Each day is jam packed and it seems there is no time to rest after long hot days.

We finally got the van back and found something else was wrong.  So it went back to the garage and home again.  The next day it wouldn’t start again.  The mechanic had said there had to be something wrong with the battery. Finally Domenic found out that the garage where he had bought it was selling bad batteries that only lasted for about a month.  We are hopping mad and will go after them for a full refund since we have had so much trouble and now have had to buy a second battery.  Everything is running well now.

Domenic had just had his work permit in hand for a week when he got a notice that all those holding work permit must report to the Moshi office because there were so many false work permits being issued.  He checked in Boma and they confirmed he had to take his paper work and go to Moshi.  We were all very nervous.  He went in and they said, “What do you want?”  He told them and they said it was all false, looked at his papers and told him to be on his way.  What a relief.

Harry and Domenic were discussing out bat problem with our new handy man.  He said he had dealt with this before and could guarantee to fix our problem.  AND HE DID.  He got rid of all the bats, there were thousands in the new school classroom attic, and cleaned out huge piles of bad dung from almost all our buildings.  It stinks so bad, you never forget that smell, and then sealed every crack and crevice in all our buildings.  NO MORE BATS.  It is interesting that none had ever taken up roosting in our attic.  It has made out house hotter though since our ventilated roof is now sealed up.  It and been 86 to 89.7 degrees in the house this week.  Now our new expert handyman is putting vents into all the crawl spaces under the roof.  Harry is so grateful that he didn’t have to do this horrible job.

Harry is keeping busy in the heat anyway with all the general repairs that are normal here.  He  had to move the water line so the building could continue for the steps to the second floor of the new building.  The sewer line must be moved too but the builder will do that.  We also spent a couple of days with no water.  The main valve on the water tank went out and leaked all our water overnight.  They had to drain the tank to fix it but by 9:00 we had water enough to use again.  Thank you Harry for all your expert knowledge on how to keep everything running.  The only thing that has him stumped right now is some plumbing stuff and they promise they will come tomorrow and fix that.

W have been having high winds which create terrible dust storms.  Even if you get everything closed up in time you still get a lot of it in the house.  Last week was particularly bad.  Three nights they came in the evening when you want to keep the house open to cool down for the night.  Kathy got a pretty good allergy attack that morphed into a head cold and then a sinus infection.  She is feeling much better now after a round of cipro.  Some of our girls were sick too.  It is hard to convince them that they shouldn’t play outside in a bad wind storm.   There is a new soccer field and everyone loves to go out after classes and play ball.

Preparation continues on the multi-purpose building.  They say they will pour the cement for the floor on the second level on Wed along with half of the runs around the top of the pillars.  They will then reuse the forms to finish the rest of the runs, saving cost on lumber for forms which is very expensive here.  The brick work for the stairway in front of the building is completed and the stairs up to the second floor are in progress.  Then they will begin filling in between the pillars with cement blocks to fill in the walls.  We can hardly wait to see this much done on the building.

All our classes are going well.  We just looked at the calendar and it is just about a month until we leave for Kenya.  Where has the time gone?  It seems we just got here.

Loving every minute we are here!

Harry and Kathy