I was blessed to be able to be home with my family in SC for Christmas! I told some friends that is was like "plugging back in to the familiar and getting re-booted." It was a wonderful time, but little did I know that life would have some pretty interesting moments when I returned to South Africa and CTS!
Most of us missionaries had been away for at least part of the break time, since the bulk of the "crew" went to a missionary retreat in Togo, West Africa. So we all kind of "hit the ground running" on our return. We had lots to do in preparing for the new term, and the new "flock" of first-year students who would be arriving.
Then came some...excitement, shall we say. On the first Friday afternoon during the New Student Orientation, I was in the office of our student deans, having a quick impromptu meeting, when one of the returning students came in and said, very calmly, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there is smoke coming from the kitchen.....black smoke." Needless to say the three of us staff members fairly 'flew" out of the office, and off to the kitchen. We could see that smoke was coming out of the open windows that lead into the passage. The door was cool, so we opened it to be met with a "wall" of black smoke so thick, you could not see anything. Long story short, there was not much flame, and the fire was put out rather quckly, after fire extinquishes and hoses were brought seemingly from all corners. The fire brigade was called, but by the time they arrived, everything was fairly settled down.
The smoke and fire started in a large, deep fat fryer that is in the kitchen. The fryer had been turned on for use at lunch time, but immediately after turning it on, the electiricity went off. All of South Africa is contending with "rolling blackouts" due to a shortage of electricity in the country. Because the fryer had just been turned on, and it was still cold, the fact that the switch was on was forgotten in the wake of trying to determine "plan B" for lunch. After lunch and clean-up, the kitchen was closed and the staff left. So when the power came back on, so did the unattended deep fat fryer!
While power outages, and generators are part of the daily routine in most of the African continent, we are just now getting used the idea here in SA! We expect that over the next months (and maybe longer) we will have as many as 3 or 4 in a week's time, each one lasting 2-3 hours. And if they are doing maintenance, the outage can last the entire working day, as it did this past Monday. Thursday, they had a record number of outages due to an unexpected level of demand. The issues the utility company and government are facing will not go away overnight. So we are adjusting! We are thankful for the few UPS (uninteruped power supply) boxes we have on some of the computers, that keep the power on long enough after an outage so that one can save and close down properly. And we try to "queue up" tasks that can be done without electricity, so that when the power is off, we can operate as efficiently as possible. And I think we will be a LOT more aware of appliances that need to be switched off when the power goes out!
Fortunately, our fire was found early, put out rapidly, and no one was injured, so all is well. And as we went through the kitchen that Friday afternoon, cleaning away the soot and grime that had settled over everything, I could hear two of the new female students who had volunteered to help clean. They were washing dishes together and singing praise and worship songs. Two brand new friends from two very different cultures and backgrounds joining their voices in praise to God. And I was thankful!
