Hippos & Monkeys -- week 58

 This was mostly a quiet week at the office.  Not too much to write home about.  Ken paid bills.  Sue started writing the Mission History for 2020.  She got through January and February.  Those were the "normal" months when we had people being baptized, arrivals of new missionaries, departures of those who had finished their two years of service, and Zone Conferences.

One year ago in February was also the dedication of the Durban South Africa Temple.  It was fun to put in pictures about that wonderful event.

Sister Lines was in the office one day and we were just gabbing.  Ken pulled his chair over by Sue's desk to join in. President Lines came in and said he needed a photo of how hard we work -- so here it is.

OK.  You think we would have learned our lesson by now.  We came home from the office and went in to change our clothes to go walking.  We left the front door open -- no monkeys around -- because it was nice outside and our air conditioner is still broken.  Big mistake!  We think the monkeys in the trees around our building know to watch for our open door.  Sue came outside to water her plants, and there was a monkey sitting on the railing eating one of our bananas!  It was the last one left, so he only got one.  He ran up to the roof when Ken came out with camera, but they really have no fear of us.  We feed them well, after all.

We also had a lot of load shedding this week.  That means one or two blocks of two-hour power outages  each day.  Our favorite time is the midnight to 2 a.m. shift -- we sleep through that.  Next best is middle of the day.  We are at the office and have batteries to run the computers and network.  But this week we had one day from 6-8 p.m. and one day from 8-10 p.m.  Not so fun.  Sue had to knit by lantern light.  And her smartphone still plays the audio book she downloaded earlier.

Saturday we were supposed to pick up another new Elder at the airport.  President & Sister Lines were going to District Conference in Newcastle -- four hours away.  This Elder missed coming last week because his COVID test results didn't come through.  Wednesday night we got the message that it happened again.  No flight for him.  So now we had an open Saturday.  What to do?  Sue got a call from the Elders up in Richards Bay -- about two hours north.  Their couch was really awful.  Was there another one around?  This is a legit question because we have been closing apartments and storing furniture in the Mission Home garage.  

Friday morning we met the Assistants, Elder Mbaki and Elder Van Orden, there with their bakkie (pick up truck), all wearing our grubbies.  Anything in the Mission Home garage is dusty/dirty/moldy.  There were two couches, stacked on top of each other.  One was really bad and needs to be tossed out.  One was ok-ish, but not wonderful.  However, there were two big green easy chairs that were quite nice.  We decided to take those up instead.  The Elders also needed new ironing board, desk chair, broom & pillows.  We could supply all those.  It just meant a trip up north.  Sue was all for that -- there are some nice beaches up that way.  

One of the chairs had a small rip in one of the seams, so Sue got needle and thread from Sister Lines and fixed that in a few minutes.  The Elders got all the furniture into the back of the bakkie and we were set to leave the next morning. 

The Elders all love driving the bakkies -- much more manly than a Toyota Corolla.  But Sue, not so much.  Later Friday afternoon she needed to run an errand to the mall.  Thoughts of parking that big truck in a mall parking space were not pleasant.  We have several cars parked around the office waiting for more Elders to come, so Sue borrowed one of afore-mentioned Corollas to run her errand.

The drive to Richards Bay is really beautiful.  Lots of green rolling hills, and a good four-lane highway.  The area around Richards Bay has some large mines and industrial plants, and huge power lines cross the land.  She tried to look them up on Google Earth to see where they came from -- but they are not there!  Probably removed for security reasons.  

Elder Slater and Elder Viviers were glad to see us.  Elder Slater is from Capetown, and just started his mission last month.  Elder Viviers is from Stanger -- just an hour or so down the road.  He started his mission last May and was supposed to go to Ukraine.  Because of COVID, that has not happened yet, but we are all still hoping he will get a Ukrainian visa one of these days.  Ken emails him a "Russian Word of the Day" every day, and whenever we see him we say "Hello, how are you?" in Russian.  That's about all Sue can remember.  

We left them the chairs, etc.  We weren't quite sure what to do with the old couch.  It was too big to fit in the bakkie to haul back to Durban.  We all talked about putting it out on the street -- things there magically disappear.  We also met their landlord who had come over to fix a broken bathroom door latch.  He and Sue had been communicating about a problem buying electricity for them, so it was nice to put face to email name.  We went over to a store nearby to try and buy electricity again.  When we got back, the Elders had their lounge (living room) all nicely arranged with the new chairs.  We asked what had become of the couch.  They said, "What couch?" and just smiled... .  We've no idea.

When we told President Lines we were going to Richards Bay and then try to find a good beach, he suggested we drive up to Saint Lucia.  It's a little tourist beach-town between the ocean and an estuary full of hippos and crocodiles.  So we signed up for the 2 p.m. hippo boat tour and were off!

Sue likes maps, so we will show the area. 

Scale on this photo is about 5km = 1in.  There is a large lake up north, then a long estuary that comes down to where the town is. (circled)

Scale on this map is about 400 m = 1 inch.

From 2005 to January 2021 the estuary was blocked by sand dunes and did not connect to the ocean. The sand in the bottom right side now has a channel to the ocean. The estuary is changing from fresh water to salt water, as it had been for years and years.  But the wildlife there -- hippos, crocodiles and blue sharks -- can live in either environment.  There is a lot of controversy over whether this intervention should have been done -- but that is true whenever we try to tinker with the environment.  Was the blockage caused in the first place because people upstream pulled out so much fresh water for human use that the river coming down was not strong enough to keep the channel clear?  Time will tell.

There is a bridge that goes over the estuary into Saint Lucia.  The boat comes under this bridge and heads north up the estuary.

We loved the boat ride.  It was a beautiful day, hot with a stiff breeze.  Here is the view from the top deck of the boat. 

"Hippo tour in St. Lucia, KZN, South Africa" - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

There are about 1200 hippos along the estuary.  We saw three different groups of about 15.  Hippos are nocturnal animals.  They run around at night and eat, and then sleep all day, mostly under water.  It's hard to count how many in a group, because they pop up and down all the time.  We think the group above was about 15.  They don't swim, but walk along the bottom.  They can go up to 15km/hour -- that is 9 mph -- almost marathon winner speed! The estuary averages about four feet deep, so it's a good place for them.  If the water gets too deep, they just keep running along the bottom until it gets shallow enough that they can come up for air.  They can stay under for 5 minutes.  It makes them really hard to photograph.

It is Sue's month to drive, but three hours is too long, so Ken did the first half.  That way it was light and Sue could knit while Ken drove.  The problem with the bakkie is that the turn signals are on the right and the wipers on the left.  We had very clean windshield.  Our Duster also has the steering wheel on the right, but the rest of the controls are US style.

Richards Bay area also has miles and miles of forest farms.  The trees are all the same kind, planted in rows.  We saw a lot of harvesting going on.  Here you can see the stacks of logs along the edge waiting for trucks and railroad cars.  

Sue took over driving about half way home.  As we got north of Durban we could see lightening and then it started to rain.  It wasn't a little sprinkle.  The cars on the freeway slowed way down and put on their hazard lights.  Sue found the wiper controls and turned them on full speed.  She could still hardly see where she was going.  And the lightening was spectacular.  Ken took some great video.  

We couldn't get off the freeway at our usual off ramp because of the construction.  We kept driving west, and decided to go up to Westville Mall for dinner. But we were both tired, so just stopped at our favorite fish and chips place.  Sue forgot her mask in the car, so couldn't go in.  It was raining too hard to go back and get it.  Ken ordered To Go for us.  Sue did have the round camera, so got a photo of the place, too.  Or "Plaice" as it is spelled.

"Fish and Chips places near Westville Mall" - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

We went to church this morning in Umbhedula Branch.  They meet in the Pinetown building.  It is a good group, with lots of families with kids.  The Stake President, President deWet, was the main speaker.  He is a surgeon and had a really, really bad case of COVID-19 a few months ago.  He talked about how we can be blessed even in hard times if we live up to what God wants us to do.  

We do need to take care of each other.

The puzzle is coming along slowly.  Elephant now has forehead and left ear.