Bulawayo Music Festival week coming up

I am busy and sick. And extremely busy. And trying not to give my sickness to anybody else. So I uploaded pictures in stead for the next week to come. When it's the festival and I'm up to my ears in The Song of the Carnivores (500 kids), Carmina Burana (I play percussion), pop music for a Pop concert (I did all the music for it on Sibelius... probably close to 24 h of work), Mozart, Saint-Saëns etc. So. Have a look on my tumblr. Things will be happening there at least. Bye for now!

Harare

I am alive! Sorry for so few updates, I'm pretty sure it's going to get a lot better as soon as I just start working again. Except I am going to be so busy for the festival now that I might not write as much as I think. Anyway. A week ago, on Friday afternoon, John and Heather (girlfriend), invited me to come with them and another friend on a weekend trip to Harare in ... 40 minutes! I obviously said yes and spent two nights in Norton, just outside Harare. After a long Friday night we watched Winks play rugby and unfortunately lose quite badly, but it was a nice day anyway. Had a quick pop into a big market, which I definitely will be visiting again, with a bunch of money... After another long night out we drove home Sunday afternoon and got back after dark, which isn't optimal.

A funny, but creepy incident on the way there was when we slowed down at a railway crossing out in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly Heather, who is driving, screams that there is somebody running behind the car. I am sitting in the back seat (of course, when does the smallest person ever get to sit in the front??) and as I look back I see a black guy in a white hoodie running behind the car, grabbing at the back of the car. His face less than two meters from mine. Heather hoots and accelerates away, and the guy disappears. Obviously he had been waiting for somebody to slow down like we did, so that he could grab stuff from the boot. The guys then discussed what they would do if the same guy tried it again on the way back...

Now it is time to pack up and wait for John to pick me up and take me home. So irritating not to have a car and driver's licence, but that's one of the things on my to-do-list. Right, have to go, bybye!!

Holiday times

Hi all of you!

Time is rushing and I have trouble keeping up. It is nice having a bit of a holiday, but it's also nice having routines and knowing exactly what to do tomorrow. I am not my best today, up late all of the weekend nights, but I plan on catching up on sleep tonight anyway. This evening it is my cooking evening, so I think I'll be walking to the shops before going home just to pick up ingredients. Maria decided that she was tired of cooking every single evening, so we now all have one cooking evening each every week, except for Maria who has four. I am going to try to introduce more vegetarian dishes into their menu, which will be fun. The problem comes when zesa (the power) goes and we can't use the oven or microwave and only can use the gas stove.

When I came here we had no zesa cuts at all for nearly three months. Then we suddenly had every day, mostly in the afternoon up until around eight or nine. Now it's quite irregular, but still, sometimes it will be off the whole day, which is really irritating. But, this is Bulawayo so we make a plan. We work around it or just accept that some things will have to wait. And most people have a generator as well, but you can't run a whole house on that. And petrol isn't free either, though it is cheaper than Sweden.

I have now for two weeks had pain on and off in back, mostly on. So sick and tired of a dysfunctional body. Not sure why the pain is there and how it started, but it is there and makes it hard to sit or lie in one position for too long and I definitely can't carry as heavy stuff as I usually do. Anyway, this should be good motivation for me to start getting in shape again. Should be. In the mean time I enjoy the lovely chocolate that Peter brought me from Scotland. Ahhh, they really don't have the same stuff here. Another thing he brought was two pink dish-washing brushes which Maria loves.

Right, I need to move now, so toodeloo, I'll try to get back to you with stories of the Peter-visit-weeks soon. I've got more photos in queue on the tumblr now anyway. Miss you!

Just dropping by to say hi

I am, as so often nowadays when I get hold of internet, in a hurry. Too little time, too many things I need to and want to do. Answering emails, uploading photos, checking timetables, everything on a too slow connection. But then I have earned a whole heap more patience living here. Anyway. I had wanted to post a long thing about what I've been doing the last two weeks, but then I was busy with friends (!!!) all of Friday night until Sunday morning and then had a practice on Sunday afternoon, so I wasn't really in the mood for a lot of brain usage writing something interesting. But I'm thinking maybe tonight after I make dinner. Hopefully I will be bringing home a internet dongle-thingy to test if we have good signal at home, so you might see me on skype if it's possible this evening. Log in on skype this evening and see if I'm there, because if I am I want to have someone to talk to! But now I have to rush again. To try and get the internetthingy before they close. So bye bye! I have put some more photos in the queue on tumblr, so there should be stuff to look at there at least.

Holiday around the corner

Since last time things have definitely got better. Thanks to gran I got a new simcard with the same number as before and I borrowed a phone from Adri and I got my pay today and I am more at peace with the planning for the touristing with Peter and I spent Wednesday night with friends and I have learnt to play Gran Turismo 5 (best part of the week (Ella you have to play it sometime!)) and I got lots and lots of hugs today at the school we went to and it's the weekend and holidays! I am much happier now.

The week has been extremely busy and today it rained cats and dogs in the morning. Since then there has been drizzles and thunder, but nothing like when I was driving to work. It was so heavy that I sometimes couldn't see despite having wind screen wipers on max. This resulted in more pothole-hits than usual, poor little car. The roads here are a bit like swiss cheese. The joke is that you can see if a driver is drunk if he is driving in a straight line...

Anyway, so tomorrow Peter arrives!! Can't wait. On the morning I'm going to a shopping area where we are going to some busking, playing and hoping people give us some money. Going to be lots of people from the academy for a few hours, so I'll be stinking hot by noon. Hoping to go to the bendover in the afternoon and then in the evening I'm playing for a few minutes at a concert-like thing. At around eight I'll be picking Peter up! Probably leaving Bulawayo Sunday morning and heading out to Victoria Falls, where I've got my sights set on bungy jumping and white water rafting, before we head over to Hwange National Park and then back home. Matopos will be visited and maybe maybe even Great Zimbabwe. We'll see how things go. We will be borrowing a tent from Adri's sister, so we don't have to pay too much for lodging.

Right, now I want to go home (and maybe do a lap or too with the Zonda R on the high speed circuit). It's been a long week. So if you don't hear from me before Easter; Happy Easter, have a lovely (next) weekend and enjoy spring! Photos should be rolling up on tumblr while I'm away and then when we get back I'll bombard you with tourist photos!!

Lots of love to you all!

Problems problems problems

Okay, quickly now before my lesson I thought I would just send you a word or two. I am totally stressed out. There is so much I have to do, and so little time. And the breaks in my busy days are so short, that I can hardly do anything then anyway. My biggest problem is what happened on Saturday night: somebody stole my phone!!! I hate that person, whoever it is. Really bad timing. So now I am trying to get both a new phone and a new simcard. Both prove problematic. Gaaah. And on Friday night John totaled the car in an accident, so he has a concussion and we lost a car, but he's alive thank goodness. Anyway, amongst all this is my trying to plan for Peter coming here, and it being the last week of school and having a sore elbow and people not showing up when they said they would and I can't find time or courage to go get my bloodtest and the atm gave me a hard time, so I only got out 60 $ yesterday and I spent an hour and a half at the policestation yesterday and I have to try to fix the insurance stuff... well you see it's not going to well at all. Also Anette is leaving next week, so I really have to be with on the visits to the schools this week. Still I am keeping busy. Now my student is here, the supersweet one, so bye bye!

A kiss for you all, because I miss you

Did I mention that I miss you ?

And by the way ... I miss you.

Just to make sure, did you catch what I said about missing you all?