Free Pass

Wohoo!  it’s raining. really raining. It’s 9:45 in the morning and this rain just gave me a “free” day pass.

 On a monday morning you don’t know how great that is! 

5:30 the alarm went off, James and the older kids started getting up and ready for school, I was struggling a bit, so at 6:30 when they were leaving I got up to say goodbye and then get the other kids up and ready for the day. Grace actually slept in and I went in to wake her up. Unless she is sick this doesn’t happen.  Her “rule” is to stay in bed until 6:30 when the other kids leave for school. She wakes up at the crack of dawn, always has and even on Saturday and Sunday mornings when everyone else is sleeping in she is up. So I have to enforce the go back to bed until it’s time to get up rule, which means many tears and crying, so that doesn’t usually start the day off on the best of notes. 

But this morning I actually got to wake her up. It was quite nice, because then I was already awake (meaning a bit more cheerful) and she was still nestled all snug in her bed. She just moved to a bunk bed with Emma so I laid down next to her for about 10 minutes and that was NICE. 

Still being a bit in the monday morning slump I put on my exercise clothes anyway because I find if I just put them on even if I am not feeling like it, I am more likely to go ahead. Then its on the way home where I stop off to run so it becomes the routine. 

BUT...

As I was driving the kids to school the mud puddles were everywhere. Not conducive to running, so I got home, made myself a cup of tea, got back in the bed to spend time reading and a bit of quiet time and then was going to start my day. I have work to do on the internet but then it started thundering, and raining. So no internet. too bad. 

Then I had a list of errands and shopping to do in town today, but that is not conducive to a rainy muddy day either, with the way the water pools everywhere and then the street boys make walkways over the puddles and charge you a fee to walk on their bricks or boards laid over the water, so....I get to stay home and have a day off.

Which means I can write, and read and as long as the electricity stays on then I can bake too. 

This week is Jackson’s 8th birthday. (Valentines day) 

 He is having a few friends over on Thursday after school to have a little party, and then on Saturday he wanted to celebrate with the family. His reasoning for not celebrating it on Friday with the family was that he doesn’t want to have to go to school on his “birthday” party day. Which works great for James and I so we can go out for Valentine’s Day and not feel bad about changing the boy’s birthday around. 

So he wants a lego batman cake. Batman punching joker man in the face. Hmmm...I could do a lego cake, since that’s what I made him on his 4th birthday when we moved to Zambia and moved into our new house. It was so hot and humid the lego layers of the cake melted all over. (Good thing he was only 4, I don’t think he noticed)

But now since Mom has a cake business, the bar is set pretty high of expectations for this cake. I had an order for a crocodile cake last week, which turned out pretty cute, the  birthday boy was turning 1 and his name was Mbokolo which means crocodile. 

Though I brought in Kennedy to help with that one. He is a pastry chef that works for my business part time. He has experience in cake decorating (which is where I lack experience) and has been a big help when I have needed it.  But the kids are pretty specific, well at least the older ones, they want MOM to make their cakes. So we will see how this one turns out! 

My cake business has been steadily growing and I now have 2 wedding cake orders for this year. Yikes!  I have not wanted to get into the wedding cake business simply because that is a lot of pressure, what if the cake messes up? This is someone’s once in a lifetime (hopefully) wedding cake, I don’t want that responsibility. But I have worked out with Kennedy who has done several wedding cakes, that we can do them together. So that may be opening a new window of opportunity. 

My work at the cafe ended in January. It was a valuable learning time of management, the food industry, learning about people,  etc. We had 2 management employees let go during those 3 months for stealing and questionable money handling and stock handling issues. Basically the company had not been making any profit for the last several years. As I came on it was very clear to see why. It seemed to be leaking out in several directions. As those issues were dealt with and we had to take over shifts because the personnel was down, things didn’t quite go as we had anticipated initially though it was very clear it was now heading in the right direction. I was hired on with the salary low because the expectation was that I would buy into the business and become a partner. 

But at the end of the 3 months, to see whether we would move forward in a partnership the owners had changed direction and rather than wanting to add me in, they were wanting to just sell out to a big corporation, and be done with it. So that obviously changed my job. I could have stayed on as the operations manager but in order for me to do that I needed a real salary. That didn’t happen so now I am back home with my business. 

I am very glad I had the “wits” about me to not teach them how to do the cakes while I was working there. They asked and wanted me to but I was clear that until I was a partner I would not “share my secrets”. So I kept up my cake business on the side and now am trying to continue developing that. I still supply cakes to the cafe and have added my energy bars there and hope to sell the ice cream as well. For the time being it is still an outlet for my products. 

But working there did give me a ‘taste’ of what having my own place would be. And overall it was a good experience and now we are thinking through options for our own. 

So James has patiently been riding this rollercoaster with me (emotionally speaking) of trying to decide what we want to do next. It literally changes every week. It is all generally in this food category.  Cakes / cafe / take away coffee shop...

But for now, last month and this month I am trying to get things in order back at home with scheduling, repairs, workers, etc. 

It literally is a part-time job just to keep this family fed and to school and back. This may seem like it goes without saying, but the planning, the shopping, the preparation, the cooking, etc.  did I mention the shopping???  The paying bills, because it has to be done at each place, no electronic bill pay, or mailing of checks and it always takes longer than expected. 

Last week I went to go pay for more of the prepaid power for the house and guess what? The power company, ZESCO, their office had no power. So I couldn’t buy power because they had no power. Then another day I went to the bank across town that takes the payment for the kids school fees, I stopped at the ATM to get the cash out, but that ATM was out of cash. So, then another day I had the cash in hand and went to pay and then the bank said their system was down and they couldn’t take payments. So I had to go again, on the third time there, then I was able to pay the monthly fees. 

Very frustrating. 

Then we have had several repairs and things to be done around the house and with the landlord. So you wait for the person to show up and they don’t show up, not even a phone call, so then you can decide to track them down, or just go on with the day and they will come when they come.  Usually I go on about the day, because that is to be expected, but when several of these things happen and I should know by now, its not ever going to work out easy on the first time, and though I may try to be efficient and get everything done with one trip that it rarely happens that way, I just might  hit the last straw and then someone is going to hear about it. 

Like the water guy.... sorry guy. 

For the past 2 years they have not been reading our meter. One year ago I noticed the bills were high and so after several trips to the office we determined that they were just estimating the bill on the rather HIGH side and expecting no one to notice. The reason they were estimating is because the meter was broken.  At that point, I stopped paying the bill until they would fix it. This was determined to be ok with the manager and they would fix it. Because once they fixed it they would then watch the water consumption and go back and estimate based on our own water consumption. It was then 4 more months before they came out and fixed the meter. 4 months. During those 4 months at the end of each month, they would come by with the cut off notice because our bill wasn’t paid. I would explain that the Manager had worked out something and though I had asked for a note to be put in the system, it never was. So I wouldnt be home, they would shut off the water, I would have to go in to the office, they would then call the guy to come back and switch it on and apologize for the mistake. Well this has gone on for a year now. A YEAR!   At least twice in the last few months they have shut it off on a friday, then I call the manager and she apologizes but tells me no one can come back to turn it on until Monday. 

So I went in again last week. We had a plan in place, she apologized again and then literally the next day someone turned the water off again.  Well it happened to be on a day where I was tired of this. This whole, nothing ever works out like you want it to. 

I got home and Catherine told me it was off, I called the lady and the lady sent the guy out to turn it back on.  Evidentially the guy that switches it on is not the same incompetent guy that keeps switching it off. 

Well, I didn’t know that.

Maybe it would have been helpful to know that.

Apology was accepted.

In the end when we do get it all worked out, we will actually owe about 1,000USD for our water bill over the last 2 years.  We owe for water we used. That is for sure. Should we have been tucking away about $75 a month for the bill even though we weren’t paying the bill yet. Well sure. But who does that when they are scrapping by trying to make ends meet?  But, do we owe for incompetent workers that no matter how many times you inquire about and go meet face to face never do their job? No, we don’t. 

Which is why to have a day in the house, not having to go out and try to work through the frustrations of everyday life is just a happy thing today. :)  No traffic, no mud, no fighting with the street guy to pay for a parking space that he doesn’t own and no I don’t need you to watch my car for me, no bartering for a good price madam, no random shouts of ‘muzungu, muzungu,’  (white person). 

The kids are all at school, the house is quiet,  just the sound of the rain falling. 

I think I will curl up with a book and a pot of tea and enjoy this “free day” that God knows I needed.