Kate who?

As the BBC’s Ingwavuma correspondent, I can report (belatedly) that there were no excited street scenes in response to recent world events. On the day itself, I heard mention of the royal wedding on a Zulu radio station on the way to school. In addition, patients and doctors (mainly Mary) at the hospital were able to watch coverage on the televisions in their wards. But there were no other signs of the madness taking place in Britain. (This should be comforting to the royal couple as they fret about the likelihood of finding a honeymoon destination away from the media glare. They could walk completely unnoticed down Ingwavuma high street.)

News of the death of Osama Bin Laden was equally low key. (How he must now wish he had sought out the anonymity offered by Ingwavuma.)

The news of interest to Ingwavuma is all provided by the upcoming local elections. These are a very dirty affair. One of the hospital staff was instructed to attend a ceremony to open a local school. She was expected to provide specialist auditory assistance. On arrival she found that there was no school opening. Instead it was a front for an ANC rally.

We happened to come upon (it was staged outside the hospital gates) a t-shirt rally for the IFP. Their candidate is the current incumbent and was present at the clothing give-away. I was successful in securing a promise from him that he would organise for water to be delivered to Ntabayengwe. I am hoping that the proximity of the elections and his desperation for votes will result in some action.

Our car situation remains unresolved. It is eight weeks since the computer in the car failed. I have been on the telephone to one or other garage almost every day trying to fix it. Below is an outline of events:

1. Car breaks down
2. Car is towed to Jozini (R3000)
3. Car computer is sent to Jo’burg to be fixed
4. Car computer cannot be fixed and is sent back from Jo’burg
5. Second hand computer is ordered from Durban (R2500)
6. Computer is towed to Richards Bay to have computer fitted (R1000)
7. Car is delivered back to us
8. Car is clearly wrong and I drive it back to Jozin
9. Mechanic in Jozini cannot find the cause of the problem
10. Car is driven to Richards Bay Ford specialist
11. Richards Bay Ford specialist say wrong computer has been fitted to the car
12. Second hand computer is taken out of the car and sent back to Durban
13. Durban man tells me that he only has one second hand computer for our model of car but it may not work as it is very dented

(Rand to pounds = 11:1)

We are currently giving Durban man some more time in the hope that he can identify a second hand computer that isn’t dented. If he can’t locate one, then we will either need to gamble on the dented computer (R600 at stake) or buy a new computer (R7000).

We have loved our time in South Africa but we will not miss the politics or dealing with car mechanics.