My trapeze act

Originally distributed February 2010

Since December 21st I’ve subsisted in 3 different places none of which, thankfully, included the street. It was awfully close at times though. I house-sat for my current employer during the holidays. Then I house-sat for a friend for a few days while she was in Mozambique. Luckily, she was going out of town the day that the employer was returning. Then while she was away I went on a hike with my new favorite club in Swaziland, the Natural History Society, and met Michele. She offered me a spare bedroom in her place for the weekend even though she pretty much didn’t know me. Her kindness and generosity since then cannot be overstated, as I’m still at her place and we’re now talking about me being her roommate for the next few months. In a word, Michele is awesome.

Life is so different from last year already. In 9 out of 10 ways, that’s a good thing. I’m no longer at a lodge, sharing a room with a revolving door of strangers. I got a car recently so I’m much more mobile and have accomplished 10 times more each day as a result. But I am still riding my bike for transport when possible. I’ve started teaching elementary school students, something I never thought I’d do but so far I’m enjoying. I’ve gone on birding excursions with other birders and learned a lot as a result. Maybe I’m biased, but I think the birding crowd is a lot of fun, whether they’re in North America or Southern Africa.

I finally made a solar cooker and got to use it last weekend (something I’ve wanted to do for 10 years). It works! It’s like crock pot cooking but without electricity. I just cooked some veggies so far to try it out and photographed the process so you can see for yourself. Apparently, you can cook meat, veggies, rice, eggs (in the shell), bake bread, etc. Next I’ll try rice and see how that goes. 

Before

After

My slightly amusing story to wrap up: The mountain I live on is rather breezy and the townhouse has large sliding doors. It’s nice to have them open sometimes and feel the fresh air. One sunny day I took the opportunity to do laundry and hung my clothes on the line outside the kitchen to dry. When I went out later to collect my dry clothes I left the kitchen door open, since I would only be outside for a few minutes. While out there, the wind blew the kitchen door shut.

The problem is these houses are like fortresses. They have double locks and double latches. So even though the door was technically unlocked, there were two latches and only one outside handle to turn the top latch. The bottom latch could only be turned with a key, which was in the door on the inside. My cell phone and keys were inside, and my roommate wasn’t home. What to do?

Human ingenuity is such a blessing. I found a tall, empty kitchen trash can under the back stairs. It was just tall enough for me to stand on to climb onto the lip of the basement window. From there I had just enough length, and upper body strength, to reach the bars of the patio railing above. Then it was up and over the patio railing. Sore arms and a couple of bruised knees later, I was onto the patio. Luckily (it’s all luck!), I had opened the patio door earlier. So I was able to get back inside. Whew, that was close!