When you read this I will be winging my way across the Atlantic. So looking forward to enjoying fall again. Sweaters, boots, tights, brisk breezes, ahhhh!
Our last few shopping trips have
been pretty ordinary. I guess it was time for an adventure. Keep reading to
find out what happened.
A couple weeks ago we traveled to
Mansa via Terra Nova Farm where Tom stopped to work some more on the French
Trough that is running along the driveway and making the place look so posh
that people keep stopping at the gate hoping to get a room at our luxury
resort. :)
I meanwhile worked on the
security guard’s time sheet. We have a nice system of buttons which he scans
with a wand so we know he’s made his rounds each night. We then pay him
according to the amount of rounds he makes each night—up to 12. This gives us
peace of mind and keeps him on track. Once I’d done this I fell asleep in our cozy
little security house while Chewy kept me company.
We moved Chewy to the farm a few
months ago since he was not happy at the Children’s Home. He was much more
likely to be found mixing it up with the female dogs of the village. It made
more sense to move him to a less populated area where he could also work off
his adolescent energy.—much like the plan for Terra Nova Farm ultimately. We
plan to move our older children there so they can study half the day and spend
the rest of the day working off extra teenage hormones/energy on the farm.
Chewy is just the pioneer. LOL And he loves it there. Every time we drive in he
runs up with a huge doggy smile on his face. His coat is shiny and sleek again.
Makes my heart happy.
When we reached Mansa we visited
a few government offices, shops, and the bank before they closed just to tick a
few things off our fairly extensive list.
That evening we spent at a hotel
preparing for the big push of the next day. It was an early night to bed so we
could rise early the next day.
Friday got off to a good start. I
finally managed to find clear glue for a fun project I want to do. (I’ll share
it when I do.) We went to the bank again and then I headed in to Shoprite—our
grocery store—while Tom went to run around to all the various shops that are
necessary to completing a shopping trip: hardware stores (yes, plural),
agriculture store, animal feed, granary, etc.
My time in the grocery store is
worthy of its own post so I’ll have to do that some time. Did I tell you all
that our store burned down last year? It did! And the temporary store they put
up during construction is tiny! It’s quite an adventure getting all our list
filled. But, I managed—and in pretty good time too.
When Tom came to pick me and the
dozen crates, boxes and 60 cabbages up he assured me he only had a few errands
to run and then we could be on our way. It was approaching noon, so this was
good news.
Tom wanted to get the truck
checked out because an odd light had come on the dash and we weren’t sure what
it meant. The truck was running well, but we wanted to get ahead of any issues.
We went to a mechanic we’ve worked with before. The shop came well recommended
so that was reassuring. This day however, Tom and I both noticed that the
mechanic looked a little hung over. Unfortunately this isn’t an uncommon thing
to see in laborers so we didn’t pay it a whole lot of attention. (I wish we had
though)
I decided to leave Tom to sort
out the truck issues and to pick up the remaining hardware items while I walked
to the lunch counter to get our order started since it can take a while.
My food had just arrived when I
got a phone call from Tom.
It went like this:
Tom: Our mechanic has hit a
pedestrian and the police have impounded our truck.
Me: That’s not remotely funny. I
don’t like that joke.
Tom: I wish I were joking. It
really happened.
Me: …….
Tom: I’ll call you back when I
know more.
Tom tracked down our truck and
got the story from the police. Apparently our mechanic had swerved off the road
while looking at the dashboard and hit a pedestrian hard enough to snap off the
side mirror. When the door popped open and he saw someone lying on the ground
he panicked and swerved back on the road (with the door still hanging open) and
hit a car. To his misfortune (though we were grateful) a police officer in another
car observed the whole thing and immediately arrested him. We were also so
thankful that the impact with the other car did no damage to our truck.
As per procedure our truck was
impounded and taken to the police station while the investigation could be
carried out. This was worrisome to us as all our belongings were in the
cab—including our two laptops—and two weeks’ worth of groceries (perishables
too) were in the truck bed.
Thanks be to God, nothing was
damaged or stolen.
Now came the waiting game. We had
to sit outside the station in the hot sun waiting for the police to take
statements from everyone involved and eventually formally charge the mechanic
with drunken driving, driving without a license, reckless driving, and fleeing
an accident. Whew! We were so glad that we weren’t dragged in to the
situation—just inconvenienced.
Another good thing was that the
mechanic shop is actually owned by a good Christian family and one of the
owners came right over to inspect the damage to our truck and find a
replacement mirror. The police wouldn’t release our vehicle until we had that
repaired.
Four hours later we were finally
able to finish our last couple errands and get on the road. Driving at dark is
never fun—and less so on pothole covered roads, but we were so glad that we
were actually getting to go home and our truck was not incapacitated. We pulled
into the gate at 8:30 PM
God continues to look after us in
the midst of our adventures.
And that dashboard light? Turns
out that trucks have something called an engine brake that you can use when
going downhill to save your brakes and gears. Who knew? We didn’t! Apparently
the day before when Tom had the truck cleaned someone had bumped the switch and
turned the engine brake on. The light was just letting us know it was on. Steep
learning curve (see what I did there??), but that’s life.
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