From Empangeni
10.9.85
Dear Mom and Dad,
I am feeling much better now and as it is very hot here the
children and I go swimming every afternoon and I think it is all the exercise
that has made me better.
Melissa and Jolene are very excited about having a baby in
the family and are already fighting about who is going to push the pram. On Saturday they went with me to visit the
doctor and he allowed them in while I was having an ultra-sound scan and he was
explaining what everything was and although they said they could see what he
was showing them I don’t think they could see very much because it was even
difficult for me to work out what was what. After the scan he used another
machine to detect the baby’s heart beat which they could definitely understand.
Jolene is always me to feel her heart is thumping after she has been running
around, something that she picked up from TV.
It is just as well that I am feeling better because it is
now just over a month until I start writing exams. The first is on 15 October
and I have eleven exam papers to write which will take me through to the 6
November and Alan is writing four exams in the same period and so we are both
trying to do as much revision as we can. I am not working at the moment so I
have the mornings and evenings to study.
The afternoons are reserved for
the children. I was hoping to get another job in November and to work as long
as possible, but I am not sure it will be easy getting temporary employment.
The economy in this country is getting worse every day. The
rand was trading as low as 35 cents to the American dollar when the financial
rand was introduced and the minister of Finance declaring that no foreign loans
will be repaid before the end of December. Although we find it difficult to
believe that there is so much trouble going on in this country because we are
so far from any of the trouble spots, we can see what it is doing to the
economy. Our fuel prices are very high and there is talk the price is going to
be increased in the near future. The last increase was about a 44% increase so
although I don’t know exactly what it is , you can guess how much it is as Alan said when he first came to SA it was about
twice as much as in Australia.
Alan was very surprised when he phoned you because he got
through straight away. I thought you may have been at Trentham for the weekend.
Do you often spend your weekends at Trentham or do you only go in summer. Your
winter sounds pretty miserable compared with us. Our house has a fire place but
I don’t think it is ever used. We had a very mild winter and already it is very
hot during the day and we are sleeping with the air-conditioner at night. It is
so warm in the winter that we still have thousands of mosquitoes even in the
winter and it is almost impossible to go out at night without getting eaten
alive.
Melissa has joined the Brownies and she is really enjoying
it. On Saturday night they had a 75th birthday celebration and all
the Guides and Brownies in the region had a get together and put on a concert
and each pack baked a cake which was judged in a competition. The Brownies came
home to sleep the night and then on Sunday morning they had to attend a church
service. She is also going on a pack holiday in 2 weeks’ time to Windy Ridge
game park for the weekend where they will also be doing a bit of hiking. She is
quite excited about it but Jolene isn’t very happy and it will be the first
time that they are separated.
That’s
all for now.
Love
from Lorna
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