Not Complaining; Just Saying - 3

And another thing...
Roads
I can't say it better or more non-judgmentally than Chris McIntyre does in the Bradt guide to Zambia "Driving around Zambia isn't for the novice, or the unprepared...The standard of driving is generally poor, matched only by the quality of the roads.  Most roads in the cities, and the major arteries connecting these, are tar.  These vary from silky-smooth recently laid roads, to potholed routes that test the driver's skill at negotiating a 'slalom course' of deep holes, whilst avoiding the oncoming traffic that's doing the same.  Inconveniently, the smooth kind of road often changes into the holed variety without warning, so speeding on even the good tar is a dangerous occupation...As an additional hazard, even the tar roads are narrow by Western standards, often with steep sides designed to drain off water during the rains.  As a result, it's all too easy, faced with a sharp bend or an oncoming lorry, to veer off the road, a fact borne out by the regular sight of a truck lying on its side in the ditch, or to damage the sump of the vehicle.  Watch out for the speed humps that may occur without warning, even on major roads.  You often find these at the entrance and exit of a town...
...Police (and immigration) roadblocks are an occupational hazard of driving, and you can expect to be stopped regularly.  They are usually indicated in advance by oil drums or traffic cones placed in the middle of the road, but some are very poorly marked."

Main road Chipata to Lusaka over-taking a lorry
(directions are - leave Chipata and go west for 560km)

The main roads in Lusaka generally have a good surface, though somewhat lacking in informative road markings and warning signs.  You just have to know you need to be in the inside lane to go straight on at a cross-roads.  As Chris McIntyre says, there are many surprising road humps throughout town and when we first got here they were always taking us by surprise.  There is so much distraction along the road, advertisements and hoardings of one sort or another, even huge electronic television screens, that's it's hard to pick out useful information.  But we've learned to look out for the bollards either side of the hump, sometimes faded yellow hatching and other times just other cars slowing.  The humps are intended to slow traffic to under 5mph, if you don't you'll certainly scrape and deform the front bumper.  And knowing that they really do save lives by slowing the traffic, we mostly see them as a good thing.
We'd only been at school a week when one of the year 4 teaching assistants was killed in a road accident less than a mile from the school.  He left behind four daughters, his wife having died last year.  Death is horribly common here.  Road safety is, as other safety related concepts, a thing of the future.  People frequently don't wear seat belts, babies and children sit completely unrestrained in cars, vehicles despite having to pass a fitness test (MOT) are often not road worthy.  And lorries passing through the country are often in a terrible state, not road worthy, over packed and over tired drivers.  I understand from UN reports that after malaria and HIV/AIDS, road traffic accidents are the biggest killer in Zambia.  I wanted to verify (BBC Radio 4 More or Less has taught me something!) these stats at Zambia's Central Statistical Office but for some reason I haven't been able to access the website.

Guy standing up in the back of a truck,
situation normal.

A very common mode of transport 

Disappointing photo trying to show road outside our
compound and how bumpy it is - looks just fine here
 but it really isn't

Cyclists travel at the side of the road in both directions.  Between villages, out in the bush, cycling is the mode of transport for long distances and it isn't uncommon to see bikes with one, two or even a breath-taking three passengers.  Many transport the most enormous heavy, wide loads.  On the way to Chipata at half-term we spotted a guy with what we presumed/hoped was a dead, pig on the back of his bike.  But they also more commonly carry sacks of charcoal standing 1.5m high 0.5m diameter precariously strapped to both the back and the front.

Charcoal dromedary

And of course, you have to travel during daylight hours only.  At night, firstly there is no street lighting, even in town.  Secondly because of other vehicles, possibly without headlights, or with only one headlight, poorly maintained trucks, and illegal truckers who come out because the police knock off at 17.00.  Not to mention the animals that roam the road and roadsides at night.  Our 750km drive to Chipata and on to South Luangwa National Park this half term was extremely tense.  We had to leave early in the morning and arrived about 10 minutes after dark, a total of 11 hours driving.  There were kilometres of road diversions onto unmade road, many animals (particularly goats) that seemed to be drawn to the sound of our car, slow heavily laden trucks, narrow single lanes, steep drops either side of the road and well...it was, as I said, tense.

Luangwa river suspension bridge spanning
 400m of river  - the only bridge across the lower
 Luangwa and the only access to the Eastern
Province (cross one vehicle at a time)

So here endeth the observations...for now.

Not Complaining; Just Saying - 2

Further observations
The shiny, shiny floor

No self-respecting cleaner at a mall would leave a floor they couldn't see their face in.  This is of course relentless work because people keep walking on it but you can reduce the number of pedestrians by killing off a few as they slip on your shiny, shiny floor.
The Internet

Let me show you about the internet around Africa and it will give you an idea about why it is so alarmingly expensive and unreliable.

Submarine cables across the world - take a look:
 http://submarine-cable-map-2014.telegeography.com

I don't fully understand it but it can't help only having this small number of cables coming into Namibia or Tanzania, and Zambia being in the middle of the continent therefore being at the end of every line.  The information super-highway is more like a misinformation dirt-track here.

And the suppliers of internet services will make up all manner of nonsense about why the service is poor or non-existent on a particular day.  Of one thing you can be certain though - it isn't their fault!

If you have wireless in your home then likelihood is that you are on a package which includes a designated amount during the daytime for that month and a greater amount 18.00 to 08.00 hours and at the weekend.  Should you go over your amount then the internet will just be cut off until the first of next month.  You can only have packages that run from the beginning to the end of a calendar month.

Health & Safety

Truly a thing of the future - see for yourself!

Steve's classroom entrance, break time

Drainage channels in between buildings at school

Raised drain covers in main play area at school

Working off scaffolding at one of the malls
- note also the shiny, shiny floor

Hole dug by Lusaka Water & Sewage Company
right in the middle of the thoroughfare (one
hesitates to call it a footpath for obvious reasons)

Buildings

It is not apparent that buildings are designed or built with any particular regards for building codes or regulations.  Levels change throughout a building to suit the lie of the land, and the steps might be any height from trip-over-small to surprisingly-and-inconveniently-high.  There are asbestos materials in abundance and any manner of unfinished work left as part of the finished look – bits of rebar still poking through, beams that stick out, columns that only support half the roof they were supposed to.  Nothing built after the colonial powers left is level or vertical and anything built during that time is probably falling down.

Friends' year old rental property, see
column there on the left?

I'm not done yet!

Not Complaining; Just Saying - 1

Like Maverick in his first game of poker watching to learn everyone’s tells I have been making observations of everyday life.

But before I get started, here seems a pertinent place to tell you about Tamenji and Mash.  Tamenji is a friend Steve and I met when we lived in Watford.  Her family had moved to the UK and obtained indefinite leave to remain, all except Tamenji, who after four years of waiting decided it was time to come home.  She has been back in Zambia for six years during which time she has married Muunda and had two children, Judah who is four and a little girl called Muunda who is 18 months.  Tamenji being Zambian but having lived in the UK is a constant counsel, intermediary and local expert to us.  She has sympathised with me over our misfortunes, provided insight to the culture and shown me round Lusaka.

Tamenji munching lunch at one of our favourite
câfés, The Blue Moon Cafe, Woodlands

I met Mash when I first came here with my last job.  He was our local contact and would have been the procurement agent had we won the job here.  Coincidently he and two of his brothers went to sixth form at a boarding school in Dorking.  We met up each time I’ve been here and have become friends.  He, like Tamenji, is that local link with an understanding of the UK.  When I told him about one particular episode with the house he provided me with the invaluable advice “Embrace the chaos!”

Customer service

Do not be fooled - shops exist to provide employment for employees, not to provide service to their customers (who provide the income to pay the employees – but you’re not the ones who need reminding of that logic).  This is evidenced by the many employees hanging around their favourite part of the store whilst you wait 20 minutes to be served.  If you ask where a certain item is located you will be told “over there” with a vague hand waving gesture and they return to their task or chat.  Or they might concede that “we don’t have”, which could cover not having it in stock, not stocking it at all or just not understanding what you want.

In supermarkets shelves are to be stacked at times guaranteed to create maximum inconvenience to shoppers, and knowledge of a product on a shelf is limited to the blindingly obvious.

Me: “What is the difference between these two mosquito nets?”

Most knowledgeable sales assistant: “That one is more expensive than this one.”

I know it looks empty but the shop was actually
packed, people had just given up trying to get
down this aisle.  Note the hair net, and the bottles
 which line one side of the aisle, sometimes both.

At the check out, if you should have unwittingly chosen an item with no barcode the check-out assistant will look at you and state, in a bored tone of voice, “it doesn’t have a bar-code” as if expecting you to magic one there or perhaps go and get one for her.

Some stock advertised in the window is actually not for sale.

You might be lucky and get a helpful sales assistant, who will serve you but then drift off at the end of the transaction seemingly as if they’ve gone to do one last thing for you but actually they’ve moved on to the next thing.

When you do get good service it is such an unusual occurrence that you text all your friends the name of the assistant and their mobile number to ensure service by them too should said friend ever happen to need something from that shop.

And should you par chance, decide to part with large quantities of your hard earned cash, beware that you have absolutely no consumer rights if anything is amiss with your purchase.  It will have been twice as expensive as at home and more than twice as unreliable.  You rely on your network of friends to help you find helpful, honest places, but even then if it is for repairing say a car or a phone then you absolutely never part with the item until you’ve agreed a price and got it written down because there’s nothing to stop them charging whatever they fancy.

This pervasive poor attitude towards the consumer extends to the utilities; ZESCO who supply the nation’s electricity and LWSC who supply Lusaka’s water.  If you’re lucky they might give you an hour’s notice of an outage.  Sometimes there’s no notice at all and there’s nowhere to find out what’s happening. Tamenji, living in Olympic Park Extension lost water supply for 3 days.  LWSC offered no explanation or idea of what might be wrong or when it would be fixed, much less compensation for lack of water.

Trying to do homework by candlelight - first power outage

Dinner by candlelight - 9 hour power outage

Banks

Setting up the bank account seemed uncommonly difficult but talking to colleagues our experience wasn’t unusual or by any means the worst, in fact it was relatively pleasant.  The bank didn't lose any of our money for a start. It did however take several weeks, phone calls and visits to the bank to sort out, culminating in a two hour visit with both of us to get our debit cards and set up our on-line accounts.  Although we had an appointment to collect our cards they didn’t have them ready for us.  They had to print them there and then.  First the person who did that was on lunch break, then he couldn’t find any blank cards and finally couldn’t get the card machine to work.  All that overcome, we had multiple forms to sign, and each form had to be stamped a total of four times.  The bank clerk rummaged in her drawer and selected 3 stamps apparently at random, then looked round to her colleagues in mild panic and reported that she could not find the final one.  She had to write in each of the stamped areas.  All the forms then had to be filed, probably never to be seen again.

The bank charges for everything you can think of and more but they don’t have to lay out what the charges are.  You can only draw a maximum of K2,000 a day (£200).  Often there’s not enough money in the ATM so you can only draw out some inconveniently small amount.  There’s pretty much always a queue to get money from the ATM and it’s not uncommon to have the ATM take your card or debit your account without giving you your money.

Money

This is still very much a cash driven society (as opposed to card) and there are a lot of notes.  You can easily hand over 10 or 20 notes in one transaction.  The cashiers like counting the notes, for which there is a particular method firstly involving getting all the notes facing the same way (I applaud this fastidiousness), then counting.  If you only give them a few notes they will straighten, count, recount and count again, presumably to gain the same satisfaction as counting a lot of notes.

The majority of transactions will not be rung through a till because there is no till.  Money must be counted and the item/s individually itemised on a hand written receipt.  Finally you mustn’t forget to stamp, hard with a stamp announcing PAID.  I tell you, any librarians missing stamping books with the advent of self-service in libraries, would feel sated here!

Hand-writing receipts - yes, that is a computer
you can see on the far right hand side

And if I sound unnecessarily harsh, then know that I’m working on “embracing the chaos” with the best of them!

Setting Up Home

Setting up home in a second place is inevitably a very inefficient process.  We’ve packed up most of our belongings into storage and come 5,000 miles to where we need to have pretty much the same things.  The school provide the basics for which we are extremely grateful.  Beds, some bedding, crockery, cutlery and basic cooking equipment.  Dining chairs and table (finally), sofa and armchair, coffee table, rug and bookcase, and of course the house in which to put everything.  But it doesn’t make it home, and that we have to do by ourselves.  It took us six slow years in Reigate and five before that in Watford, to which my family will attest, to create a home!  I think it can be safely assumed that neither Steve nor I are skilled in this art - but we are trying!

We received our shipment of 13 boxes in fairly good time, 2 weeks after it was supposed to arrive.  The state of them, however, was unbelievable.  Hard to imagine quite how any responsible company could think that it was showing duty of care to let this happen.  Several of the boxes were so badly water damaged that they were round instead of cuboid.  We estimate there to be in the range of £700 worth of permanent damage and the matter is not yet settled with our shipping company, Brooklands, who have so far refused to take ownership of the issue.  I find it hard to talk about without getting angry – so I’ll leave it there, hoping that next time I mention it, it will be to say that Brooklands have accepted their responsibility and sorted it out for us.

Two of our shipped boxes

The House

Lukasu cottages are situated in one corner of the ISL compound, with our own entrance away from the school entrances.  There are four terraced cottages each with a private garden within the compound.

Our compound is shown in red and our house and garden in
 yellow.  The ISL grounds are bounded by Nangwenya Road
 to the north and Lukasu Road to the south.  The east and
west roads don't have names - calm, Mum P, calm!

Front of out little house

Back of the house, you can see the washing machine under the
 lean-to and beyond the wall, our neighbour Sherif's house

And for Dad, who likes precision, the layout of the house!

There is adequate room for the three of us but if anyone comes to visit we’ll have to borrow someone else’s house.  Should be alright since Katell and Fraser will be borrowing our house over Christmas for their family.

Becca and Benson

Becca is our maid, the term I guess not having changed since domestic service was still common in Europe.  If she were employed in England now I suppose she would more likely be called a house keeper.  Becca is originally from the Copperbelt so she speaks Bemba as her main language but she also speaks Nyanja and a goodish amount of English. We have some good old misunderstandings principally due to the fact that Bemba doesn’t distinguish between r and l the same way Japanese doesn’t.  I asked her what these strange brownish, yellowish fruit were on sale at a market and she told me “raymonds”.  My mind had to play with it for some time before I worked out she meant “lemons”.  I spent 10 minutes looking for “loller” mealie meal and realised she meant “roller”.

So, she is an easy-going, cheerful lady in her late 30s.  She has four children aged between 6 and 15, Jefta, Soromon (or Solomon), Beverery (Beverley) and Aretha (could be Aletha but I think the r is good here).  Becca’s husband drowned 6 years ago and her family in-law took their quite substantial farm and other land making Becca and children homeless.  Becca’s father advised her not to waste emotional energy fighting a case that was likely to be long and drawn out and probably fruitless, so she moved her family to Lusaka.  She works here Monday to Friday 12-17 cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing, looking after Callum, helping me with my Nyanja and if I ever get round to giving her a list of fruit and veg she’d go to the Tuesday market for me.  To us she is the appropriate mixture of Mary Poppins and Jeeves.

When we got the washing machine, it was Becca who set it up and helped me work out that I had to turn the taps on to make the water come in (yes, Sue Lock, water trouble again).

Without the advent of vacuum cleaners, washing machines (although we have bought one most people don't have one, they are expensive, not very good quality and there is little infrastructure to support having one) and dish washers, and the vast quantity of dust, termite mess, washing and washing up, it is hard to manage without a maid.

Termite construction under the basin - appears
 within hours of cleaning.  Who knows where the
 material comes from or what the termites are hoping to achieve!

Benson is the compound gardener.  He is a thin chap, I estimate also in his late 30s though, you know, he could be anywhere between 35 and 55.  He keeps the compound tidy of the constant flow of leaves from all the fruit trees and generally tends the gardens.  Each house gets a turn and he does our garden on a Wednesday when he also washes our car.  He looks constantly hungry and when Becca cooks him lunch on a Wednesday, he makes good on the look, putting away more nshima than I’d have thought possible.  I enjoy Benson’s company, he’s funny and wise, a man of few but choice words.  The world seems right when I can hear his slightly tuneless hum.

Both of them call me "Madum" and I find it hard to have someone address me as if I am somehow more worthy of respect than they.  That's how it feels to me anyway; maybe it's their way of not having to learn the names of new people every two years - who knows!  They are two people from such different backgrounds to my own, I can't begin to imagine their lives and I hope we are privileged enough to really get to know them better.

Benson and Becca relaxing over lunch in the back garden

The Ground

Here is something I didn’t know: “Relatively high and stable temperatures encourage growth when the soil is fertile and the rainfall is good.  But there is a downside: the annual round of warm temperatures, with no seasonal change, means there is no relief from the activities of harmful bacteria or disease-bearing insects, such as hard winter frosts bring to temperate climes.  Furthermore, the total decomposition of vegetable matter is rapidly accomplished in consistently warm temperatures, leaving no time for the accumulation of humus, with the result that extensive layers of deep fertile topsoil are rare in Africa.” (John Reader, Africa – A Biography of the Continent).

That explains a few things to me.  It seems odd that there were so few plant varieties and that most are plants I recognise.  Those that we have in our garden have to be watered and fertilised for them to thrive.  Mind you, there are plenty of fruit trees in our compound: mango, banana, avocado, guava, lemon, pomegranate and maybe a few more.  Throughout Africa the soil seems to be this characteristic red and it gets everywhere, creating a film of gritty dust over everything that doesn't move.

The Weather

Since we've arrived we've barely worn much more than t-shirts and shorts because of the heat.  At first the nights were much cooler and we needed a light duvet but recently we've needed just a sheet.  It's hot hot during the day, probably 38 or 39 but doesn't feel too zapping because it's a dry heat and of course we have a swimming pool...and I don't have to work...maybe Steve and Callum would disagree!  The problem comes in the evening when the house is still so warm but I have to pop trousers and socks on to avoid being bitten.  That is a touch uncomfortable.

It has been very windy over the last couple of days which has brought the temperature down again and blown away all those pesky mosquitoes.  Callum slept in his tiger outfit last night - and looked jolly cute too!  It's getting awfully tight Aunty Rhona.

Ready for lights out ritual

The New Normal

There are so many ways in which life here is different to life in England.  But as I said to Callum the other day - not complaining, just mentioning - about something we couldn't get here, he scathingly said, “We live in Zambia now Mum, cope with it!”

Our typical school day requires us to get up at 6, hurry through the getting up and breakfasting ritual and the boys out the door at 6.58 to arrive at school at 7.00.  Man, it makes a difference to be right on the doorstep!  If Steve forgets his phone I just pop down to his classroom and hand it over, likewise if Callum forgets his snack.

Callum has registration and seven 50 minute lessons with two breaks.  He’s supposed to come home at 13.10 when school finishes, but it’s hard for him to drag himself away from football to do something as boring as eating.  He arrives home sweating buckets, followed by a small band of friends all keen to play with his Lego and Play Mobil whilst he is persuaded to have lunch.  Over the week his after-school activities include mini-volleyball (for which he has been selected for the school team, one of only two year 4s), woodwork, football, badminton, fun with tablets (the electronic kind) and basketball.

Callum serving at his first volleyball match

He arrives home at 16 latest, rushes through homework which he gets every day, to be ready for swimming.  Living on site we are lucky enough to have access to the school pools after school activities have finished and all day at the weekend.  Callum’s a determined little soul when he wants to be, and so that he can progress to the higher swimming group in PE he has been practising every single day.  He’s made great progress and his swimming teacher has placed him in the top group of the beginners who swim without floats.  We’re just working on putting his face in the water and blowing bubbles at the moment.

Callum practising swimming after school, you can just see our house behind the wall

Steve also has registration and seven 50 minute lessons but with one break.  He doesn’t finish until 13.30 and is then surrounded by pupils wanting whatever pupils want.  He often doesn’t get back for lunch until after 14.00 and then leaves again to fiddle around in his classroom for a further 4 hours.  There are all sorts of wonderful little eccentricities to do with getting work done at school.  If you want to photocopy anything you have to take your own paper to the photocopy man, he then puts it in the queue for the one photocopier.  He knocks off at 16 though, just about the time Steve starts thinking about what he needs to copy.  Printers are equally inaccessible.

Two days a week Steve coaches the U16 volleyball team.  And no he isn’t a trained volleyball coach keeping it secret all these years!  He’s already been with the team to one Saturday match and is just about to leave for another one – it’s 6.30 in the morning.  Next Saturday the team has a national tournament up in Chingola in the Copperbelt (north of the country), so they have to leave on Friday at 5 in the morning for about a seven hour drive, returning late on Saturday.

Two evenings a week Steve plays sports, badminton one night and football the other.  All other evenings he seems to spend marking or planning lessons.

Steve "marking" - some things don't change!

And so, to me, what do I do?  Sometimes it feels like precious little and other times it seems like I’m the one making this family functional.  I mostly get up with the boys, help out getting breakfast, bags and Callum’s clothes and persuade Callum that he needs to wash his face and clean his teeth.  When they leave at two minutes to 7 I heave a sigh of relief, get a(nother) cup of tea and appreciate the silence on the veranda.  Then I am responsible for sorting out all problems.  It took over five weeks to get a bed, and involved many trips with Miss Procurement to the shops.  In the end I just bought the best I could find and claimed it back on expenses.  I sort out maintenance and repair issues which can easily take up the entire day.  When our house flooded because one of the several flexi-connectors in the bathroom gave way and the outside stopcock was completely dysfunctional, it took all day running workmen around to get spare parts, standing over them to make sure they did what they were supposed to and didn’t disappear to find something and not come back.  Incredibly maintenance stores don’t store spare parts – I’ve yet to establish what they do store.  in the meantime, it's amazing what a Zambian workman can do with a plastic bag and bit of bicycle inner-tube.

Pangi, our friendly school plumber, fixing one of our many leaks

On Tuesdays I go to a ladies bible study group in Kabulonga which takes all morning.  It is my refuge, where I go to feel normal, cry with anger and frustration, laugh and share with other ladies who have been in the same situation as me.  At various points during the week I’ll meet people for coffee or lunch, and the least exciting bit, go food shopping at one of several supermarkets.  Spar at Arcades is the best place, calm, uncrowded and twice the price of Shoprite.  Shoprite in Manda Hill is definitely the worst and I only go there if I’m feeling particularly robust in spirit.  The aisles are narrow, the shelves high, the shoppers plentiful and the queues long.
I've also made myself useful to school and church doing presentations and other documentation.  At the moment I'm working on a template presentation for the school and I've just finished putting together a song sheet that has maximum songs to minimum paper.  At least some of my skills are being used - can't wait to get back to engineering!
I generally have to be back home by 13.30 to make sure Callum actually eats lunch and gets to his chosen activity in the right clothes with the right equipment at the right time.  When he returns home hot and sweaty after activities we have a calm and delightful time together doing his homework – not!  Fortunately swimming is a good enticement to do homework.

On Tuesday evenings I have started Nyanja lessons.  Nyanja is the most universal of languages spoken in Zambia, it’s also spoken in Malawi, some parts of Mozambique, and Zimbabwe so our teacher told us.

As to finding a job – the reason that we came here – I’m pleased to say I’m not short on offers.  What I need is my university transcript.  We didn’t even know what a transcript was until we came here, but it seems to be a very important bit of paper.  It’s the paper that notes all your grades for all the subjects you studied that make up the final single grade of your degree.  I immediately applied to Leeds University for it, who promised it within 4 weeks.  It is now nearly 5 weeks and we are no closer to getting it – hohum!  Once I have my transcript I can apply for my engineering licence and once I have my engineering licence the company I choose can apply for my work permit and start working.

Weekends are the time to relax, to play and explore.  We’ve been out to Kalimba, the reptile farm we didn’t make it to in February, and Lilayi, the elephant sanctuary but we’re equally happy staying on site spending the day relaxing and swimming and popping out for breakfast or lunch to The Deli, a café walking distance from here.

Year old crocs at Kalimba

Old crocs dozing in the sun, the open mouth is to cool off

Weaver birds situate their nests over danger like crocs so that
predators are discouraged from raiding their nests

Steve and our buddy Fraser getting close to a boa constrictor

A year old orphan elephant takes its milk from the keeper
at Lilayi

There are unfortunately many elephants orphaned
because of poaching

Every fourth Saturday of the month there is a craft market at the Dutch Reform Church where there are lots of stalls selling the usual African wares: wooden things, fabrics, jewellery and lots of nice food.  Every Sunday there is a similar market at Arcades.  We still haven’t got used to the very in-your-face way of selling they have.  If you even look their way the stall holder is on to you, trying to persuade you to buy his goods.  If the beauty and craftsmanship of his work (about the same as any number of the other stalls) don't grab you, he’ll have a go at telling you how poor his is and how he has no money to get home.  It doesn’t seem to occur to them that if they sold something different from all their competitors and then left you to browse unpressured you would be far more likely to buy.

Dutch Reform Craft Market

And finally of course Sunday.  We’ve found a church we like that meets at one of the other international schools.  There are lots of expats, a few white locals and a few black locals, mostly because they’ve married expats.  I thought when we arrived that we would find a locals’ church and really get stuck in with the culture but they tend to meet very early in the morning, 7 (who are we kidding we’d ever make a start that early) and go on for hours (Callum and I would get the wriggles).  Then of course there’s the level of understanding even though they speak English.  Anyway our church has about 40 members and has a diverse membership, representing all 5 continents I’m sure.  The sermons have been helpful and relevant to our situation.  And the number of songs we sing is mercifully few and off a CD rather than a big band (sorry Martin).  It's small enough that each visitor gets a personal welcome, and there's time for testimonies after the initial welcome.  We love it and feel very at home.

A sense of normality is beginning to emerge.