South Africa Trip, Part Three

Day 5.
By this time I had completely lost track of the date and day of the week.  That day, we decided to go into Durban proper to walk along the waterfront, shop at the street vendors and eat at a restaurant out on the dock.  On the way, Matt decided to practice driving on the opposite side of the road (since Priscilla and Austin asked us to take the rental car back to the airport when we left.) He had some experience driving in Ireland, but that was 6 years ago. I decided to go in Austin's car to let Matt practice without me.  He did very well, though, following our car into the city.

The Durban waterfront is gorgeous. There are lots of parks and pools for the kids and the ocean was grand.  We walked along the street and shopped at some of the street vendors. I picked up a couple of holiday gifts, but don't tell anyone.

We ended up at a restaurant called Moyo's that was on the pier over the Indian Ocean. It was a crazy fusion of Indian and African Tapas. The food was absolutely amazing. And we really enjoyed the afternoon watching the ocean.

This is Matt and me showing off our prawns. Delicious. 

After lunch we went back to the flats. Priscilla and Tammy went out to visit someone else they knew who was taking care of a pregnant teenager.  Matt, Ellen and I decided to stay back since we thought it might be overwhelming for the girl to have all these visitors.  Ellen did some journaling and Matt played music for us.  When Tammy, Priscilla and Austin returned, Tammy made nachos which were quite delicious.  We also made sopapillas. 

After dinner, Matt showed us his completed water heater for Mildred's house. It was made using two 2-litre bottles, a Y adapter, a hose and some random attachments. The first step was figuring out how hoses worked in South Africa. Apparently, you just buy a piece of hose and add the connectors yourself. You get a set with the hose, but you can also buy any number of additional adapters.  Matt used marine silicone to attach the bottles permanently to pieces that are intended to be easily snapped on and off a hose or faucet. These then snap onto the Y adapter that is then connected to the hose itself. You can fill up each individual bottle by snapping them directly onto the water spigot or into the hose or Y. Then you put them up high in the sun so they get hot and you can snap them into the Y and onto the hose and use a spray adapter on the other end to wash the kids. Unfortunately we never got to use it because it rained quite a bit the rest of the week and was never sunny enough to give it a try. We left it with Austin to take to Mildred's.  

This design would have quite a few applications in tiny house living, possibly in conjunction to the garden sprayer shower design.We did see a garden sprayer in the hardware store in Amanzimtoti, but we decided to start with this contraption and work our way up to that shower design for the kids. 

I still have two more days to recap of the trip, but I have to go to work so stick around for updates.  Also, be sure to come back next week because Matt and I will be going up to the Tiny House this weekend to do some more finish work.