To the Market

Caleb and I headed to the market on Saturday morning for wall plugs (to replace the ones broken by normal use) and some grub. We started with a list of a few things and ended getting sugar, flour, bacon, frankfurters, green peppers and cucumbers. Caleb is a market guru and wastes no steps moving from stall to stall for all of this. For our pineapple purchase, we found the pineapple truck unloading in the middle of the street. There were piles of pineapple everywhere and folks sorting and negotiating prices. We have a stall that gives us the best pineapples and his stall was almost unreachable except by parachute. The pile was the size of a small car and he was still sorting as we arrived. Sorry we didn't get a picture, but Dale got many good market pictures. Friend him on Facebook and you can see what we see.

The power just went out but I have my coffee and as long as the batteries last in this laptop I can still blog. Yesterday the second headmaster from Image school stopped by again to show the training program they will use to train their weather observers. Since it is already the Christmas holiday (more like their summer break), they will be training some of the students from the local town and then train more students in weather when they return from break on the 2nd of January. My part of all of this will be to send some meteorology books here and perhaps gather enough support to send some more instruments for the weather station at the Image school. .

A big part of their secondary school training is practical training in engineering and science. They learn such things as surveying and chemical analysis. Meteorology is a good topic to use to teach students things such as taking measurements, recording data, analyzing data, and caring for technical instruments. When Dan McIntyre was here in August and September, he helped the chemistry teachers learn chemical analysis techniques such as titration and weighing. Hopefully, we can get enough teachers and students interested in weather to keep this station up and running year around. Image is one of about 30 schools in the region that will have a weather station. I encouraged the headmaster to put my name on the daily e-mail of weather observations here. It will be a nice contrast with January in Minnesota:

Iringa Temperature = 80, Partly cloudy/Mostly sunny
Minneapolis Temperature = -20, Not sure if sun came up today

Another task for Saturday was household maintenance. Most of the plumbing was installed without the necessary gaskets so nearly everything leaks. I have nearly all the leaks fixed -- some with handmade gaskets. I feel like Apollo 13 sometimes, sealing things up with duct tape. Many of the cute little lamps around the apartments have very light gauge wire. Those wires come loose in the switches, sockets or plugs and I have worked on about 8 of the lamps to get them running. Dale tried his hand at changing a light bulb in one of the lamps, but the wire leading into the lamp socket was frayed and that lead to a fairly spectacular flash of light and puff of smoke. There were no injuries, but it really scared all of us. I rewired the lamp and it works now, but we are now very careful with any lamp that acts up. I was tempted to make a joke out of "how many Lutheran Pastors does it take to change a lightbulb?" However, it would have to somehow involve a fire department and the electric company and some laundry detergent so I let it alone.

The power is still out but the hot water runs so the shower works (it leaks from missing gaskets but that makes it just like the new showers with many sprays caressing your body). Before my little laptop becomes a doorstop, I will end this and say have a good Sunday and see you all soon.