Thursday, October 18, 2012

Doctor K

First, it was a glum day. It rained off and on and the temperature never got to 50. It's a good day to stay inside and look at old photos, maybe scan in a few.

I like this photo from about 1985. That's PP (the Prairie Princess) pretending to be a doctor, and she seems to have homed in on the problem area. She was three and hadn't decided on a career yet.


A photo from 1980, 32 years ago. It almost seems like it should be in black and white, but color photography had been commonly used for many years by 1980. The years sure seem to get away from a guy. That little guy about to break into a cry is Unky Herb.


Sometimes something in a comic strip will catch my fancy. This one has been posted on my refrigerator for quite a while and I noticed it again as I stumbled past it this morning. I had to laugh a little and decided to share.


I've been trying to find a less expensive way to call Tanzania. The connection to iChat requires a reasonably fast internet connection on both ends and that doesn't exist at Amani Nature Reserve. I spent the afternoon trying to get one calling option to function and so far not much luck. But I talked to PP for a bit using the more expensive ATT link. She was having a hard day and needed to vent a bit. She's pretty isolated from English speakers and Westerners of any variety, and her Tanzanian translator is getting on her nerves. She was able to get her internet connection reestablished, however, so email is working ok. She's getting some time off soon and will be spending a week or so with some Danes who live about 5 kilometers away. I thought she could use a bicycle to go see them, but the roads are rocky and very muddy when it rains, so that doesn't seem to be an option. She has a couple of more months to go in Africa, but some of that will be spent in Dar es Salaam, a big city. It will be nice to get her back to Minnesota in December for the holidays.

There will be tennis tonight At Wooddale.  It's mixed doubles but pretty competitive and I look forward to the activity and change of scenery.

2 comments:

Emily M said...

I bet there is some sort of Africa specific phone card that you could purchase that would make it cheaper to call Tanzania.

One of my coworkers is married to a Costa Rican, and they have cards for Costa Rica and she tells me the place they buy them has cards for all sorts of countries.

Jimi said...

Thanks, Emmy. I found an internet site that has a prepaid rate of 16¢ a minute, about a third of ATT's best rate. The line quality is quite good, too. And they let you pay with paypal. It's called localphone.com. I'm going with it for now.