We planned on using most of today to tour Phikwe and see many of the people and places that Jenny remembers from when she lived here. We had previously stopped by Jenny's primary school but didn't go in and meet the teachers and staff because it was a weekend. Jenny also wanted to see the old church that her family used to attend and visit some family friends that owned a vegetable shop near the school. We had coffee and tea with Nigel on the porch and he gave us directions to all the places we wanted to visit. Nigel then headed off to work and we gave our laundry to the maids at Nigel's house before departing for town.
We stopped at Morula school first and checked at reception that we were allowed to have a look around. Jenny showed me all of her old classrooms, some of which had been converted into cupboards because they were so small! We met some of her old teachers and headmasters (Claire Botha and Mr. Smith) as we wandered about and stopped to have a look at the playground which Jenny assures me is unchanged from her years at school there. After we had completed a full tour of the school we stopped and watched the kids practicing for their holiday concert. Jenny remembers practicing for a similar play while she attended the school, and commented while we watched that the uniforms have remained unchanged as well.
When we finished our tour of the school we decided that we were both getting very hungry and drove a shirt distance to the shopping centre we visited on the first day to have pizza at Giovanni's again. After eating we followed Nigel's directions to the church Jenny used to attend and once again we found it looking exactly the same as it was 15 years ago, the theme in Phikwe seems to be 'nothing changes'. We the had only one more place to visit, the farm shop owned by the Gouws. And it was here that we encountered the first difference in Phikwe we had seen all day. Turns out the farm shop had moved from where Jenny remembered it, although it hadn't moved far. The new shop was a mere 50 meters from the old shop and we had a brief chat with Mr. Gouws before driving back to Nigel's house.
Upon arriving back at the house we found Nigel waiting with some lunch for us (oops!) we had a little bit to eat with him kindly refrained from mentioning that we had already eaten. Nigel was simply back at the house for lunch and invited us to come back to work with him and meet some of the staff. We followed him to the offices of his company called Sirocco that manufactures hoses and piping. We had brief chats and introductions to his staff before heading back to the house for the afternoon. We spent most of the afternoon drafting emails and writing posts until Alex came to visit just before Nigel came home from work. We all enjoyed a couple of drinks and started to prepare some curry for dinner. Alex only stayed for drinks and left just before the food was ready. We had our curry and shared some music from my computer (including introducing Nigel to Tom Lehrer) before heading to sleep.
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