Grandma's Journal 10/3/08

Fri 10/3/08
Well, Mike did get the cash yesterday, but because we have been having so much trouble getting the house done, they set up a meeting at 9 am today, so we didn't go to Lusaka, but we did get a lot of work done on the house! The toilet is fixed, they put new workings in the toilet and it works well, they put a new (bigger, yeah) air conditioner in the living room, fixed the plug on the bedroom air, and worked until after dark. They finally went home and said they would be back tomorrow at 8 a.m. Mike and I borrowed a blanket and some soap from Suz ‘cause it’s way to scary to drive the 40 miles home in the dark, and we spent the night. OK, OK! I’ll tell you the pillow story, stop begging! We went downtown ‘cause we had decided to spend the night and we didn’t have any pillows. So we go to this shop downtown (I wish I could somehow explain to you how dirty these shops are, there is dirt and dust all over everything). We see these two pillows wrapped in plastic and holler over to the guy, “how much are the pillows?” He says K35,000 for the standard and K40,000 for the deluxe. Well we are pushing the dirty plastic and trying to decide which pillow would be best, softest, hardest, etc. So we decide to get one of each and see how we like them. Anyone who knows me knows that I have to sleep with at least 4 pillows for the pressure points, so it’s a good investment. We get home and I unwrap them and start laughing. The standard pillow is sort of filled with quilt batting and it’s not great, but it’s OK and then I open the “deluxe” pillow and you’ll never guess what it is filled with... Carpet padding!!! It’s been cut into little pieces!!!! I’m not freaking kidding! I was laughing so hard Mike came in to see what was going on. Carpet padding! OK, that was the funny part, but that night we got acquainted with the dogs, chickens and rooster next door!! (Not up close and personal or anything, but I am thinking about checking out the Zambian gun laws.) It was so loud we hardly slept a wink.