Day 19

Another cold start to the day, despite the abundance of sunshine, which seems to be the norm here lately (keep forgetting it's actually winter here). Desperately trying to ignore all the reports of the heatwave in the UK, even to the extent that I'm convincing myself it's just a big conspiracy to annoy me. Consistent hot weather, in an English summer? Pull the other one!

Good news though, is Tammy is back after a few days off (better news for us, obviously), and it was she who arrived at 8:30. Let it be known that on this day, I was ready to go, and the rest of the family weren't! Absolutely true. I can still hardly believe it myself, and if Tammy hadn't seen it with her own eyes probably couldn't either. So, that's 1 to me, family! (score is now 18-1)

After a quick stop on the way down to pop in to the laundry and give the lovely and incredibly hard-working ladies there our latest batch of washing, it was down to Hopewell and on arrival, where to other than down to the waterhole. If Tammy hadn't had to leave as soon as she dropped us off, she would have been as excited as us to discover that there were rhino footprints everywhere! Well, maybe not as excited as us, as she often sees them in her work, but she'd certainly be as pleased, I'm sure. We can't wait to tell her!

Herro, herons

We know rhino now

But yes, rhino prints! Some were so clear you could see his...not fingerprints exactly...but the lines on the skin of his feet, if that makes sense. There's probably a word for it. Anyway, let's hope he comes down again in the night, and even better if he has a good old mudbath while he's there too!

We also took a 5 litre bottle down to measure the output of the spring. When Rob, Gerhard's neighbour and friend, came down to determine the eventual water level, he had estimated it at 10 litres per minute. And what do you know? It was exactly 10 litres per minute. As I said then, this man knows his onions.

Still slowly getting larger, at 10 litres per minute. We know, we checked.

Before she left she also mentioned that the guys coming to help us out were definitely due in this afternoon, so we're looking forward to that too.

On the walk back, while trying to remove one of these things from my leg, I managed to get it stuck under my thumbnail. They are incredibly spiky, and so designed that they will immediately stick in whatever you're using to remove them from whatever it is they're stuck in. I don't know what they're called officially, but I know what I call them... but for the sake of the children, I won't write it here.

Should be banned from Earth

On with the work though, which meant the last of the ceiling struts to be treated, more puttying of windows, and a bit of pickaxing out the large corner stones for Max and Kira. They also carted all the big stones into a pile next to the bricks to be used either for a wall in the potential botanical garden, or something else that we haven't determined yet. There are some really nice big stones there, so it'd be good to put them to use for something in or around the Barn, at least.

The kids were working very hard, but we felt they weren't working quite hard enough, so we put them in a cage where they had time to think about what they hadn't done.

Working hard, as always...

...but not hard enough

Jonathon arrived at lunchtime and took us back for a lunch of fish and chips, and by this time the weather was also a bit more (currently) English, as well as the lunch which we ate on our sunny verandah. All while watching the smaller wildlife of Kuzuko go about its business.

Ines and Kira had time for a few hands of cards, while Max made some excellent tea. He is an excellent maker of tea, and quite correctly, uses a saucepan to boil the water first, (we have no kettle) and then puts it into the cup with teabags, as opposed to the girls' method of putting the teabags in the saucepan, and then in the cup. It is a great source of debate in our family, but the proof of the pudding, or in this case, the tea, is that Max's tea is indeed the more excellent, so the debate should end there (but never does..).

I see your Chockits...and I'm going to eat them

Legging it up to reception, like cheetahs with bags and bottles of water, should we miss our afternoon lift again, we jumped in with Jonathon who told us the guys to help were already down there waiting for us. Sure enough, Gerhard's friend and main man, Ruen (not sure on the spelling, must find that out!) and his men were there already giving the Barn a good once over to see where we were at up to now.

He had brought two of his guys, Justin and Frier (again, gotta check the spelling) and once the intros were made we got to business and explained what we had done so far, and what we wanted to do. Ruan seemed completely unfazed by what we imagined was a lot of work, specifically The Big Crack (which hadn't gone much further since the stapling), the big hole filled with rubble, and the remainder of the slope where we wanted to build steps. All in the shortest time possible. We also showed him the waterhole, and what we had in mind for the hide there.

Luckily for us, he's one of those people that the word impossible doesn't exist in his dictionary, and not because he has a very cheap dictionary. A very can-do type of man. He assured us it was no problem, and his guys would get on it first thing. We also showed him our putty work. He was pretty impressed with Ines' puttying, mine...not so much. I still maintain though, that while it's not pretty, and uses more putty than Crystal Palace ever did, that it would last for a thousand years, due to its bulk. However, I'm the only one who seemed convinced of this.

He was also very polite about our cementing. It was no use for us to try and paper over the cracks, as the cracks were much too obvious to be papered over. The bigger ones (where originally they went through to the outside wall) would sadly, have to be knocked out and re-cemented. What we didn't realise apparently, is that you have to keep cement damp as possible, while it dries out. While it was a shame to see a lot of our hard work (very diplomatically!) dismissed, at least we know how to do it properly should we ever do it again. Not sure either Max or myself will ever want to cement again, but at least we will have the knowledge of how to do a better job next time.

Overall though, he was pleased and relatively impressed with our work, and recognised that while it might not look like much, we had managed to get quite a considerable amount done between us. That sort of made us feel a bit better :)

Leaving Justin and Frier to stay at the house near the Barn, we went back to the house to get ready for Oli and Keegan's leaving party. They are two English guys who were also here doing some volunteer work, their project being an aviary for sick and injured birds to recuperate, as well as somewhere where children can see birds close and learn about them. I'll post pictures the next time we're up at the lodge to take some, or post a link to Oli's pics if and when we find out where they are.

A long chat about the bitter-sweet news from Ruan's summation of the state of the Barn, then out partying at Oli and Keegan's house where a good time was had by all. All, or at least most of them being, if I can remember them... Tammy, Zander, Joseph, other Joseph who is our co-cementer, Wellington, Frankie, Tinny, Noel, David, Adolph, Jonathon, Marius, Zito, and of course Oli and Keegan themselves. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. These people are really so lovely and welcoming it really makes us feel honoured, and we're really loving the time we're getting to spend with them.

We also met two students, Nox and Jesse (I think) who had recently arrived and were doing some studies on elephants at Kuzuko. Quite bravely of them, it sometimes meant they were in areas where the lions might be (if they couldn't be found on their trackers) and would have had a 1.5 km run to their car. In reality, if the lions had found them, it would have been a 15m run....and never actually reaching the car.... Good luck, and don't be lunch, girls!

Unfortunately, the memory card in the video camera decided it would be best if not only corrupted all the video files, but take out most of the pictures as well, including all the ones we'd taken at the Barn in the afternoon. :( Worst though, was it not recording a brilliant cover of Coward of The County by Tinny on acoustic guitar, dedicated to Max for his birthday. It was a really special moment, and a real shame we couldn't capture it on film to see all over again. We're hoping however, that Oli may have kept it on his camera. We'll keep you posted.

The few pics it didn't corrupt follow...

Oli! Oli! Oli!

Clockwise: Tammy, Ines, Kira, Me

Left to right: Zander, Ruen, Me, Tammy, Tinny, Ines, Kira, Max

Left to right: Kira, Zito, Ines, Jonathon, Nox(?), Not sure? Max, Joseph, Frankie, Jesse

After the party, or more accurately after we decided to leave the party, despite wanting to do nothing more than go to sleep, it was a cold and lonely walk up to reception to update the blog.

Left to write