Bump, Bump, Bump...

Feb28th
Sunday lunch we headed to a small guesthouse/restaurant about a 1-1/2 km walk from the center. Margaretha (the Swedish translator that we helped out in in her village allocation in 2010) had invited us. Our first meal ‘out’ in five weeks! We remembered the place as we had been there two years ago with the three of us; nothing had changed… the same unfinished courtyard with bricks and cement laying around and very slow service, but the meal was excellent.

On Monday we were finally able to get ‘our’ internet  router working again after replacing a battery on the one in the other building. The little mishap with the 380V AC did cost the center  a computer and monitor as they were not plugged into the UPS battery backup system. The rest of the day was again spent on the swamp coolers, with, at the end, the four in the A building up and running. While Margreet was helping with one of them she came across a leak in the main water pipe into ‘our’ building. Luke fixed it temporarily, not with Duct tape but with a piece of inner tubing.

Tuesday: while Luke is replacing the busted pipe Henk is tackling the two coolers in the B block attic: first order of the day is finding the relevant keys, switches and circuit breakers. Cleaning out the first unit takes a while. The first unit does turn on, but the sump pump doesn’t quite get the water pumped up and needs replacing. That’s it for today as the temperature starts to climb in the attic and not only there: the fridge that supposedly was fixed reads 22C inside- not quite the 6-10C one would like to see. Henk is able to exchange it again for the one out of the next apartment. The new one registers 14 C. which is ok for our immediate needs…


A bit of a mystery unfolds after a phone call from Robin in A8: their swamp cooler is not on and after investigating we find that the circuit breaker is off in the attic: did somebody turn if off or did it trip automatically for some reason. We cannot get hold of Luke, so the mystery will have to remain till tomorrow.

We just realize that from tomorrow on we will be counting down our last week here…