Durban, Back Lot Car Purchasing, The Indian Ocean & Water Supplies

This last week has been crazy for us! After rejoicing in the fact that our house has been rented, we turned our attention to getting a vehicle for ourselves. This required some advanced planning, since we already looked around in Maseru to no avail. So, our next opportunity was to purchase a vehicle directly "off the boat" (literally) in Durban. You are able to purchase a vehicle in Durban for a much cheaper price. But, you have to pay a lot of taxes to get it to Lesotho. So, our total purchase is not done yet. And, the car is technically still in Durban until our transporter can pick up the vehicle and bring it back to Lesotho. Then it will get registered and THEN we will be able to get our new vehicle. So anyway, last week, I needed to meet with the "clearing agent", who will help us with the taxes and registration and shipping of the vehicle to Lesotho from Durban. She informed me that I needed to fill out 3 forms and get them all certified. That means that after you have all 3 forms, you then go downtown Maseru to have a police officer, or some other "high up" person, look over your papers and stamp them to say that they are an "official copy". The next day, I took them back to the clearing agent. Then, on Thursday, I was going to borrow Ray's car for the weekend trip, and he ended up getting a flat tire on the way in to Beautiful Gate! So, after he arrived here, we went to the American Embassy for a meeting with some "high up" people about the adoption process and then I had to take Ray's car to South Africa to get two new front tires. This went smoothly, but took time. After the tires were changed, I stopped in at Ray's house and used his phone to confirm our accomodations for Durban for the weekend, as my Lesotho phone was having issues calling South African phone number (Ray corrected me on how to dial the phone). Don't laugh, it's much different here from America! Okay, you can stop rolling in the aisles in laughter.....really. Anyway, I then headed back to Lesotho and met with another person, who knows a "guy" in Durban, who could help me navigate all the vehicle yards to choose from. He was also very helpful in letting me know which type of vehicle to look for in my budget. So, I got back home that night at about 7:30, helped Anita to get the kids ready for bed, pack my clothes and get some sleep, as we wanted to leave Beautiful Gate for Durban at 5AM! Yes, we are crazy. Anyway, 4:30AM came very quickly and we got in the car and headed for Durban. I am telling you the truth that the sun was already up at 5AM and we got through the border crossing very quickly. Then we had a wonderful drive around the northern edge of Lesotho. About 1/3 of the way to Durban, we had to stop and stare at a mudslide that had pretty much covered the road. Luckily for us, some trucks had gone through before us and we were able to get Ray's car through the 10 feet of two track that was made in the sand. Then, about 10km later, we had to come to a complete stop again, as the road looked like it had just "sunken" about 6-8" from where it originally was made. Luckily, I am a very good driver and was able to navigate that area with ease, as you quickly get used to "Striped Zebra Crossings" (or speed bumps, as we call them in Michigan), since they are all over Lesotho. The rest of the drive to Durban went very peaceful and pleasant (as peaceful as it can be with three kids in the car). We arrived in Durban and found our accomodations to be very nice. We had no view of the Indian Ocean, but we were only one road up from the shore and found an nice walking path to get there. After settling into our place, Anita and I left to go car shopping (the kids stayed with our new friend Laury, who came along with us to Durban). Anita and I spent the rest of the afternoon car shopping with Willard (a man from Zimbabwe who knows all the "vehicle dealers"). If you have ever been to shipping yards, you will know that Anita and I were way out of our comfort zone, as they are some very interesting places to be. But, after our first car lot, we started to feel a little more at ease and started to understand "how this was going to go down." If it sounds like a drug deal from a TV show, you are onto the right feeling of how this worked. Anyway, after a couple hours of looking, we dropped off Willard at his home and went back to our place and went with the kids to the beach for an hour. Then next morning, we picked up Willard to continue our car shopping and dropped off Laury and the kids at Ushaka (a Sea World park in Durban). Anita and I were able to look at about 4 more car lots before finding the car that we wanted and haggled over the price. We ended up buying a Toyota Harrier (look it up on Google). It has a few dings and dents, but it fit our budget and gives us the ground clearance that we were looking for (so we don't bottom out on the striped zebra crossings. (By the way, I can now confirm that zebras are black with white stripes, as the speed bumps are black tar with white stripes!) We put down a deposit on the vehicle and still had enough time for Anita and I to get to Ushaka and enjoy some of the shark tanks and even catch the seal show! The kids had a blast there. We then left the park to go do some "body surfing" in the ocean by our place. (We stayed just about 15km north of Durban, in Umhlanga Rocks (again google it)). The beach was wonderful and the waves were awesome. We all got soaking wet and Faith's hair changed from blond to "sandy blond". No... I mean it, it was literally covered in sand!
While I was a little further out in the surf from the kids, I met a man who asked me what part of the US I was from. I have no idea how he knew we were from the States other than speaking well English (that was an intentional joke), so I told him that we were from Michigan. After telling him that were were helping Beautiful Gate for 5 years, he said that he had just finished preaching at a church about 1/2 hour before he came to the beach. He was telling Indians (not the Native American kind) about grace. Most of them have never heard anything like it! He also told me that he was from Utah (he was not Mormon) and that he had pastored two churches in Durban (5 years each) over the past 10-12 years. It is really cool how God sets these "appointments" up. You just never know who you are going to meet! After a little more chit-chat, we both went on our way.
The next morning we woke up, packed the car and then went to the beach for one last stroll on the surf. It was a beautiful sunny morning! The Lord gave us great weather for the trip. Our drive home went very well, except that the road was now closed at the two spots that we traversed on the way to Durban. So, we had to enter Lesotho at an earlier boarder crossing spot. This was alright, in that we were able to see much more of Lesotho than we had before. But, it was amazing to see the "night and day" difference from South Africa to Lesotho (in terms of poverty level). This also resulted in our trip back home taking about an extra hour longer, as the speed limit in Lesotho is much slower.
We arrived home safely and I promptly fell asleep with the kids, as I was developing a cold. We also found out that the water in Lesotho, which had been shut off on the Tuesday before we left, still was not on! This meant that the people of Lesotho had to go without "good" drinking water for six days already! If you have not been here before, people can sometimes travel miles to get to the closest water spigot to get water, and then they fill their cans and wheelbarrow them back to their houses! Beautiful Gate has a spigot right outside the gate and we are connected to the city water supply. But, since the water was out, we had to switch to our reserve well, which would last us about 7 days. Needless to say, when we found out the water was out still this morning, we started to get worried as we only had about one or two days water supply left in the tank. But, about lunchtime today, the water came back on in Maseru. Now, the water pressure is not very good, as everyone is clamboring to get water again, but it is back on.....for now. Please pray that it stays on. If it does, all should return to normal and we can restock our well. The Lord has been good to Beautiful Gate, and He is supplying for us at just the right time. God is good....all the time!
As I write this, I am feeling much better, after taking the day off from volunteering from Beautiful Gate with this cold. It was a rough morning, but tomorrow is another day that God will bless us with! I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!
I had better end this epistle!
Cheers,
Bryan