Hayibo!

At very long last I'm back with my car! Thanks for all the support so far - just need to get rid of it now, which I can do as it's at least this moment in working order.

Was a bit more drama though. God was gracious and I managed to get a replacement fuel pump for R750 instead of R5,000 or so. I then collected it Tuesday morning and headed off for Ladysmith. Because the car we (that is, myself and Themba, my ever faithful sidekick in this horror story) were travelling in had no air conditioning and it was a seriously hot day (like 33C, but with really strong sun and high humidity) we of course had the windows open. We were just about getting to Ladysmith when I realised that my right arm (driver's side) was getting sunburnt because of the open window. It's funny.... I now have one tanned arm and one seriously tanned arm!

It was a good ride up. We spent a lot of time talking (well, shouting because of the noise from the open windows) about just how involved we should be with the poor around here. We had to postpone our arrangements with the guys from Cato Crest township because I had to go to Ladysmith that very day, so we drove through the township looking for them so we could let them know. Pity was we didn't find them, but driving through that place does reawaken your sense that something just needs to be done now.

We dropped off the fuel pump only to be told that by the time the guy could get round to it that it would be too late to finish on Tuesday and we'd have to wait until Wednesday morning. Sigh! That meant either another drive back to Durban and another drive back to Ladysmith, or just finding a motel. Either way would cost about the same so we just booked into a cheapie motel with fake air con (literally, the air con remote was had fake writing on the screen and the unit just wasn't plugged in).

T'was good to be able to spend some time catching up with one of the med students who lived there... made the day pass a bit quicker. We even ended giving her mum a lift back to Durban today as she was coming down to buy a new car. I hope she has better luck than I've had!

This morning was another nice surprise - the labour bill, which I estimated would be R2,000 or more, came to R1,400 (£100)! That's a pretty good rate for about 6 or 7 hours of labour!

Drove back and for the first time hit no traffic on the N3 too. Things have all come good!

Went straight to the dealer where I bought the car and discussed swapsies with him. He's willing - it's just a case of what he can get hold of and when. Hopefully it won't turn out like this one, but I find it hard to believe anything could be this bad! If it is bad, at least it won't cost so much to fix!

And to top it all off I can still use my friend's car until he comes back from Cape Town at the end of the month. Gives me a bit of time to get a swap without having to drive mine and wait for it to break again!

It seems there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Please pray that I can get a swap and that it just works! It's such a hassle and wasting so much of my time. It's already meant we've had to essentially scrub two weeks of meeting up with the Cato boys and just building some friendship with them, and that's one of the most frustrating things! It's horrible to keep disappointing them when really we want to give them hope.

Thanks again!


Andrew/Cook

P.S. - I forgot to say that "hayibo" is the Zulu word for "wow", but it seems it also gets used as "sheesh" or "oh my goodness", hence I've been using it a lot in this whole affair and you'll frequently hear me mutter "hayibo!"