Ingwavuma Superman

How to solve our significant problems in house number 130? This was the issue facing us on Monday afternoon. Having reached the end of our tether with the on-site maintenance team, we felt desperate.

Fortunately, help was on its way. Enter, Ingwavuma’s very own comic book hero – Mr Vilikasi – Hospital Manager. Vusi arrived at 130 having received our distress call. He immediately wanted to know the long story of our accommodation woes. We were delighted at the opportunity to vent our frustrations.

Mr V is a man of authority. He is highly respected in the hospital and wider community and very competent. If people truly look like their pets then Vusi is also a man to be feared. For in his garden somewhere, there lurks a significantly sized rhino. Most rhinolike, he has a permanent friendly upward curve on his mouth.* He originally began working life as a nurse. At some point he moved into administration. Talent often seems to act as a barrier to career success in SA. Somehow this able man managed to reach the top of Mosvold hospital (no mean feat given the incredible levels of bureaucracy).

Vusi listened very patiently to our story. He then gave a very heartfelt apology and promised to resolve the situation. With the speed of a rhino on a charge, he set about finding solutions to all of our problems. Since his intervention, we have had two new boilers put in (the house next door had been sharing ours), new pipes, a new shower and new taps. Praise be to Vusi.

However, the restoration process, has not all been plain sailing. Today I returned from a day of teaching to find our kitchen floor covered in two inches of mud. Worse still was mud sprayed across our bedroom. Standing back, it looked rather like an art work – Jackson Pollock meets Tracy Emin. Mary, on seeing the scene, looked rather like the Munch scream character. (How had this happened? Somewhat frustratingly, the workmen had not closed the hatch for the ceiling before taking out the boiler. It was full of mud due to the collection over time of sediment from the water supply.)

Tomorrow will now be laundry day. Meanwhile the workmen will be painting the ceiling to the kitchen. We’ll let you know how the drama unfolds.