I ran into one of the IT faculty and asked for the guidelines for the Bachelor Report and he said he would track one down for me. Then up came Pankaj our Napalese friend who is also teaching in IT. He suggested that I use the common office that most of the adjuncts use. It is a fairly sparse room with 4 small desks and 4 small chairs and a nest of ethernet on the floor in the middle. I don't know if I dare hook something to that!
Pankaj wanted a ride into town and we thought we could get a key made for the office at the same time. Dale was told that there wouldn't be any students until maybe Monday so we left the campus and stopped by the bank for Pankaj and then the adventure began. Pankaj speaks some Swahili so we started at the far end of the main road through town to ask for a locksmith. In Swahili a general handyman is called a Fundi. Pankaj asked for a Ufunguo eko wape? Each of the helpful merchants weren't quite sure what he was asking (even after showing them a key) but pointed down the road. Dale followed us in the truck -- dodging pushcarts and buses and trying to keep out of the eye of the parking attendant who sells 1 hour parking for 1000 shillings. As far as we can tell they only charge our white truck. All the other cars parking along the way are sitting there and the attendant walks by them.
To top this all off, neither Dale nor I have any money. We left our wallets at the apartment. Finally, we find a real locksmith with a collection of about a dozen key blanks on the back wall. He smiles, puts one of the blanks in the vice and starts to shape the key with a hacksaw, files and a micrometer (yes a real precision instrument). This takes about 30 minutes while Dale is playing dodgem cars on the main road. I also want to remind you that the roads are almost 2 lanes wide with a 3' deep and 3' wide ditch on either side for the rainy season. One wrong step and you break a leg.
Adventure next -- not quite in chronological order. In the morning, I got up to go to the bathroom and found that as soon as I turned the light on in the hallway bathroom, the bees entered a 2" hole in the screen. This place has full window screens on everything. Even the iron security door has a screen so you can open it for ventilation. But here on the bathroom window is a large hole in the screen 2' from a bees' nest. They are very active in early morning so they moved right in. I turned off the light, slammed the door and killed 3 of them that had gotten into the hallway. I looked in the adjacent shower room and there was another 2" hole in the screen. How I never noticed these before? Anyway they are now covered with new aluminum screen and hopefully the rooms are safe to turn the light on.
Next I tackled the hall toilet which has had a wet floor since we arrived. I took the flusher apart and it was clogged with a piece of rubber gasket -- probably from over tightening all of the fittings. Once cleaned the flusher worked like a charm and the floor is drying as we speak. Luckily the Harris's have a full set of tools here and many of the hardware items needed to keep a house in top shape.
As a side note, we just found out that our good friend Jill Gustafson died after a courageous fight with cancer. Her daughter, Emma, is with the Fish Lake Church group here and they will be flying back tonight. She should be home by Thursday afternoon and our prayers go out to Emma, Tess, Eric and the rest of the Fish Lake family.
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