Categories
Africa

June 30 1988

Into Vavoua this morning to get some gas and paraffin. While I was lugging two dirty great canisters around my sandal decided to fall apart, terrific! I got to the place where they sell gas and left my stuff there and limped off to find a cobbler. The job was done very quickly, for the price of 50 francs, or 10p in sterling. You need to divide everything by 500 to convert local prices to sterling, you very quickly get adept at that.
I went to see about getting the electricity connected, but the boss wasn’t around, I waited an hour and then gave up as I still had a lot to do at home, perhaps tomorrow. In the meantime we need lots of sunshine to keep all our batteries charged.

Spent the afternoon getting the house more in order, I began to get very distracted as time went on and Sue and David were due to arrive. I expected to see them by about 4.30. By 7.00 I had given up hope of their arrival and resigned Myself to another lonely evening. Happily just as I was settling down to listen to the World Service, (praise the Lord for the BBC) a taxi drew up with the family inside. Sue seemed pleased to see me, but David was too intent on playing with the steering wheel while the driver unloaded the bags, even to notice my presence.