Goodbye to Shelly and Wes

Daylight came at 4:30 a.m. again, just like it does every morning here!  Birds squawking like crazy!

I went out around 7:30 a.m. to gas up the Little Miss Sunshine bus and grab some free internet at the hospital. The tank was almost empty – 810 rand ($85CAD).  Met with Donna and ‘M’e Konesoang at the HL offices and reviewed the changes made to their network and did some brief training on how to manage file and folder shares, then said my goodbyes to the HL gang.

Came back downtown and did some souvenir shopping – don’t know how I am going to carry all of this stuff home.  Peg gave us a pile of Basutho hats and brooms to sell for HL, and I am planning to bring those home.  But I just heard from Gary – he and Jeff arrived back home (safely) and had their hats and brooms confiscated by customs – so I am not sure whether to risk smuggling the stuff in or not.  Will make a game time decision next week.

Then we packed all our stuff into the LMS bus and headed for Maseru.  Got there without issue thanks to a good map from Donna Bawden at HL, though we cut it kind of close due to lunch and a little souvenir browsing.

At the airport we had more excitement.  No tickets for Wes and Shelley to Johannesburg!  I had called SAA (South African Airlines) last weekend and moved their flights from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., but something got lost in translation, and they had no seats!  But for $200CAD each, I was able to purchase them one-way tickets to Johannesburg.  Phew!  Will have to sort it out later with SAA. Waved like crazy from the fence while they boarded, but like Lot, they never looked back!

Came back to Leribe after trading in the LMS for a VW Chico.  Had dinner with Alicia Homer of OHAfrica and scored an invite to spend the next morning at the clinic and touring a few of the rural primary health centres with one of the nurses.  

Gotta go do that right now, so I will cut this short and depart.