Poglitsh Bike Team

Hillbilly Home Improvement

BIKE THINGS
This has become quite the fun activity with Grace, Cub and I (see poglitshphotos.blogspot.com for a photo of our "team"). Grace is a little too big for the little pink bike we bought earlier this year (though it certainly was good for a starter), and I've had my eye on a used bike for her in town. It is a 24" mountain bike with 18 speeds. I had looked it over a number of times, and even asked the employees at the bike store (where we purchased the pink bike and my bike some years ago) if I could take it for a spin. Except for a few scrapes on the paint, it rode and operated well. Money was the obstacle. I had about half the price, from money I earned working for my dad during Christmas (thanks dad!). The other half-where would it come from? Ahhh...my dad usually gives our girls (their granddaughters) a gift of cash for their birthdays. My parents were in California for a friend's funeral. When they returned to North Carolina, dad informed me via e-mail that Grace's birthday money (Grace was born 8 May) had been deposited. This information I got through our cell phone, which has a simple and very handy e-mail program. I read this e-mail as Cub and I were doing a Saturday trip in Mbabane. I checked the bike store to make sure the bike was still there; it was. I told an employee of the shop (with whom I'm getting to know on a first-name basis) if he could hold that bike for me while I called Ruth. Cub asked why I needed to talk to mom about this. TEACHABLE MOMENT! "Cub, in marriage, it's important for the husband and the wife to work together. This is especially important when it comes to money. Before making big purchases, the husband and wife should be in agreement." Cub seemed satisfied, and Ruth did a little calculating and found we were close enough. So, we got it and put it behind the counter to get later.

Oh man, is it fun now! During the school break time, Grace, Cub and I all go together and ride. Two days ago Grace figured
out how to get herself going without the least bit of help from me; she puts one foot on a pedal while the other foot is on the ground, pushes the pedal hard and fast and raises the other foot to the other pedal. With a mountain bike, which is geared low for climbing hills, that first little burst is enough to get her up and going. Yesterday Grace went up a steep little slope all on her own. It is amazing to me to see her skills grow so fast. Cub isn't as strong and only has one speed, but she pedals great on the flats and is eager to try new things-like crossing the "big road" to go to the shop. As she gets bigger and stronger, I'm sure she'll also amaze with her skills. I hope the three of us can go on big tours out here; there are hundreds of back-country dirt roads we can exlore.

NSUKUMBILI REGIONAL RACEWAY
For variety in bike riding (end to end on the flat soccer field is fun, but...), Ruth and I traced out a bike racecourse inside the school grounds; it forms a figure 8, looping through the school side and the teacher housing side of the school. Cub and Grace both do very well on it, though the uphills still stymie Cub. She tries hard, though, and I ride beside her with my hand on her back to get her up those tough parts. They both negotiate quite well a significant downhill with a turn at the end; I am very proud of them. I'm sure that in a short time they will be blazing around this track.

LAST BLAST OF THE BLASTED BUGLE
For many decades, a student with a watch has rung a brass handbell to indicate the end of one class period and the beginning of the next. A few years back the school installed an electric air horn to do the job. I hated it. If one had the misfortune to stand beneath it when it rang (it was mounted innocuously in a wooden rafter), one enjoyed an earsplitting scream of what the air raid sirens in London in WWII must have sounded like. You could hear that thing in the river valley, a good kilometer away. I know this, because it used to be on an automatic timer and would sound even when school was out of session. I heard it when I was out walking one non-school day. I promised some of my colleagues that my last gift to the school would be the utter and irreversible destruction of that air horn.

Happily, the thing broke down on its own at least a year ago. Good riddance.

We had been adjusting the seat on the pink bike up and down to accomodate for Grace and then Cub. A simple nut and bolt had held the seat in place. A couple days before Grace's 10km race, I went to adjust it, and found the bolt and/or nut were stripped. It would not hold the seat up. I would not have a chance to visit Mbabane before the race, and I knew Grace would not enjoy riding 10k standing up. The hunt was on for a nut and bolt.

Walking down the school corridor soon afterward, I espied the horn. "Say", I thought to myself, "that looks like the right size nut". I returned later with a can of Q-20 (the South African version of WD-40) and the wrench for the girls' bike, and tried the wrench on the nut. It was perfect. A shot of Q-20 and a few turns of the wrench later in the day put the nut in my hand. I put it on the bolt and though it cut some new threads on the bolt, it held. It's still on the bike, doing a great job. The horn is now in a storeroom, and nobody cares. The last blast of the blasted bugle was a good one.

GUAVA GUARD
The last day of school (Friday, April 15) was a little different than usual, as such days are at most schools. I hoped to drill a few holes in one of our walls, and I knew I had to do it this day because the drill would be locked up in the workshop until school opens again May 3. A student brought me the drill, I quickly did the job, and as I passed the drill back to him he said "There are students in the garden getting guavas". "Oh", I replied, "let me fire some things at them." I went back into the house and got my wrist rocket slingshot (thanks Tui!) and returned to the back step. When I got there, the student with the drill said with a smile "They have left". The "drill student" and I were speaking in normal volume voices, but I guess important news travels quickly.

THE "HAWKS" HAVE LANDED
Ruth and the girls spent Thursday night the 14th in town, to make sure they met their carpool up to Ngwenya iron mine (more on mining later). After they left I could not figure out what I would do with myself until bedtime: read? Sleep early? I really didn't know what.

Fortunately, our friends Pastor Rob and his wife Missy Hawkins, Mr. Shandu, and two other members of The Church of God (Charleston, TN) came by as I was doing dishes. Pastor Hawkins is in charge of world missions for the Church of God, and he was visiting the churches here in Swaziland. After a nice talk in our living room (a living room not as "nice" as I would have liked it for visitors: I was grubby from clearing weeds, and the floor was strewn with children's toys and books), they invited me to a church service at Entfubeni primary school. It was an evening well-spent in song, prayer, and preaching. The Hawkins' have been a lot of fun to visit with on their pastoral trips to Swaziland, and have been gracious in carrying things from the States for us. I must confess to an unexpected sense of appreciation for their visits; we do live in a pretty remote area, and the fact that these members of the church administration would come to this little, distant spot makes me (even though I'm not an official member of the church) feel remembered. Thank you for coming, Hawkins' and friends.

MOLE HUNT
Recently little piles of dirt began emerging all over the ground. Moles are about. Not only are the dirt piles unsightly, but Ruth tells me there are 2 kinds of moles: one kind eats just bugs (no big deal), and the other eats roots-roots of trees, sweet potatoes, etc. This is a big deal, when you want your fruit and vegetable trees to live and produce. The hunt is on.

A friend in Mbabane told me that when he sees the pile of dirt emerging he pours water on the pile. This forces the mole out of the ground (to escape the flooding). He then "leads" the mole into his backyard, where his large and heavily-muscled dogs make a quick snack of the subterranean explorer. We tried pouring water on the piles (which were right next to the outside walls and in a bank of dirt about a yard from the house), but we saw no results.

Our next step was keeping a shovel at the ready, so when the girls noted some activity (why weren't they doing their schoolwork instead of watching for signs of life in the dirt?) they ran to me and I came running with the shovel to start chopping away at the pile. Lots of dirt got tossed around, but no moles were seen or chopped. Banana plants, ornamental flowers, and peaches are on the line: we must get the mole!

Our mechanized infantry had had no luck with the enemy: time for chemical and biological warfare.

Biological: The water went out about the same time that the mole hunt was heating up. So, instead of having urine sitting in the toilet making the bathroom smell bad, we had the girls pee pee into the baby training potty and then put that urine on the piles the mole had made. It might not kill him, but it sure would make life unpleasant and perhaps drive him out of the garden and into the rest of the school yard where he could harmlessly tunnel. Still, we kept seeing new dirt piles. Next step was...

Chemical: A little more direct approach, and one that made the hunt even more exciting, was our "black spider" effort. "Black spiders" are a brand of firecrackers we bought in town last year. They are plenty loud, but to ignite them you strike them like a wood match on the striker on the side of the package. We don't know how effective this was, but maybe the shock wave put him on notice that our garden wasn't a hospitable home. Whether it did or not, it put smiles on all our faces. See poglitshphotos.blogspot.com for the video.

MAKE WA SAKHILE
(from Ruth) Before I first moved to Swaziland I very consciously withheld having any opinion about polygamy in societies where it was traditionally practiced. After living here for eight years my opinions have formed. I can see why it was abolished in Christian (and other) cultures. The stories of the patriarchs in the Bible are full of the special dynamics that polygamy causes. A woman at my church here described the best of cases. She and another one of her husband's wives come to church together. Another lady was suprised that they got along so well, "But you love each other." One of the wives quickly corrected her, "We respect each other, we don't love each other." This is the best of cases. In the worst, the situations can be indescribably bad.

Make waSakhile is the name of Abner's younger wife. She is the one he married after Make Malinga, Rudy's "main" homestead mother, died in about 2004. She came and visited with Ruth last Saturday. She has a five year old and a one-year-old child and was three months pregnant when he died. It appears that Make Lukhele, Abner's other (senior) wife, thought Make waSakhile got too much while Abner was alive and she doesn't feel like being generous now. Make waSakhile was in tears feeling that she didn't have support from Abner's family or her neighbors. The good news is that no one is trying to remove her from her house or fields (a common scenario). I was able to give her some encouragement, seeds, and some of the other things that she needed. Abner encouraged her to keep farming and making money that way so we will help provide the inputs for that. Rudy plans to help harvest their corn next week. The road ahead for her and her children looks hard. We will help out both families as it seems appropriate.

FIELD TRIP
On the 15th, Ruth and the 4 girls went on a homeschooling field trip to Ngwenya iron mine, about an hour north of Mbabane. A good time was had by all-well, all but Kit. She said it was boring. Iron mining apparently doesn't appeal to 3 year olds.

Grace came back with a piece of iron ore and told me to compare its weight with a regular stone. The iron ore was indeed heavier. She was very proud of that, as she was of the fact that she rubbed some on her cheek to make rouge. The girls spoke about how the walking was easy since they walk to church every Sunday (we marked it off; it's a 2.7 mile hilly walk to Saint Alexus).

The tour guide told them about the "lion cave". Apparently, that's a cool cave where workers would take breaks with their Lion brand lager. Seems a little dangerous to go back to mining after downing half a liter of 6% beer, but there's no Occupational Safety and Health Administration here. Then again, the mine did shut down; maybe all those lions did have an effect on productivity.

This homeschooling group gets together about once a month; we hope to get Ruth and the girls hooked up on a regular basis.

PALM SUNDAY
On the 16th, Grace and I went to Mbabane (regular errands) and Manzini (confession with Father Mikel, and hanging out with the other priests for an hour or so). When we got back to Mbabane, the line for the kombi was getting longer and (most significantly) fatter; looked like people were cutting in line. It was getting dark and starting to rain, and I did not want Grace and I to make the newspaper by being two of the passengers killed in an overloaded kombi that slipped off a wet road in the dark into a cavernous roadside rut. I called Ruth and asked if it would be okay with her if we found a place to spend the night in town and came out in the morning. She said okay, as did our friends Daran and Theresa Rehmeyer, who said we could spend the night at their place. This was the third stay with them in two weeks, so I was nervous about asking. They had no problem. Thank goodness, and thank you Daran and Theresa!

Grace and I watched Disney's "The Rescuers" at their house; I had forgotten how much fun that movie was. We enjoyed a long night's sleep, and got to go to Mass the next day-Palm Sunday. Grace chose a palm which had a particularly interesting "wobble" action at the top. The congregation had a procession-something like a parade-out of the church grounds and around the block. Given the recent labor unrest and marches, I was simultaneously amused and nervous that the police surrounded the procession to make sure the (very light) traffic and we "proceeders" did not clash. The group also sang the song "Give me oil in my lamp"-but the back of the procession and the front could not keep time together, so there was an uncoordinated (and hence humorous) canon going on the entire time. As we walked, Grace and I talked about what this procession meant. It meant showing publicly that we love Jesus, and it meant reenacting His entry into Jerusalem, and it meant to remind us to walk with Him not only when everyone was cheering him, but also when He was left alone by almost everyone else. No matter how bleak things looked for Him, or sometimes for us, we can trust that in Him, things will work out in the end-so let's stick with Him and keep living good Christian lives right through this life.

After Mass we made our way as quickly as we could back to the bus station-but not without a stop at the old fruit and vegetable market first! I explained to Grace that when my brother and I were about her age, dad would take us to a donut shop after church and buy us the donut of our choice. Chris and I closely scrutinized every donut in the case, looking for the biggest. I remember one called the "bear claw" always seemed the largest. You can find donuts in Mbabane, but the biggest and best deal by far are "fatcakes": softball-sized clumps of deep-fried dough. Imagine a donut hole on anabolic steroids, and you're pretty close to a fatcake from the vegetable market. Some of them also have large and delicious chunks of crispies attached to them (the kind you used to find on "extra crispy" Kentucky Fried Chicken, before "deep fried" and "extra crispy" became alleged crimes against humanity). At only E2 they are comparable in price to regular donuts, but they dwarf the normal ones on size. Plus, they use only polyunsaturated fat for frying and they have a low GI rating-HA! If you don't like fat, don't touch 'em.

Finally back at the rank, we got in line. And waited. The line was short, but the rain was getting heavier. I did not want to spend another night in Mbabane, so Grace agreed to take the kombi to Mbuluzi and try our luck walking. We had all day, so I knew we could get there on foot if worse came to worst. The kombi for Mbuluzi left while we bought an umbrella, so we were back to square one. We got together with an older guy in trying to organize a private car to take us to the school, when an Nsukumbili-bound kombi pulled up. We got on (including the old guy, whom we had to hunt for over by the main kombi terminal) and enjoyed our ride to the top of the big hill near St. Alexus. This guy didn't feel confident about driving down the steep slippery road, so we were back onto our feet. Better safe than sorry, though; I'm glad he dropped us. A second kombi met us at the bottom of the hill and took us the rest of the way. It was good to see the rest of the family again, and it was good to have been able to spend almost 2 full days with Grace. What a blessing it is to be able to have so much time with my children-and so much fun with them-before they leave home. I know I will appreciate this time spent when they do leave the nest.

NSUKUMHILLBILLY
You can grab out of the air and crush a mosquito with your weak hand while your strong hand holds soapy forks and spoons during dish clean-up after dinner at the kitchen sink.
Hillbilly

Your daughter exitedly calls you into the bathroom to "watch this": she is blowing into the overflow pipe on the bathtub (that funny, usually round metal cover with the drain plug chain attached to it) and watching the bubbles come up in the water through the drain. She tells you "What would this be like if you had a fan blowing into this?"
Hillbilly

Multiple choice question: What are these comments about?
"I like how this turned out." "Yep, it looks good."
a) A bedroom addition to your house
b) A new car in the driveway
c) A new deck and BBQ grill in the backyard
d) A newly-strung clothesline above the tub in the bathroom, for drying clothes on rainy days

If you chose d), you were right-and you have the "Hillbilly mentality".
(see photo at poglitshphotos.blogspot.com; the drilling mentioned above was for putting anchor kits in the masonry above the bathroom window)

Have a good day,
The Poglitshs