Friday, October 12, 2007

Today was an interesting and successful day.
Andy and Ray rose early to ride to Lusaka with Langa. They left at 6 and got up to Lusaka around 10. Yesterday, we had emailed the list of electrical supplies to the supplier there who agreed to help us find the materials. They were able to track down nearly all of the items we were missing by noon and, after grabbing a bite to eat, headed back to Zimba, arriving by about 6:40 pm.
Bud worked on a number of remaining electrical projects that weren’t dependent on the supplies that still hadn’t arrived. Yesterday, when the power went out for about 4-6 hours for the second day in a row and Dr. Kari and Dr. Dan were waiting to do a surgery late in the afternoon, Ray, Bud, Andy and Larry “the shorter” delivered the portable generator from the mission house to the hospital and installed it. We got it started and provided power to the operating room so the medical team could proceed with the surgery. The portable generator let them finish the surgery and come back to the mission house before electrical power was restored to the Zimba community. But, Bud noticed not all of the portable generator’s capacity was being utilized. He checked it out further today and discovered the reason (an odd wiring situation in the O.R.), fixed it and significantly increased the ability of the portable generator to supply the electrical needs of the O.R. He also tested a number of electrical lines trying to figure out why there seems to be suboptimal voltage on many of the lines. This seems to be a big part of the explanation why we have trouble charging some of our electronic devices like cameras, PDA’s and computers. Its probably also part of the reason why missionary Joan has poor internet connection since the modem seems to be getting too weak a signal to establish contact. Bud hasn’t figure out the cause or a solution but he has at least determined that the problem seems common around Zimba rather than being unique to the mission house.