When Vusi arrived to clean this morning, I heard Tom talking to him in the driveway while I sat at the table on the veranda, asking him, “Do you need help carrying that?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Moments later, Tom called out to me, “Come see! There’s something here you’ll love!”
I bolted out of my chair so fast I almost tipped it over to find Vusi in the outdoor laundry room plugging in a relatively new clothes dryer. It’s small, as shown in the photo below. It will be perfect for our needs. We won’t use it to dry heavy items like jeans and sweatshirts, but we certainly can use it for our clothes, especially things that wrinkle. We will be mindful of not using too much electricity, as we are when using any electrical appliances.
I couldn’t text Louise quickly enough to thank her for the dryer. She knows how much this means to us. It changes how we wear our clothes, always concerned with the limited number of items we have and how long it will be until we can wear something again that may have been sitting in the laundry basket for four or five days. Plus, we’ll avoid mildew on wet items such as dish towels, hand towels, and washcloths.
On another note, we’ve counted the days until the end of the school holidays in South Africa. Today is that day, and already our garden has been packed with a wide array of wildlife since early this morning. Sure, a few tourists still linger, including those with or without children who may be coming this weekend for a few days, which is always the case anyway.
This morning for the first time in weeks, a band of mongooses arrived with several tiny babies in tow, which were surely born in the past few weeks. Getting a photo of the babies is tricky since they stay tucked under their moms and are very skittish. I was able to get this one less-than-ideal photo this morning to show you their minuscule size.
Nina and her calf walked by this morning, whom we’d hardly seen lately. But with Hoppy’s mom and her two remaining piglets in the garden, she didn’t bother to stop. Piglets can be very annoying and aggressive with antelopes, zebras and other wildlife. Of course, piglet moms are also very aggressive in trying to protect their youngsters.
I am so excited that my bee sting is rapidly on the mend. The redness and swelling are almost gone, and the itching is under control with the ice pack every few hours, followed by a new application of Calamine lotion. Whew! I am relieved this is almost over. I got stung in the outdoor laundry room, so now, on laundry days, Tom will spray the area with Doom before I enter to do the wash, which will be more often than in the past with the addition of the dryer.
Last night, it was fantastic to get a night’s sleep since I could finally sleep on my left side. I only had to get up once to reapply the Calamine lotion but easily went back to sleep. This morning I felt alert and enthused, ready to get back to work on some of the three tasks upcoming over the next few weeks: apply for the visa extension, apply for the renewal passports, and finish Tom’s insurance claim for his lost bag, which has yet to appear.
Now that I am feeling better, we can start the research. This will be a lot of work, but we must address these tasks. As for our passport renewal, it appears we must make an appointment at the US Embassy in Pretoria, requiring we make the five-hour drive, possibly twice, once to apply and another time to pick them up two to four weeks later. We’ll most likely have to stay in a hotel for a few nights to accomplish this.
That’s all the news for today, folks. We’ll be back with more tomorrow as we continue taking more photos of the returning wildlife.
Be well.
Photo from one year ago today, January 10, 2022:
