Criminal Roundup

I was surprised to see how long it has been since I last posted.  Life has been busy!

Today, while we were going about our usual Saturday morning activities (and Brian was at the office) Melanie trotted off to do a few errands.  While walking blamelessly along minding her own business she was stopped by the police and asked for her documents - which she does not carry because of pickpockets, because they are too fragile for regular usage, and because, as a minor, she is not required to.  She explained (or tried to) that she was a minor and that her documents were at home, but was being escorted (tearfully) to the police station when seen by some friends who called Brian to get her documents, explained further, and tried to comfort her.  By the time Brian arrived with documents (it's a small town, so that didn't take long, fortunately) there was quite a crowd of spectators, and the policeman was rather happy to be able to disappear into oblivion without further ado.  

Be thankful for your liberties and don't give them up lightly.  This whole issue of being stopped in a time of peace while minding my own business bothers me greatly - if they focused on the pickpockets (not usually young conspicuous - white - girls), there might be fewer of them.

Electricity

Just as we were closing the house last week and rushing to the aiport, the EDM chappies came to install our 'credilec' (a PAYG system for electricity).  This is not really convenient for us, and we have avoided it as long as possible, but it is now mandatory.  We said it was really not possible to do it then, so they said they'd come back the day we returned.  Lo and behold, they actually showed up just before 8am this morning, installed the little machine, and handed over the card to recharge it.  The machine has 5kw on it, and if we don't get it recharged before that is used up we will be in the dark - but you have to wait until the new card is in the system.  At present we are on minimum usage, and hoping that we can stretch that 5kw until the recharge is available.

It is possible that paying in meticais rather than USD will be cheaper, but it might just mean that we keep running out of credit at inconvenient times like most of our friends seem to.

Why I Don't Plan Menus in Advance

Brian went grocery shopping yesterday morning - part of his Saturday routine to enable me to finish my school preparation in the morning.  It wasn't one of his more satisfactory trips.  The list included tinned corn, rice, chicken (fillet preferably), dried beans, cocoa, cooking oil and toilet paper.  After 6 stores (no need to count the potholes and beggars) he managed cocoa, oil, corn and rice (but not the sort we usually buy) - so no chicken again this week, unless we get a road-runner.  I, on the other hand, managed to buy green beans, green peppers and onions at the gate so we won't starve.

'Carnivale' is always a bit late up this end of town, as they wait for the classy bands to finish in Maputo and then bring them up here to perform at our end of town.  This weekend we have been 'entertained' by non-stop loud 'noisic' since 5pm on Friday.  Every so often the band/band takes a break and we are treated to the same CD - I think the gala is over at dawn tomorrow, so that everyone can stagger off to work.

Finally Making Progress

It seems that we are finally getting over all the diseases that have plagued us the past few weeks.  Our family no longer sounds like a 6-part chorus (mostly in the lower registers) in coughing harmony!  Brian's back is finally making visible progress, although he still spends most of his non-work hours in home-therapy sessions or lying down.  Fortunately, this has come at a quiet time for him at work - reports are as easy to do lying down as sitting at a desk.

Our pond at the front is slowly drying up again - it is a popular garbage disposal location and I am wondering what will come to light next.  The latest 'find' was the remains of a large teddy bear! 

We were invited (on Friday afternoon) to our neighbour's graduation ceremony yesterday, but were unable to attend due to prior commitments.  The ceremony started at 7.30am, but people were still arriving at 9 and beyond.  The 'stadium' is just around the corner from our house, so there were zillions of traffic police who were not very sympathetic about us reversing into the street rather than navigating the puddle.  Since the ceremony didn't finish until after 1pm, we were glad that we hadn't been able to go - this summer has been cooler than others, but it was still over 40 C in the shade yesterday, and sitting (or standing) in a crowded stadium for hours would not have been pleasant.