Quiet

It has been a quiet week.

The biggest thing for me is that I keep thinking it is August. We have been enjoying fresh vegetables from the garden. The beans and zucchini are now finished, as is the maize (corn). We have been enjoying pumpkins and squash, but the vines are now dying back. Soon it will be time to pick the last tomatoes and dig the carrots. The days are still hot but they are also noticeably shorter. Yep, it feels like August.

At Beautiful Gate we continue to struggle with a couple of issues, the electricity is still not connected and efforts to resolve our wastewater challenges seem to be yielding no results. It is now some 4-5 months since we approached WASA (the Water And Sewage Authority) with a plan. They advised they would provide a quote in terms of cost. Our staff have seen a draft copy of the quote however, the official quote promised us back in November still has not arrived despite our repeated and ongoing follow-up requests. It is frustrating that things seem to move so slowly. Sometimes we think that they don’t move at all. Meanwhile, on the electricity front we are making progress, and that is encouraging.

The adoption moratorium is another issue seemingly no closer to resolution. Nine months later there is still no end in sight. Meanwhile our children are all nine months older and no closer to being placed in permanent homes. On the positive side though, the children are doing very well - growing and developing, and the odd one is being placed into foster care with families who will then adopt when the adoption process is again opened up.

The big news from Beautiful Gate is that the little pre-school we began in August has mushroomed. We started with 26 children the first term, and sought to work out any bugs. Well the staff obviously did a great job with any bugs as in the current term we have 58 students and the place is just buzzing with activity, and humming along.

Wendy has just asked if I will check out the apples on the apple tree. They were pretty sparse this year as the tree needs a very thorough pruning. But I am again reminded that it seems like August, as one shouldn’t be checking for apples in February. ☺ ☺

~ Benno ~