Kinshasa Journal: Wednesday - day 10

Today the plumber was supposed to come at 9am, followed by the landlady at 10am. The plumber arrived at 10:15, followed by the electrician at 10:30. The plumber was supposed to fix the leak around the washing machine. He looked it all over, said he had to buy parts and would return tomorrow, and left. The electrician was supposed to repair all of the exterior lighting and the wiring that comes into the fuse box. He looked it all over, said he had to go make a report for the landlady, and left. I turned on the dryer a few minutes later and heard a strange noise. I turned to look at our electricity box and it looked like firecrackers were going off. Ok, turn off dryer and hang clothes up to dry. If you hang wet laundry outside, the Tumbu flies (a type of blow fly) can lay eggs in them. Then, unless you've ironed all of your clothes, when you wear them the eggs will hatch and the larvae burrow into your skin. You get a painful boil and have to remove a worm from your body. Really gross and painful but relatively harmless. I don't have an iron, nor do I like to use one, so I hung the clothes indoors. I should mention that our front door is difficult to latch and unlatch. I took two or three days to figure it out and the kids still struggle with that door. A little while after I had hung the laundry in the house, one of the kids had a fight with the door and body slammed it, breaking the six foot by two foot glass panel. David came home and worked on the fuse box so I could dry clothes. The fuses are 63 amps. Even though the dryer pulls 23 amps and the boys'air conditioner pulls 10, every time both are running simultaneously the fuse blows and then sparks start flying again. Now that we have figured that out, we will not be running both at the same time. The power went out for about an hour this evening, but if there is such a thing as perfect timing for a power outtage, we got it. I had just finished cooking supper. We ate by candlelight, and when the power came back on, we cleaned up the mess. All of my cookbooks are in our shipment, so Esther gave me some recipes that she has adapted to what is available here. I think tomorrow I'll try her cheeseburger soup recipe. Somebody on our team made snickerdoodles and left them in our freezer for us to find. Yummy!