It’s time for us to take a brief hiatus while we go to the UK for Jen’s wedding (yay!!!!!!!) and then to New York for Andy’s graduation (yay!!!!!). We’re going to leave you with a belated post of Thank Yous to the many helpful people we’ve met along the way.
Helpful people in Cape Town
We had to write a post to mention the wonderful people at KV Art in Cape Town. We called them to see if they could cut us a deal on paint/pencils/paper/glue etc for the art projects we are hoping to run with the children in Mount Frere and they said we could get a 10% discount from wholesale prices since we were a non-profit organization. When we got up there, they took us through to the warehouse and showed us a huge pile of soiled/returned paint and things, saying “take your pick.” We ended up with boxes and boxes of paint, which would have been far too expensive for us to buy out of our own pockets. In return the people at KV never asked for a thing, not even a receipt for a tax write-off. So thank-you again KV Art / Dala Paint in Cape Town. The orphans and vulnerable children have got a lot out of the paint, although the mauve-a-tron’s suspension will never be the same since we loaded her up with 40 litres of paint and went off-roading.
Helpful people in East London
As we were heading to East London airport to meet ASAP’s Priscilla, a white guy in an SUV pulled up next to us. He motioned for me to wind down the window, and told us our brake lights didn’t work. Not surprising considering the beating that the M-o-T had just taken on our cross-country trip. Apparently, pulling people over to say that their brake lights don’t work is also a classic carjacking ruse here, but in this case the helpful stranger was correct. A goose-chase ensued around East London as were tried to find a place who could fix the lights (and quickly – we still had a four hour drive ahead of us and it was 2pm already. Did we mention that it’s strongly recommended not to drive at night in the Eastern Cape?) Eventually we were directed to MD Enterprises, which seemed to be a high-end car audio and alarm workshop. A guy looked at our car, checked the fuses then noticed that the brake-light-switch was disconnected (or something… why would they put removable connections on that?). He had us back on the road in about 4 minutes flat, and charged us zero Rand (that’s $0 or £0 to you first-worlders). So thank you very very much MD Enterprises of East London (and the helpful stranger too!)
Helpful people in Matatiele
More car trouble? Yep! We’ve already posted about our trip to Matatiele and the car trouble, but special thanks to Outsurance and Matat Towing Service. Good people, and very efficient! Getting stuck on an empty country road after sunset could have had a very different outcome, so thanks guys!
