THIRD WORLDER IN A FIRST WORLD!!          - 28/2/2017      <--Prev : Next-->

How lucky I have been to be able to spend so much time with my first grandson in the USA. It has been a learning curve for both of us!! I must admit I miss HeeHoo's strong arms when he goes back to bulawayo because this Wee Boy of mine is no longer Wee. He is a bruiser and I have great difficulty getting him up and down these steep and numerous stairs!!

I have had to come to grips with quite a few first world pleasures and one of them has been the terminology. To my gorgeous American Family a pram is a stroller, a push chair is a buggy, a nappy is a diaper, and a dummy is a pacifier!! As for a car boot
Well it's called a 'trunk' here.... I made the mistake of saying to an Uber driver, when he was loading my groceries, that his 'boot was really clean and tidy'. Well the poor man was so confused, he gazed at his boots ( the ones on his feet) in perplexed silence, for some time!!

Americans look at me askance when I says things like 'muti', 'mooshy' and 'lekker', my family refuses to allow me to use the term 'just now' .

The first thing HeeHoo ever does in a home is to install a bird feeder, but he did not take into account the tenacity of the American Squirrel!! These obdurate creatures can conquer any so called 'squirrel proof' bird feeders, especially our resident pair!!

It's a glorious time of the year in Georgia, every tree, every shrub, every plant is blossoming into spring, the colors are heavenly. Peach trees abound, the Dogwood trees are laden with blossom, the azaleas have tiny buds just waiting for the right moment to burst forth, purple azaleas, white azaleas, fuchsia azaleas! Camellias are in abundance with their deep magenta blossoms.

I watch with awe from the upstairs window, the courteous behavior of the vehicle drivers here. The yellow school buses are sacrosanct, one does not pass them going either way under any circumstances, the drivers here are fabulous and when they see you walking with a stroller, or a dog, or just walking, they make a wide arc to give you space. (Unlike certain Bulawayo drivers who like to see if they can hit you with their wing mirrors!!)

The dogs here too are beautifully behaved, none of this rushing out of their yards to attack!! None of the yards have gates or fences and one seldom encounters a dog unless being walked on a lead. Instead of gates, walls and fences, each yard with a dog has an invisible fence and dogs are trained by high pitched noises, or alternately gentle electric shocks, to stay within their confines.

So much for my ramblings, their are diapers to be changed!!


BULAWAYO WATCHDOG.

BULAWAYO DAMS UPDATE.

Status at 8am 27 Feb 2017:

Dam % Inflow this season
==== = ===============
Insiza101.15% 101.78 million m3
Inyankuni 75.00% 53.67 million m3 --
Lower Ncema 100.00% 14.33 million m3 --
Upper Ncema 100.00% 43.00 million m3 -- 4 BCC dams are
Umzingwane 99.80% 41.22 million m3 --- 89.3% full
Mtshabezi 100.73% 26.70 million m3

Overall 96.00% 280.70 million m3

Note: Umzingwane started spilling this morning at about 9 am.
Inyankuni gained 12.4 million m3 in the last week, just from the post Dineo
rainfall. It is just possible (although quite incredible) that it will
spill during this rainy season - the last time it spilled was in 1981. In
Jan, it had inflows of 19.6 million m3, taking it from 11.8% to 36.1%.
Feb saw inflows of 33 million m3 (18 m m3 from Dineo alone) and will prob
end the month on 77%, leaving it needing 18.6 million m3 to fill it up.
The catchment is so wet that even relatively light rain such as we have
been having this past week generates considerable run-off. More such rain
is forecast after a dryish couple of days - Thursday it starts again.

So we now have 5 years of water comfortably, assuming minimal inflows in
the next 4 rainy seasons.