Generators, inverters and farewells

Am sitting writing this to the drone of the generator on the balcony of the flat where I'm house sitting.  There has been a fault on the grid since yesterday and as a result no electricity. The flats here need electricity for the pump from the borehole to fill the water storage tank, so we ran short on water this morning too before the generator was switched on by Given the gardner and very useful handyman. You can't run the generator all the time so it is charging the inverter which will give a bit of power for a few hours. Unfortunately this is a new inverter as the old one blew this morning when possibly the generator was on too high a voltage - I am learning but thank goodness for Given and a friend Matthew. I had to go get another inverter and had the option of one that can be charged by a solar panel or one like the old one.

So here I sit, waiting for the generator to charge the inverter (currently only the fridge, the wifi modem and the inverter are on - will have to sit in the dark for a bit). Can then have a few hours of light on the inverter and hope that ZESA fixes the fault. Am hearing horror stories of faults taking weeks to be fixed - here's hoping it won't take that long.

Otherwise I have been teaching. My one Swedish student at HIS had her last lesson with me yesterday as term ends next week for the school and her family is returning to Sweden. I said goodbye at the end of the lesson and she presented me with a beautiful box filled with Lindor balls with flavours I've never had before, as well as a hand made card with a sweet message inside. I will miss her as she was a delight to teach.

I have resumed teaching my favourite Chinese 3 year old, Runbo and have a list of vocab he needs to know for preschool. We read a book this week called "Don't Put Your Finger in the Jelly Nelly" and he enjoyed poking his finger through the different things in the book. He went to China in the holidays and was staying with family in high rise flats. When he came back he asked his mum if there were people underground under their bungalow. We do all sorts of things in his lessons, from me being a patient of Dr Runbo's, to building monsters and space rockets. I really look forward to his lessons.

Had writing group at The Bottom Drawer on Saturday and we each had to think of a topic for a poem, the next person had to give ten words that came to mind for the topic and then the third person had to write a poem but not use the ten words. I wrote on perfume. I will post it. In the afternoon my Mum and I went to a farewell for a French family whose children go to HIS. There was a petanque tournament and we met a lovely couple from Italy. The man who sells French patisseries at Maarsdorp Market and Amanzi Food Market came bearing a basketful of macaroons and meringues.

The Bottom Drawer