, so the rat issue is once again solved, and I made some progress with figuring out how many people we have coming so far that need lodging. According to our numbers so far it looks like we’re going to have a record number of participants this year!
Thank you for everyone’s prayers, and please keep praying that we will get everything done and that all will go smoothly.
