I'm writing this after having my first 'shower' in ages. There hasn't been enough water pressure for the shower for several days. I decided to have a shower using saucepans. I think that with a bit of practice I will be able to get it down to three saucepans or less. I used four today. I only used two squirts from the shower gel as well. Pretty good going I think. I'm feeling very warm now. I only had cold water to use and my body went through the phases of shock at the cold water, to hating me for using the cold water, to the strange sort of warmth immediately after using the cold water.

There's another storm at the moment. The rain sounds very heavy, I can hear it splashing on the marble outside and there is constant thunder. I have turned the light off in my room. Partly to see any lightning better, and partly because they keep going off at the moment anyway. Yesterday the electricity failed for quite a bit of the night.

I'm quite pleased that I have managed to do nearly all of my washing. I have used a very small hand basin and a plastic bin. I think i'm ready for a house now though. At least I can have a bigger plastic bin. I bought the washing powder in Addis. It makes some interesting claims, but it does seem to do the job, at least looking at the colour of the water afterwards.

I find the noise that the donkeys make very interesting. They don't just hee-haw once. They start hee-haw-ing at full power and, although the volume stays the same, they seem to lose interest at about the third hee-haw and then it sounds like a stretched tape recording or an old machine spluttering to a halt. I wonder if any of them can be bothered to make it past six hee-haws.